Attracting, Developing &
Retaining Employees

Attraction

To ensure the company is able to meet its strategic objectives, it is critical that we consistently attract, develop, and retain talented employees who possess a broad array of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. As we build and engage a successful workforce, we are mindful of the importance of diversity as a key driver of innovation and high performance, and therefore our goal is to capitalize on these benefits while also resembling the communities we serve.

Con Edison continues to stand out as an employer of choice. We offer exciting career opportunities in an environment that prioritizes training and coaching and extends support at every level. In 2022, 1,564 new employees joined the company – the highest level of hiring the company has experienced in 14 years. Our new hires consisted of a broadly diverse population which included 32 percent women and 67 percent people of color.

Our talent acquisition strategies are designed to attract and engage candidates from many sources, including job fairs, social media, professional industry associations, military organizations, partnerships with educational institutions, and relationships with state and local agencies. Our partnerships are important as they enable us to develop a diverse pipeline of top candidates throughout our recruiting footprint. Our collaborations with Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), Hour Children and Helmets to Hardhats are key resources in helping us attract women to non-traditional jobs. We also work with community, nonprofit, and professional groups, including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE). We partnered with the neurodiverse community through Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, A Chance at Life Tech, and Tech Kids Unlimited. We also partnered with Bottomless Closet, CodePath, Ladders for Leaders, with several New York City Career and Technical High Schools to support curriculum development and develop strong school-to-industry pipelines.

It’s an exciting time to join the Con Edison team as we are leading the transition into the clean energy future. Through our Leadership Development Program (LDP), recent college graduates gain leadership skills and practical hands-on experience to promote critical thinking and analysis. Our 2022 LDP cohort was one of the most diverse with 50 percent women and 73 percent people of color.

Veterans continue to be an important part of our talent pipeline. In 2022, we hired over 80 veterans and current members of the National Guard and Reserves. At the national level, Con Edison is an active member of Veterans in Energy and we continued to partner with the Veterans Administration to market career opportunities to disabled veterans. We continue to cultivate our network of veteran strategic partners to help build and support our veteran pipeline which includes The Soldier for Life, Ft Drum NY, Fleet and Family Services (US Navy and Marine Corps) Groton CT, and Newport RI, Airman for Life (US Air Force) Yokota, Japan, NYS Department of Military Affairs, and The Wounded Warrior Project. In 2022, among other awards, Con Edison was recognized for its veteran hiring efforts in the Military Times – “Best for Vets” designation for the fifth year in a row, US Veterans Magazine “Best of the Best Award” for the fourth year in a row, Vets Index 2022 “Three Star Award” for the second year in a row, and The Employer Support for the Reserve and National Guard, “Outstanding Employer” designation. The company’s active and growing employee resource group, Veterans of Con Edison, continues to positively impact our work in attracting veterans to our team.

Development & Retention

We care about our employees, and we are committed to their success. We make it a priority to help them enhance their skills and knowledge to propel their growth and career development, including honing leadership competencies, attending continuing education classes, and providing tuition reimbursement.

Our corporate mentoring programs provide opportunities to connect more experienced employees with newer or less experienced employees to share insights and professional guidance, while also growing important networks across the company.

We understand the critical role that sponsorship plays in career development and advancement. In 2021 we launched our Executive Sponsorship Program, a 24-month experience designed for high potential leaders. The program supports high participation among women and people of color. Providing underrepresented groups with executive connections is an important step in our efforts to develop our employees and build a broadly diverse and inclusive leadership team.

Our comprehensive Leadership and Professional Development portfolio of programs and classes provides employees with the opportunity to develop key competencies to empower their leadership development. To encourage wide spread career development, our suite of career management resources includes internal and external training to enhance job knowledge, career development workshops, and a robust online career management site. Our Career Development Series features a variety of classes to support employee career mobility.

Our leadership curriculum is designed to improve the ability of managers to lead employees effectively and inclusively, handle problems creatively, and shepherd teams to elevated performance. In 2022, more than 9,800 employees attended our leadership and career development programs and continue to benefit from an array of tools, assessments and resources that assist with their professional development.

At an annual turnover rate of approximately 8.2 percent, our overall retention rate remains strong. We attribute these results to our persistent focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, employee development, and commitment to fostering a culture where everyone feels welcomed and valued.

Skills Training

Our focus is ensuring our workforce has the right skills, knowledge, and capabilities to work in a safe manner while meeting the needs of our customers. To achieve this goal, we provide continuous state-of-the-art training and development to our employees in a wide variety of areas.

The company offers robust technical training programs in electric, gas, steam, central operations, customer operations, and driver training. These programs ensure employee skills, knowledge, and performance are maintained at the highest standards. The Learning Center (TLC) fosters a culture of continuous improvement, centered on safety, operational excellence, diversity, equity and inclusion, and enhancing the customer experience.

With safety as our key business priority, we partner with our operating organizations to strengthen their focus on a zero-harm culture. The guiding principles for operational excellence are integrated into our curriculum and highlight the need to respect the complexity, power, and unforgiving nature of our energy systems and encourage all to manage them safely. This effort includes a focus on Human Performance Improvement (HPI) tools, psychological safety, and cyber security awareness.

In 2022, TLC collaborated with internal business partners and stakeholders to meet the high-volume demand for training and testing of entry-level utility workers. We safely and successfully tested and trained 305 employees for Electric Operations. Our Purposeful Field Visit (PFV) program supports efforts to enhance the learning experience, using insights from actual events to assess potential gaps in training curriculum, and provides opportunities for real-time constructive feedback.

Training Effectiveness Committees are the liaison between operating areas and TLC; they serve to enhance, improve, and sustain quality and consistency in training. Regular meetings with subject matter experts from various operating groups allow for collective review of training activities, including curriculum, new policies and procedures, annual goals, career paths, and assessments to ensure consistency, relevance, and effectiveness in required training.

Our strategic focus on developing our people benefits our employees and helps us attract and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce at all levels.

A Brighter Future. Con Edison employs more than 14,000 employees. Meet some of them here.