NHRG Community of Practice

Rick Habegger, Principal, HR Strategies & Solutions, Inc (HRS&S) started the formation of the Nuclear Human Resource Group (NHRG) in 1986.  Rick was the new HR Manager at Turkey Point Nuclear plant when he contacted Dan Poling at INPO requesting information about the INPO Staffing Report when he asked if the nuclear human resource managers ever met and discussed these type of issues including the anticipated NRC Rule on Fitness For Duty and Fingerprinting. Dan said they did not and he would be glad to support such an effort especially to discuss the staffing report.  The first benchmarking meeting was hosted at FPL in 1986 and with 17 utilities attending.  This told us …all were asking the same questions!!

We met again six months later (host: NU-Millstone Nuclear Station)…and the group started.  We formed under EEI as a sub-committee and consequently produced the EEI Fitness For Duty Implementation Guide to implement the new FFD NRC Rule.  In 1992, Rick left FPL to form HR Strategies & Solutions, Inc.  In 1995, CP&L (Progress Energy) hosted the first benchmarking conference under a new structure independent of EEI.  A Steering Committee was formed at that conference under the name: Nuclear HR Professionals. In 2002, the steering committee met at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in Washington and ultimately became known as the Nuclear Human Resources Group and became a community of practice (SS004). An NHRG Charter was formed.  We also mapped the HR process, established teams to benchmark eight nuclear plants (selected from a ranking of top performers determined by ratings and lower cost per MWhr.  From that point on…it is history.

HR Strategies & Solutions, Inc. has bee retained as the project management company.

The Nuclear Human Resources Group (NHRG) Charter is to ”Provide a forum for nuclear Human Resource practitioners to exchange information on Human Resource management issues that uniquely affect Nuclear Power Operations”  The NHRG meets the following objectives:

• Commit to providing information in a timely and cost effective basis
• Provide tools such as performance metrics, reports, and workshops that impact plant/utility costs
• Continue the professionalism of the nuclear HR group
• Identify methods and standards for controlling nuclear human resource costs
• Continue to show value and to provide a cost benefit to the nuclear electric utilities
• Continuous review and update of the NEI Standard Nuclear Performance Model and SS004 “Providing Human Resource Services”

Nuclear Human Resources Group: see Member Section

• NHRG Conference Presentations, Reports

Nuclear Labor Relations Project: see Member Section

• Collective Bargaining Unit Agreements-Nuclear Plants
• NHRG Labor Relations Presentations, Reports/Procedures and CBUs

Nuclear Total Rewards Project: see Member Section

• Wage Tables - Collective Bargaining Unit Agreements (see Labor Section)
• NHRG Total Rewards Presentations, Surveys

See NHRG Conference Presentations, Projects, and previous year's conferences presentations.

NOTE: The following presentation(s)/report(s) are only available to participating nuclear/electric utilities or nuclear companies/vendors directly supporting nuclear power (e.g construction, maintenance, etc).  Access and password required.  If you have any questions, contact the NHRG at rick@hrs-s.com or 919-367-9040.

THE FOLLOWING PRESENTATIONS AND ARTICLES ARE ONLY AVAILABLE IN MEMBER LOGIN (CLICK ON ICON ABOVE)

If you have any questions on this group or other benchmarkings, please contact R. E. Habegger, Principal at 919-367-9040 or rick@hrs-s.com

The following is a summary of the evolution of the Nuclear Human Resources Group (NHRG):

• EEI Task Force (1980-1984): a nuclear task force was formed under EEI with the sole purpose of exploring the difficulties of recruiting nuclear personnel, competition between the utilities, and a lack of communication between the nuclear utilities. The task force met and concluded with a national meeting with plus 175 nuclear HR professionals met to discuss these important issues. The task force was disbanded after this conference when EEI recommended that the existing EEI Executive Committee’s could handle the nuclear issues and an on-going nuclear committee was not formed.
• Regional Nuclear HR Information Sharing Meetings (1985-1987): in late 1985, twelve nuclear utilities, with the support of Dan Poling, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) met in Miami, FL with host Florida Power & Light Company (R. E. Habegger, HR Manager, Turkey Point). The purpose of the meeting was to again resurface these issues for potential solutions, to share good practices, and to address issues that the EEI committees were not addressing and that unique to the nuclear utility. As a result of this initial meeting, other additional regional meetings were held and hosted by (# Utilities Attending): Boston Edison (14)-May, 1986; Louisiana Power & Light (22)-Jan 1987; Detroit Edison (22) - May, 1987; and Northeast Utilities (25)-Sep, 1987
• Task Force-1987: in late 1987, it became apparent that, in order for the regional information sharing meetings to continue, the meetings would need more structure and the support of a current organization. A nuclear HR Task Force was formed out of the utilities attending the regional meetings. The purpose of the task force was to draft a charter and group objectives and to decide on an organization.
• EEI HRM Advisory Committee Approval-1988: the task force, after meeting with Mr. Carroll Caffrey, Vice President, Human Resources-Northeast Utilities and Chair of the EEI HRM Advisory Committee, proposed that the group be established as a Subject Area Committee under EEI. The proposal was presented to EEI and the NHRP Committee was formed.

