Utilities

Designing competitive benefits and retirement programs for a safety-critical workforce powering Canada’s infrastructure and energy transition

1. Executive Summary
2. Industry Snapshot: Utilities in Canada
3. Key Talent Dynamics and Workforce Composition
4. Workforce Stability Is a Strategic Asset
5. Common Coverage Design Patterns
6. Safety, Occupational Health, and Benefits Should Operate as One System
7. Physical Health Is a Core Workforce Issue
8. Disability Is an Operational Issue
9. Emergency Response Creates Unique Workforce Pressures
10. Fatigue Should Be Viewed Through Both Safety and Health
11. Mental Health Requires an Operational Lens
12. Critical-Incident Support Should Be Designed in Advance
13. Skilled Trades Are a Critical Talent Market
14. Retirement Programs Can Be One of the Sector’s Greatest Advantages
15. Retirement Security Can Differentiate Utilities From New Competitors
16. Workforce Aging Is Also an Infrastructure Risk
17. Retiree Benefits Can Create Significant Long-Term Obligations
18. Electrification Is Creating a New Talent Market
19. Clean-Energy Talent May Have Different Expectations
20. Cybersecurity Has Become a Critical Infrastructure Talent Issue
21. Digitalization and AI Are Changing the Workforce
22. Family Benefits Can Strengthen Mid-Career Retention
23. Hybrid Work Creates a Fairness Challenge
24. Benefits Communication Needs to Reach the Field
25. Unionized Workforces Require Deliberate Benefits Governance
26. Executive Benefits and Supplemental Retirement
27. Plan Governance Across a Complex Workforce
28. Benchmarking: Utility Employers by Workforce Model
29. Case Study: Modernizing Benefits for a Canadian Utility
30. Strategic Takeaways for Utility Leaders and HR
31. The Opportunity for Utility Employers

Executive Summary

Canada’s utilities sector sits at the centre of two major workforce challenges.

The first is operational.

Electricity, natural gas and water infrastructure must operate safely and reliably every day. Utilities depend on skilled trades, operators, engineers, technicians and experienced leaders—many of whom possess highly specialized knowledge that can take years to develop.

The second is transformational.

Electrification, renewable generation, distributed energy, grid modernization, cybersecurity, automation and climate resilience are changing both the infrastructure utilities operate and the capabilities they need.

As a result, utilities increasingly compete for two different kinds of talent at the same time.

They need to retain experienced employees who understand existing infrastructure while attracting engineers, cybersecurity professionals, data specialists and clean-energy talent who will build the next generation of it.

Employee benefits and retirement programs sit directly within this challenge.

The strongest utility programs combine comprehensive health protection, physical and mental-health support, strong disability coverage, retirement security, family benefits and increasingly flexible employee experiences.

For many utilities, the strategic opportunity is not to abandon historically strong benefits.

It is to modernize them without losing the financial security that has long differentiated the sector.

Industry Snapshot: Utilities in Canada

• The sector spans electricity generation, transmission and distribution, natural gas distribution, water and related infrastructure
• Many organizations operate essential infrastructure requiring continuous service
• Field employees frequently work in safety-sensitive environments
• Skilled trades and technical occupations are central to operations
• Unionized workforces are common
• Many organizations have long-tenured employees
• Defined benefit pensions and comprehensive benefits remain important in parts of the sector
• Workforce aging can create significant succession and knowledge-transfer challenges
• Emergency response can require employees to work extended hours under difficult conditions
• Electrification and renewable energy are changing workforce requirements
• Grid modernization is increasing demand for digital and data capabilities
• Cybersecurity has become a critical infrastructure priority
• Climate change and extreme weather are increasing operational demands
• Public, municipal, Crown and investor-owned organizations can have different compensation and governance environments

Benefits strategy needs to support both workforce stability and workforce transformation.

Key Talent Dynamics and Workforce Composition

These populations can have very different benefits expectations and competitive reference points.

Workforce Stability Is a Strategic Asset

Utilities have traditionally offered employees something increasingly uncommon in many sectors:

long-term employment combined with meaningful financial security.

Strong health benefits, pensions, disability coverage and stable careers have helped create long employee tenure.

