Maintaining effective management of human resources

Remaining an employer of choice

Hydro-Québec is known as an employer of choice. Still, today’s job market—with its labor shortages, fierce competition for talent, rapidly evolving workplaces and need for constant upskilling—calls for new ways of thinking to ensure effective human resources management. In response, we’ve established strong attraction and retention strategies that include:

• Reconfiguring our workforce planning process to identify our needs and areas of vulnerability.

• Deploying new training methods based on learning by doing (e.g., remote support, video glasses) to reduce completion time and minimize errors, particularly in the field of automation.

• Optimizing strategies to attract interns and new graduates by enhancing internship offers, partnering with educational institutions and reviewing the selection process for Institute of Electrical Power Engineering (IEPE) scholarship students—for example, by boosting our presence among these cohorts and attending networking events.

• Improving the candidate experience by making our job postings more attractive through better descriptions of the work environment, in addition to a simplified online application process.

Special care goes into identifying obstacles to employee attraction and retention in regional areas, and targeting available labor pools. We also analyze the regional impacts of our projects and remain on the lookout for any opportunities that may arise.

Using the employee experience to foster engagement and loyalty

After more than two years of full-time telework for 11,000 people, we’ve rolled out a thoughtful return-to-work plan that gets people back into the office gradually. Implemented in April 2022, our flexible, hybrid telework program will extend for 12 to 18 months. We’re offering support and an array of tech tools adapted to the new working model to help them make the switch. In keeping with our real estate strategy, we also leverage every opportunity to transform our facilities into vectors of cooperation, wellness, flexibility, agility and innovation while targeting optimal building use.

Lastly, we’ve developed our brand as an employer to attract more candidates and inspire a sense of pride in our workforce. We consulted our employees to determine our strengths and what sets us apart as an employer. Our employer brand was previewed by our workforce before being publicly launched in 2023.

Of course, monitoring employee engagement is still every bit as important; we consult our workforce regularly so that we can better meet their needs and create a positive employee experience. Public perception of Hydro-Québec as an employer will also be measured annually.

Helping the corporation evolve

In our organizational development plan, we pay particular attention to the corporate culture and leadership aspects essential to achieving our strategic ambitions. Key behaviors related to the desired culture have been identified so that they may be fostered within the organiza- tion. The company’s skills profile—an essential talent management tool—has been reviewed with a view to acquiring, developing and enhancing the sought-after profiles. As we make this cultural shift a reality, different means will be used to encourage adoption of the desired behaviors, integrate them into our various mechanisms and celebrate our successes. Progress, in turn, will be assessed through surveys and other tools.

A changing workforce

At year-end, Hydro-Québec had 22,051 permanent and temporary employees. Though only 822 workers left for retirement in 2022, the number of new hires was up from previous years, with 508 permanent and 1,830 temporary positions filled during the year. In 2022, 3.4% of our total payroll went into skills development.