• NEI Community of Practice-2000:  In April 2000, the Nuclear Human Resource Group agreed to sponsor an industry wide benchmarking project in human resources. The scope was defined by activity SS-004 of The Standard Nuclear Performance Model - A Process Management Approach, October 1998. A white paper was submitted to Nuclear Energy Institute for consideration to sponsor this industry benchmarking study.  This benchmarking project is a direct result of that effort and led to numerous representatives volunteering to support this effort. The objectives of this project were to:
  • Perform a baseline evaluation of HR
  • Identify and develop a process map
  • Select and visit at least five sites
  • Identify specific common practices and individual site best practices
  • Share process results across nuclear industry
  Human Resources Core Activities: investigated during this benchmarking were:
  • Compensation and Benefits
  • Workforce Planning
  • Organizational Development
  • Performance Management
  • Employee and Labor Relations
  • Human Resources Management
  Site Selections: the project teams selected eight top performing plants in the U.S./Canada based upon plant performance, cost per kilowatt-hour, survey responses (through NEI), and Human Resources Initiatives.  The sites and related corporate offices selected were: 

Entergy-Arkansas Nuclear One	Pinnacle West-Palo Verde
Exelon-Limerick/Peach Bottom	Southern Nuclear-Vogtle
Ontario Power Generation-Darlington	STPNOC-South Texas Project
PGE-Diablo Canyon	TVA-Watts Bar

• Project Teams and Site Visits: The NHRP Executive Director served as a subject area expert on the site visits; developed an interview process and related forms; and participated in the site visits to provide consistency for the site interviews.  Each team had a site coordinator which consisted of HR managers and HR Specialists from 16 utilities.  Two consulting group members from the NEI membership also participated in some of the visits. The teams started the on-site benchmarking in October, 2000.  The interviews were conducted with a cross-section of employees (top management to the worker) based upon process map areas of interest.  Interviewing teams then obtained additional details to describe the practices.  The benchmarking process used an aggressive and challenging schedule to reduce the time required to achieve results.  A final copy of this report, NEI Process Benchmarking Report (dated March 2001), is available through NEI or the NHRG.  The benchmarking team found that, to be most effective, human resources site teams had several common contributors and success factors such as:
  • Being an integral part of site management teamBeing viewed as significant to success of the budget and planning process Being viewed by employees as adding value and dealing with employees honestly and fairly
  • Responding to requests in a timely manner and providing follow-up
• NEI–NHRG Benchmarking Conference (2001):  the results of the industry-wide benchmarking were rolled out at the NHRG Annual Conference in Orlando, FL on March 28-30, 2001.  The NHRG also participated in a benchmarking of the nuclear recruiting area by co-hosting a “NEI-Industry and University Engineering Recruiting Workshop” on March 26-27 prior to the annual conference. 
• NHRG Projects: the current project teams are:
  • Nuclear Total Rewards Benchmarking: implemented in 2001 to discuss benchmarking issues and work with Towers Perrin to benchmark nuclear jobs and compensation evaluation
  • Nuclear Collective Bargaining Unit (CBU) Agreements and Issues: this project maintains a web site where all nuclear plant labor agreements are posted for viewing.  The project team is planning their 2nd nuclear labor conference prior to the annual NHRG Conference at INPO on April 6, 2005. See Member section: NHRG Nuclear Labor & Presentations & Procedures/Reports
  • Nuclear Staffing Numbers and HR Metrics: this project was completed in 2002 and is currently tracking nuclear power plant staffing numbers and HR metrics
  • Knowledge Retention: the project was rolled out at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) in a joint effort with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in Nov, 2004
  • Leadership Development (1st Line Supervisors): this project is on-going
• If you have any questions on this group or other benchmarkings, please contact R. E. Habegger, Principal at 919-367-9040 or rick@hrs-s.com

