Specialist career paths at an energy supplier

ENTEGA AG is one of Germany’s leading energy and infrastructure service providers, with the ambition of being a pioneer in the energy transition. The company is one of the largest suppliers of green electricity and climate-friendly natural gas.

In 2023, the company achieved turnover of 4,020.5 million euros with 2,235 employees. ENTEGA AG comprises more than 30 subsidiaries, including the sales subsidiary ENTEGA Plus, the IT service provider COUNT+CARE and the and the electricity network operator e-netz Südhessen AG.

Jens Walther is a human resources and organisational development specialist and project manager for specialist career paths at ENTEGA.

ENTEGA AG is facing HR challenges such as the growing shortage of skilled workers and the impending retirement of the baby boomer generation. To address HR risks, ENTEGA is implementing strategic measures, including numerous initiatives in the areas of employer branding and staff retention.

Managers and the executive board recognised the need for specialist career paths within the group in order to create specialist career opportunities.

One aim is to attract new staff and retain existing staff by offering attractive career prospects. Another aim is to enhance the company’s competitiveness. Furthermore, the company aims to raise the profile of female and male experts and to expand career mobility within the group.

• Jens Walther, Regina Bergdolt, systems architect for specialist career paths, and the staff development team have jointly introduced specialist career paths from 2023 onwards.
• Strategic focus: ENTEGA has defined specialist career paths as a key initiative for ensuring value creation.
• The Board of Directors and senior management have supported the project from the outset and emphasise the importance of long-term, strategically oriented specialist career development.
• The company is launching its specialist career programme with two pilot projects in IT and customer service.
• The company has defined clear guidelines for specialist career development and distinguished it from person-centred approaches to career development.
• The key focus was on roles critical to success and job families characterised by high value creation and complex training requirements. Critical incident interviews are a key methodological tool for describing the competencies of experts in a targeted manner.

Defined target roles for experts enable a clearly focused approach to staff development.

Staff have the opportunity to further develop their professional expertise, which leads to more efficient collaboration and increased value creation.

A survey of a group of experts conducted by the works council yielded very positive results, with a high level of acceptance of the expert role.

The gradual involvement of senior management was a crucial factor in the successful introduction of specialist career paths.

The project required clear lines of responsibility and processes for project management.

The classification of specialist roles within the pay scale structure was also a key step.

"Yo need to explain why we are introducing specialist career paths. What do I hope to achieve with this, and what is the objective?”

“You need to get the most senior executive – in our case, the Chief Human Resources Officer – on board with this initiative.”

“We’ve gained a great deal of experience from the pilot projects.”

“Specialist career paths should not be a people-centred issue. The ‘personal bias’ factor should be minimised as far as possible.”

“Specialist career paths are not a staff development measure, but an organisational development measure with everything that goes with it."