The role of the energy manager is emerging as a stalwart in the company organisational chart. But, with only 5% of existing energy managers holding formal energy qualifications, selecting the right person for the job is famously difficult. Energy Demand investigates.

Rising energy prices, a stagnant economy, energy taxes and regulation and increased awareness of sustainability issues: after decades in the shade, energy is slowly but surely becoming a core business issue. With this reality, more and more businesses are waking up to the fact that (comparatively) instant savings can be made by employing an energy manager.

Karyn Peacocke, senior recruitment consultant at executive search firm Acre, tells us that companies spending over £15 million per year on energy are generally pretty clued up on the benefits of hiring an energy manager.

“If you’ve got an energy manager in that costs you £50,000 and they can reduce your energy use year-on-year by 5 to 10% they are paying for themselves in the first few months, “she says. “These organisations get that.”

Further down the chain, the economic case for an energy manager makes commercial sense until the energy bill is down in the £600,000 per year region, but there is still considerable room for energy management in the middle bracket, says Peacocke. “There’s a lot of organisations that sit between that million and maybe £10 million that don’t get it yet,” she says.

For some, outsourcing energy management is becoming a popular option, with consultancies brought in to come up with energy strategies, and the increasing prevalence of energy performance contracts (EnPCs) and energy service companies (ESCO).

Skills gap?

But should a business decide to take the plunge and hire an energy manager or expand their energy management team, they face a number of challenges.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly is a lack of suitable candidates. The fact that the role is a relatively young one – having often previously been part of another department such as building or facilities management – means that there is no huge pool of experienced energy managers to choose from.

Chris George, head of energy and environment at Whitbread, which runs a chain of hotels, restaurants and coffee shops including Premier Inn and Costa Coffee, tells Energy Demand that there is no shortage of people wanting to become energy managers, but it is extremely hard to find people who have the right combination of skills, experience and qualifications. Indeed, last time he recruited an energy manager, he was only prepared to interview around a fifth of the 92 applicants, he says.

“The majority of the applicants came either from property, maintenance or with an engineering background or they came from energy bureaus so they weren’t very experienced in thing like energy procurement, or developing an energy strategy,” he says. “You need someone that not only knows the markets and how to buy in but also knows how to educate and influence people to save energy, what the right equipment is to put in and also policy. They need to have a material impact not only on your margins in revenue but also team member’s behaviour.”

Paul Boreham, group energy manager at Land Securities, agrees, and says he is looks for a good engineering all-rounder when he’s searching for someone to join his team.

“I’m looking for someone who not only knows about mechanical things, but also electrical,” he says. “They need to have good commercial grounding as well so that when they’re putting a business case together they can understand that.”

Secondly, where the energy manager role existed before, it has been a much narrower one than is required by today’s energy-focused businesses, with the change happening in a relatively short period, perhaps just five to seven years. Previously, the energy manager role has very much been a technical one, predominantly focused on engineering solutions – a far cry from the demands of today’s energy manager, which requires not only technical expertise and proficiency with data, but also the ability to put together an energy strategy, sell it in a board room, energise and engage the rest of the employee base and understand and react to the myriad of different energy regulations encumbering most businesses.

“Boiler room to board room”

For Acre’s Peacocke, this is the most difficult part of her job, finding people who have the relevant technical expertise and experience – often limited to the relatively small pool of people who have been in an energy manager role before – as well as the commercial nous and leadership ability to develop and sell an energy strategy: the “boiler room to board room” conundrum.

“It’s got to be someone who can not only go in a fix a piece of kit and has the technical skills but can also really get into the hearts and minds of an organisation, to get them to be doing a lot of the work for you,” she says. “Especially when you’re working for a global firm or an organisation like a large retailer where you’ve got tens of thousands of people on the ground in lots of different locations.”

She adds: “Traditionally, engineers they’re very good at the technical side and not very good at the softer side of things,” she says. “I would blame their schooling perhaps. They haven’t had a well-rounded enough education. Often it is an apprenticeship or training so their first few years they’re used on the technical side but don’t get a involved in communications, or in marketing, leadership or innovation so they get to the five year mark and that’s where I want them to already have those skills to be able to take on a role as an energy manager.”

Part of the problem is that because the role is relatively new, there is a lack of energy-focused qualifications which hone the skills of an energy manager.  However, this is changing. In 2010 the Energy Institute launched its Chartered Energy Manager qualification, which has been broadly embraced by the energy management community, as well as a number of other energy management qualifications from organisations such as the Association of Electrical Engineers.

Future energy manager development

While the qualifications are not perfect – Boreham points to deficiencies in the sections on buying and risk management – they are likely to play a key role in the development of future energy managers. Crucially, what they do form a career path for people who might be good energy management candidates, raising awareness of the profession and allowing people to make an active career choice to go into energy management.

Ultimately, says Boreham, catching people at the higher education level will determine the size and depth of the future recruitment pool. “Once we start to get the realisation of what makes up an energy manager, then those skills need to be developed through education,” says Boreham. “Then we can identify graduates at university who are doing, perhaps an electrical course, and say instead of designing electrical panels, what about becoming an energy manager?  And then we can say, what you need to do is reinforce your commercial skills and your mechanical skills to fill those gaps.”