Fossil fuels are out, green energy is in. For a company like Eneco, the energy transition means a huge change. How do you create the conditions for a flexible organization that can also quickly adapt its operations to the ever-changing needs of customers and partners? Eneco put it to the test, with Learning Agility.
Industry Energy
Location The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany and Great Britan
Size 7000 employees
Customers 3 million
Website Eneco
Eneco is a Dutch energy company with more than 7,000 employees in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, France and Belgium. The organization, whose shares are owned by more than fifty Dutch municipalities, builds infrastructure, has its own network company and a consultancy firm in the field of sustainable energy. Eneco is also a shareholder in various suppliers of sustainable energy and invests in wind farms, biomass installations and solar energy. As Eneco serves over two million customers, it becomes imperative for the company to swiftly adapt to emerging market trends and evolving customer demands. As the organization undergoes transformations, the skill set required from our employees also undergoes a shift. What new competencies must they acquire to stay aligned with the changes within the organization and the current market landscape?
Jonne-Mei Beetz, HR Development Manager - Eneco Group
Jonne-Mei Beetz, HR development manager at Eneco, came across the concept of learning agility when she was looking for a solution for how quickly someone can learn to adapt to a new situation. “The concept dates back to the 1990s, but is now more relevant than ever. The development in the market is very fast and just looking at what people have performed in the past gives is becoming less relevant. Knowledge becomes obsolete faster, just as certain experience loses value in a changing world. People can have all sorts of different skills, but how do you know if they are also useful in new situations? It is therefore better to shift the focus from proven to potential performance. The challenge, however, is how to measure it”, says Jonne-Mei Beetz. Employee data for learning agility was analyzed and the picture that emerged was in line with the impressions across the organization: high-performing employees in various positions usually also had high learning agility.
Subsequently, all 600 managers in the organization were assessed for their learning agility. Jonne-Mei Beetz says: “We could measure this quite easily with the online assessments. Managers have a potentially accelerating role in the transformation, which is why we linked their results to the development that the teams had to undergo: what are the challenges? Does the team have the right composition for the chosen strategy? We consciously did not link learning agility to performance management; it is rather a tool for us to accelerate development. What are someone's strengths? And how can you use it as a manager? That has little to do with never making mistakes. Someone who dares to try new things also appears to score well on learning agility. And guess what? People with high learning agility tend to hire people who exhibit the same trait. This is how learning agility works, as a strategy accelerator."
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