ONE POWER FEED

It’s amazing how easy it is to accidentally introduce salary bias into your company. One Energy has worked very hard to identify the places where we could accidentally incorporate a bias into our hiring and compensation of team members. It’s for this reason that we do not negotiate salaries for entry-level employees.

Many companies that I have worked for identified a salary “range” for offers to entry-level employees, where hiring managers and human resources departments had flexibility to decide what each candidate is worth. These managers factor in the degree, school, performance at the school, resume, experience, and the interview to decide where in that range to price the offer. The result is often that students from high-income backgrounds and expensive schools start with higher compensations and maintain that higher compensation throughout their career.

Because I went to the University of Michigan, I was paid more as an entry-level employee than many of my counterparts. My offer from another company was increased because I scored well on their psychological profile software. Looking back, none of that made sense.

Basing the salary on the degree does not make sense. Salary should be based on the position the employer believes the candidate is qualified to fill. The prestige of the school often favors well-off students and is biased against those who started from a socially disadvantaged position. Performance at a school tells you how well a candidate did in that culture, not how much knowledge they retained or how well they will do in your company’s environment.

It is also far easier for an affluent student to pad their resume than it is for an equally smart, economically disadvantaged student to do the same. (How often do we hear of well-connected parents getting their kid an internship at their friend’s company?) 

For the student who grew up with rich parents, the interview process is more familiar as well. Hell, I went to cotillion as a kid – so you better believe I was more accustomed to a formal, professional setting than smarter students who worked their way through high school and college.

The school I attended, my well-rounded resume, and my ease with the formalities of interviewing – none of these things meant I was a better candidate. While sure, I personally believe I was a stronger-than-average applicant, there was nothing in my interview processes that gathered ample objective information for the employer to determine if that was the case.

So at One Energy, we take a different approach. Here, entry-level hiring is a yes or no decision. If it’s a yes, there is a standard offer that is not negotiable. For entry-level field engineers, for example, we use the national average salaries for civil engineers, electrical engineers, and mechanical engineers, then calculate the total average to arrive at our offer number (we update this calculation annually).

Then, we judge them like crazy.

Yes, we judge our new hires. But we only judge them on what they do in their professional capacity while they work for us. We judge them both qualitatively and quantitatively based on their work. And when they demonstrate value, we adjust their compensation rapidly.

We conduct quarterly reviews of their salary and we adjust their salary each quarter based on what we would pay them in light of all information we now have. Some new-hire salaries increase rapidly as they prove they are top performers. Some grow at a less rapid rate. And we grow salaries without artificial caps. If a field engineer gets a 30% raise the first year, that’s a great thing. They earned it, and it had nothing to do with anything other than their performance at One Energy.

The best part is that we have found that when we explain this policy to prospective new hires, the strongest candidates love it and often take a much lower initial compensation from us than what they’re being offered elsewhere. And they’re also often the ones who end up making far more after a year than any of their other competing offers.

Evidence this approach works? We are often surprised who the best performers end up being. Had we set individuals’ compensation based on our original, pre-employment view of them, we would have been wrong many times.

We’re proud to report: none of our current team members attended cotillion growing up, and we’re doing just fine.

Jereme Kent is the CEO of One Energy.

Learn more about Jereme and the One Energy team.

Sexy. The 1986 edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary gave two definitions of sexy: “1. spicy or racy with references to or portrayals of sexually stimulating matter” and “2. sexually suggestive, erotically stimulating.” Since then, Merriam-Webster has added “genuinely attractive or interesting” to the definition and gives the example of “a sexy stock.” Other dictionaries include terms like “exciting” or “glamorous.”

Somewhere along the way, “sexy” morphed its way into the business world as being synonymous with “investment-worthy.” Sexy businesses (not to be confused with sex businesses, the definition of which really hasn’t changed in thousands of years) attract investors and generate buzz. They are where the press focuses attention and where social media posts explode – and the money follows.

I wonder how long this definition of sexy can be sustained. If we only focus on the sexy things, what happens to the decidedly un-sexy necessities? What happens to the basics that societies need to survive and thrive? Infrastructure isn’t sexy, but we all use it every day. Electricity isn’t sexy, but no one is happy when the power goes out. Sustainability isn’t sexy, but climate change requires our attention. Equitable economics isn’t sexy, but bringing people out of poverty is a must.

Maybe we need to shift our interpretation of what is sexy so that we can dedicate the time, energy, and capital to efforts that can truly sustain our society and our planet – towards efforts that solve real, immediate, critical world problems.