NHRG Executive Committee & Project Managers

The Executive Committee provides budget oversight, sets policy and establishes direction:

NHRP Executive Committee
Dominion Resources Chair	Wendy	Wellener	Director Generation HR
Southern Nuclear Vice-Chair	Pam	Johnson	Vice President Human Resources
Southern Nuclear Vice-Chair	Mark	Wolfe	Employee Relations Manager
Constellation Energy	Sue	Collins	.Vice President
Duke Energy		Pete Schneider	Vice President Nuclear HR
Entergy		Keith Fogleman	Vice President Nuclear HR
Exelon Nuclear		Watt Hinson	Manager Employee Relations
Tennessee Valley Authority		Keith Fogleman	Sr Manager HR Operations
NHRG Advisors
INPO		Jeff Wheelock	Human Resources Director
NEI		Carol Berrigan	Director Industry Initiatives
NHRG Executive Director
HR Strategies & Solutions		Rick Habegger	Principal/Project Manager-NHRG

 The NHRG Project Managers provides budget oversight to the projects, benchmarkings and establishes the pre-conference session agenda:

NUCLEAR LABOR RELATIONS PROJECT
Tennessee Valley Authority	Chair	Mike Hartsig	Labor Relations Project Manager
Exelon Nuclear	Vice Chair	Mike Campbell	Manager Labor Relations
Nuclear Mgmt Company	Chair (previous)	Tim Hartman	Workforce Relations Manager
NUCLEAR TOTAL COMPENSATION PROJECT
FPL Group	Chair	Rob Perani	Manager Compensation & Relocation
Tennessee Valley Authority	Co-Chair	Anthony Conkin	Sr Manager Compensation and HR Planning

The following is a list of conferences and workshops hosted by the NHRG:

Year	Company	Theme	Location
Apr 1995	CP&L	1995 Annual Conference	Raleigh, NC
Apr 1996	PECO Energy	1996 Annual Conference	Philadelphia, PA
Apr 1997	Pacific Gas & Electric Co	1997 Annual Conference	San Francisco, CA
Sep 1997	NU-Millstone Station	Compensation, Aging, & Retention	Waterford, CT
Apr 1998	Consumers Energy & Detroit Ed	1998 Annual Conference	Ypsilanti, MI
Oct 1998	EdF/COGEMA/University Versailles	1st International Conference (13)	Paris, France
Apr 1999	Duke Power	1999 Annual Conference	Charlotte, NC
Apr 2000	APS-Palo Verde Station	2000 Annual Conference	Phoenix, AZ
Oct 2000	EdF-Blayais NPP-Bourdeax, France	2nd International Conference (39)	Bordeaux, FR
Oct 2000	Moscow Conference (WCNOC/IAEA)	Nuclear Safety, HR-Human Performance/Factors	Moscow, RU
Mar 2001	NEI/NHRP Recruiting Workshop	Recruiting Engineers for the future	Orlando, FL
Mar 2001	NEI/NHRP Benchmarking Conference	2001 Annual Conference-NEI	Orlando, FL
May 2002	NEI/NHRP Working Session	TVA-HR Metrics/Staffing/Comp	Nashville, TN
Aug 2002	Int’l Nuclear Atlantic Conference	Nuclear Human Resources	Rio de Janeiro, BZ
Feb 2003	NHRG-EEI Comp Workshop	NHRG-EEI-Towers Perrin	Atlanta, GA
May 2003	Southern Company	2003 Annual Conference	Mobile, AL
Jul 2003	NEI-NHRG Training/Project Team Mtg	NHRG Community of Practice Trng	Atlanta, GA
Apr 2004	Entergy	2004 Annual Conference	New Orleans, LA
Apr 2005	INPO	2005 Annual Conference	Atlanta, GA
May 2006	FPL Nuclear	2006 Annual Conference	Palm Bch Grdns, FL
Apr 2007	Exelon Nuclear	2007 Annual Conference	Chicago, IL

If you have any questions on this group or other benchmarkings, please contact R. E. Habegger, Principal at 919-367-9040 or rick@hrs-s.com