Diversity In Action

AGL Resources has exciting jobs for technical people at all levels

The company and its franchises are bringing in CEs and MEs to augment an aging workforce. They're also working to increase diversity at top levels

Deborah Levine: constantly adding techies in engineering and field ops.

AGL Resources is hiring field engineers, CEs and MEs to help the company become the nation's preeminent distributor of natural gas, says Deborah Levine, managing director of talent management.

AGL Resources is a Fortune 1000 and Forbes Platinum 400 energy services holding company. It works through six utilities, two gas storage facilities and an asset management company, and is the largest natural gas distributor in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic states. Its six utilities serve more than 2.2 million customers in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee and Virginia.

The company is constantly adding techies to its engineering and field ops, Levine notes, to keep up with growth throughout the organization and augment an aging workforce as baby boomers retire. "We look for the CE and ME specialties because our engineers primarily work in construction in the field."

The workforce at AGL Resources is 34 percent female and 23 percent minority. Engineering, ops and supply chain management are 35 percent female and 23 percent minority, and the centralized IT department is 18 percent female and 18 percent minority.

AGL Resources is working with the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) to find the new recruits it needs. It's also partnering with schools like the Georgia Institute of Technology to target interested women and minorities, and will be joining with several local companies to sponsor an AABE student chapter at Georgia Tech.

Last November the company formed a diversity council with the help of the Roosevelt Thomas consulting team (Atlanta, GA). John Somerhalder, AGL Resources' new CEO, is personally chairing the council. That enthusiasm at the top has been strongly communicated to the company's 2,300 employees, Levine notes.

"Diversity is a major player at AGL Resources, and we plan to continue our forward progress," she says.

Early last year AGL Resources launched Project Lift and Project Now, new programs to cultivate high-potential diverse candidates across the organization. Both programs are designed to provide diverse employees, both early-career and experienced, with customized development plans to prepare them for additional responsibilities.

The idea, says Levine, is "to build a pool of diverse individuals who are ready to assume greater levels of responsibility when the need arises." Folks in the pool begin with detailed assessments by a psychologist. "Then we partner with the employees' supervisors to create customized plans that are unique to the individuals' strengths and developmental needs.

"Since the kickoff we've identified and formally assessed forty-five people." Six of them are in IT and nine in engineering, she adds.

Project Lift participants go on to form cross-functional teams, each with a team leader and executive sponsor. "The teams are given action projects relevant to our business, with six months to complete them."

The teams present their findings and recommendations to the senior executive team, and the top two teams go on to present to the CEO and his direct reports. "We believe this exposure and networking give participants the chance to learn more about our company and of course we learn more about their talents," Levine says.

A formal mentoring program was also recently launched to continue the Project Lift momentum.

Last June AGL launched Project Now to prepare pre-supervisory employees for greater responsibilities, including the possibility of management roles. It currently involves thirty-four people. Its design is similar to Project Lift.

Throughout 2006, AGL Resources worked with its business units to discuss their high-potential candidates' places in the company's succession plan. "It is a business priority that we have strong, diverse succession candidates ready to meet current and future business needs," says Levine.

Community involvement is also important at AGL Resources. "Our employees log many volunteer hours in mentoring programs like Big Sister, Big Brother and Junior Achievement," Levine notes. They're involved with several local minority-serving schools and have adopted one of them. Through its foundation, AGL Resources offers a scholarship program at inner-city high schools.

Summing up, Levine stresses that AGL Resources is an engineering-intensive, technology-intensive business with exciting career tracks for techies at all levels. "Career-minded employees with a technical background have a huge opportunity to aspire to real leadership positions here," she concludes.

D/C