There is no doubt that “decarbonization of the distributed power grid” is not listed in Roget’s Thesaurus under “sexy.” But it’s extremely important, and it’s what we do at One Energy. We focus on the .6% of U.S. electricity consumers who account for 26% of the consumption of electrical power, and we provide solutions that can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint. We do it as a business that meets 10 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. We do it with an executive team that’s 80% women, in a stunning, light-filled, collaborative workspace that promotes health and wellness in multiple ways. We do it while treating our people well. We are focused every day on doing the right thing for our customers, our investors, our people, and our planet. It is incredibly exciting stuff, but it’s definitely not glamorous.

Is One Energy sexy by current standards? I certainly think it is. Tackling the big problems. Treating employees well. Reducing the carbon footprint. Doing the right thing. Maybe we could start to define “sexy” in a different way. I’ll reach out to Merriam-Webster.

Anne Bain is the Head of Accounting at One Energy.

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There is a phrase that resounds across the construction industry: “good help is hard to find.” The world has become more automated, more focused on technology, and less dependent on hands-on work. It’s only natural that the workforce has likewise gravitated away from skilled labor and moved towards technology-based educations. As the divide between skilled laborers and engineers increases, expertise suffers within the industry. Tensions are created between skilled labor and engineering disciplines, often causing a dysfunctional self-perform construction team. So, the million-dollar question is, how can this gap be bridged?

Individuals who want to work outside, who enjoy working with their hands, and who are not interested in what college may offer (including the associated costs), may choose to get a jump start on their career. Whether they decide to join an apprenticeship or find a job right out of high school, these individuals immediately make an income and gain relevant field experience. They learn practical applications for the entirety of their career, but they don’t always have a strong background in the fundamental engineering principles upon which construction is based.

On the other hand, individuals electing to go the academia route often learn about complex concepts and theoretical applications for field practices. When it is time to graduate, very few of these students have gained hands-on construction experience, but they walk away with a college degree and proof that they can understand complex principles. Often these students are saddled with a choice between finding work as an engineer or as a manager, developing people and projects. Either choice immediately places them in a sophisticated role within a company.

The paradoxical relationship that is shared between skilled laborers and engineers in construction creates room for animosity to build. They must work together seamlessly but are treated differently. In an ideal world, both groups would be cross-trained and would work together as a team.

Here at One Energy, we have cross-trained many of our skilled laborers and engineers to share duties and responsibilities. Here are some of our suggestions to start mending the gap for a self-perform construction team:

1. Create ways to cross-train – One Energy rotates engineers through different departments of the company. One of the longest rotations is participating in 1-2 project lifecycles as a technician within a construction team. One Energy also regularly puts together engineering-based trainings for technicians, which teach conceptual theories.
2. Encourage team camaraderie – a technician and an engineer are on the same team. A victory is never about the person or even the role, but rather the team.
3. Create an environment for team building – getting to know the people you work with is something undervalued in the working world. Ensuring that work is a collaborative safe place where team members can work together will promote opportunity from within your business. Hold regular all-hands meetings, after work events, celebrations for company wins and individual successes to promote the team.
4. Get out of the comfort zone – Technicians should participate in solving engineering problems and engineers should be trained on tools and equipment. Knowing what it is like on either end of the spectrum is invaluable to developing future leadership.
5. Treat both roles the same – If a new engineer joins the team, their day starts and ends at the same time as a technician. If there is a new technician, ensure that they too will be trained on computer-based technology.
6. Get (and give) feedback regularly – there can be a lot of emotions when it comes to someone’s career and personal growth. Be sure the lines of communication are open to talk through the program, and things that are (and are not) working well.
7. Promote fairly and honestly, based on value to the company – this is perhaps the biggest takeaway. Some skills are more valuable than others, depending on the business model. Recognize what those skills are and monetize them effectively.
8. Incentivize employees with equity – employee-owned businesses engage team members and encourage success for the business, rather than the individual. This is a great way to navigate potential silos within a business.
9. TRAIN! Prepare your team to solve the unknown problem.

With a more cross-functional team, expertise develops organically. To have a skilled laborer that understands engineering fundamentals or an engineer with the ability to perform hands-on work creates an extremely resilient workplace.

While it may be true that “good help is hard to find,” it is not impossible to develop your own team of experts.

Chelsea Bumb is the Head of Construction at One Energy.

Learn more about Chelsea and the One Energy team.