That stability has considerable organizational value.

Experienced employees can possess deep knowledge of:

• Networks
• Plants
• Equipment
• Operating procedures
• Local infrastructure
• Emergency-response protocols
• Regulatory requirements
• Historical system decisions

The benefits strategy should therefore be evaluated not simply as an employee expense.

It can be part of the infrastructure that supports workforce continuity.

Common Coverage Design Patterns

For established utilities, the question is often less about whether benefits are competitive and more about whether the investment is producing the intended workforce outcomes.

Safety, Occupational Health, and Benefits Should Operate as One System

Utilities typically have sophisticated workplace-safety programs.

Employee benefits can reinforce those programs.

The workforce-health continuum can be viewed as:

Prevention → early intervention → treatment → absence → disability → rehabilitation → return to work

Safety teams may focus heavily on the first stages.

Benefits and disability programs often become involved later.

Connecting these functions can provide a more complete understanding of employee health.

Organizations should look for relationships among:

• Workplace incidents
• Occupational-health information
• Prescription-drug utilization
• Musculoskeletal claims
• Mental-health claims
• Absence
• Disability
• Accommodation
• Return-to-work outcomes

The objective should be to intervene before a manageable health issue becomes a long-duration absence.

Physical Health Is a Core Workforce Issue

Lineworkers, maintenance employees, technicians and other field populations can perform physically demanding work.

Potential exposures can include:

• Lifting
• Climbing
• Repetitive movement
• Awkward positions
• Equipment operation
• Driving
• Weather exposure

Musculoskeletal conditions can therefore become meaningful drivers of absence and disability.

Programs can include:

• Physiotherapy
• Chiropractic care
• Occupational therapy
• Ergonomic assessment
• Early musculoskeletal intervention
• Rehabilitation
• Modified duties
• Workplace accommodation
• Structured return-to-work programs

Claims should be segmented by occupation and location where possible.

Enterprise-level averages can hide concentrated workforce-health problems.

Disability Is an Operational Issue

The absence of an experienced lineworker, operator, engineer or technician can create costs beyond the insurance claim.

These can include:

• Overtime
• Scheduling pressure
• Reduced crew capacity
• Temporary staffing
• Training requirements
• Increased workload for colleagues
• Loss of specialized knowledge

Disability should therefore be viewed as both an employee-protection program and a workforce-capacity issue.

Employers should understand:

• Disability incidence
• Claim duration
• Diagnosis
• Recurrence
• Claims by occupation
• Claims by location
• Rehabilitation outcomes
• Return-to-work outcomes
• Accommodation patterns

The strategic question is not simply:

How much are we spending on disability?

It is:

What is causing employees to leave the workforce, and what could prevent or shorten those absences?

Emergency Response Creates Unique Workforce Pressures

Utilities are expected to perform when conditions are at their worst.

Major storms, wildfires, floods, extreme cold, heat events and infrastructure failures can require employees to work extended hours under significant pressure.

Employees involved in restoration may experience:

• Long shifts
• Interrupted sleep
• Difficult travel
• Physical exhaustion
• Hazardous conditions
• Separation from family
• High public expectations

Benefits strategy should connect with emergency-response planning.

Support can include:

• Mental-health resources
• Critical-incident support
• Virtual healthcare
• Fatigue-management resources
• Family assistance
• Emergency childcare support where feasible
• Post-event recovery

Workforce resilience should be considered part of infrastructure resilience.

Fatigue Should Be Viewed Through Both Safety and Health

Utilities frequently operate around the clock.

System operators, control-centre employees and emergency-response crews can work nights, rotating schedules or extended shifts.

Fatigue can affect both employee wellbeing and workplace safety.

Organizations should consider access to:

• Sleep-health education
• Primary healthcare
• Mental-health support
• Treatment for sleep disorders
• Prescription review
• Fatigue-management resources

Benefits cannot compensate for unsafe scheduling.

They can support the broader systems designed to keep employees healthy and alert.

Mental Health Requires an Operational Lens

Mental-health needs can vary significantly across a utility workforce.

Field employees may experience critical incidents or physically demanding work.

Control-centre employees may carry significant responsibility for system reliability.

