In 2007, Południowy Koncern Energetyczny has seen some new faces, after several years of rather radical cuts in recruitment. Power plants, power and heat plants and the Management Centre now have 103 new employees in total. Some plants welcomed this turn with relief – finally some fresh blood, more hands to work… We will have someone to succeed us!

Most new employees went to Power Plant Siersza – 36 of them – or Power Plant Łagisza – 33.

We employed mostly young people – university graduates and technicians. This is hardly surprising – PKE’s employees are becoming older and older at an alarmingly fast rate – the average age has long gone over 44 years and many people in our company are approaching their retirement age. This trend can be stopped only by employing young people, thus ensuring also that we will have worthy successors who, after all, need years of training.

To keep European standards

Staff employment in power sector is, however, far from simple. We need to strive for European standards, following the rule “one employee per 1 MW of installed power", even though the experts stress that those norms are not just for Polish power industry where we still have small old blocks which are a few dozen years old and require as much staff to operate them as modern and much larger units. In our situation, the best option would be to have a model that takes into account the share of labour cost in the production cost of one energy unit. For now, however, if we want to be perceived as a company with opportunities, we need to square off against EU standards.

Contrary to appearances, it does not mean that we have more staff now. Let us not forget that there are a considerable number of employees parting with the company every year. In 2007, we had 103 new employees against 91 retirees and 80 people who availed themselves of earlier benefits. At the end of December 2007, there were 5,476 people working in PKE – 135 employees less than 12 months earlier.

Traffic gets the most

In Siersza, most new employees – engineers and technicians – work in production (21 people). The plant needed also economists, coal quality controllers, an accountant and social departments’ staff. In Łagisza, the vacancies were mostly in traffic control – as many as 18 people were employed in this service. Among the new staff there are seven top graduates from the plants’ vocational schools – five from Łaziska and two from Jaworzno. The traffic service employed also three freshly graduated Masters of Science. The graduates from the Vocational School of Power Plant Jaworzno III found employment in their home power plant – the top two among the graduates found employment there.

Power and Heat Plant Bielsko-Biała filled in the vacancies as well. Among the new staff there are power technicians, control room operator and a duty traffic engineer. In Halemba, five people were employed in the Block Traffic Department as heat plant power technicians. Meanwhile, Blachownia has a new operations controller.

It seems that the number of new employees will keep growing in the years to come as the large part of the present staff reaches the retirement age. Thus, no matter how we estimate, count and calculate, we need a stable inflow of fresh blood in our companies.

PKE’s staff as on 31 December 2006: 5,611 people

PKE’s staff as on 31 December 2007: 5,476 people

Installed power of PKE’s power plants: 4,952 MW

Target employment level resulting from the current strategy: one person per 1 MW

In 2007, we had 103 new employees against 91 retirees. Retirement is not the only reason for leaving the company – we still have a program in place that facilitates departure from the company for those interested. Last year, 80 people took that opportunity. At the end of December 2007, PKE had 5,476 employees - 135 people less than 12 months earlier.

Magdalena Skrzypiec