Customer-facing employees can experience difficult interactions during outages.

Managers may be leading through major organizational and technological change.

Programs can include:

• Employee Assistance Programs
• Psychology and psychotherapy
• Virtual counselling
• Critical-incident support
• Trauma-informed care
• Substance-use treatment
• Peer support
• Manager education
• Family counselling
• Disability management

Coverage should support meaningful treatment rather than simply a small number of appointments.

Critical-Incident Support Should Be Designed in Advance

Certain utility employees may experience traumatic workplace events.

Organizations should not wait for those events to determine how support will work.

Protocols can include:

• Immediate psychological support
• Critical-incident response
• Trauma counselling
• Peer support
• Manager guidance
• Follow-up care
• Disability support
• Return-to-work planning

The process should be easy to activate.

Employees and leaders should understand what resources are available before they are needed.

Skilled Trades Are a Critical Talent Market

Utilities depend heavily on employees whose expertise can be difficult and time consuming to develop.

These can include:

• Powerline technicians
• Electricians
• Instrumentation technicians
• Millwrights
• Mechanics
• Operators
• Other specialized trades

These employees can also have opportunities elsewhere.

Benefits benchmarking should follow these labour markets.

An organization can be competitive against another utility while losing employees to a major infrastructure project.

Retirement Programs Can Be One of the Sector’s Greatest Advantages

Utilities have historically offered some of Canada’s stronger retirement programs.

Depending on the employer, these can include:

• Defined benefit pension plans
• Defined contribution pension plans
• Hybrid arrangements
• Group RRSPs
• Employer savings programs
• Supplemental executive retirement arrangements

Defined benefit pensions in particular can provide a significant retention advantage.

But employees do not always understand their economic value.

Organizations should communicate:

• Employer contributions
• Pension value
• Expected retirement income
• Survivor protection
• Indexation where applicable
• Early-retirement provisions
• Integration with government benefits

A pension should not be treated merely as an administrative program.

It can be one of the most valuable components of the employee proposition.

Retirement Security Can Differentiate Utilities From New Competitors

Utilities increasingly compete with renewable-energy developers, technology businesses, engineering firms and other organizations that may offer attractive salaries, equity or flexibility.

Traditional utilities may not always win on every element of the employment proposition.

But they can possess a major advantage:

long-term financial security.

A strong pension, comprehensive benefits and stable employment can have significant lifetime economic value.

The challenge is making that value visible.

Employees tend to compare salary easily.

They do not always compare pensions accurately.

Total Rewards communication should help them understand the complete package.

Workforce Aging Is Also an Infrastructure Risk

Utilities can have significant populations of experienced employees approaching retirement.

The issue is not simply replacing headcount.

An employee who has spent 30 years working on a particular network can possess knowledge that is difficult to document.

Organizations should understand:

• Retirement eligibility
• Expected retirement timing
• Critical-skill concentrations
• Replacement difficulty
• Succession coverage
• Training lead times
• Knowledge-transfer requirements

This analysis should be connected with retirement readiness.

Employees gain better visibility into their financial future.

Employers gain better visibility into workforce transition.

The objective is preparedness—not influencing individual retirement decisions.

Retiree Benefits Can Create Significant Long-Term Obligations

Established utilities may have retiree health or insurance programs.

These programs can be highly valued.

They can also create material long-term liabilities.

Employers should understand:

• Eligibility provisions
• Employer cost sharing
• Drug coverage
• Coordination with provincial programs
• Survivor benefits
• Future liability
• Grandfathering provisions
• Communication obligations

Changes require careful consideration.

Retiree benefits are not simply another active-employee program.

They may involve historical commitments and employees who made retirement decisions based partly on expected coverage.

Electrification Is Creating a New Talent Market

Canada’s transition toward electrification is expanding the role of utilities.

Growth in electric vehicles, industrial electrification, distributed energy and new generation can create demand for:

• Electrical engineers
• Power-system specialists
• Project managers
• Regulatory professionals
• Energy-market specialists
• Environmental professionals
• Construction expertise
• Digital capabilities

These employees can have opportunities across utilities, renewable developers, engineering firms, governments and infrastructure businesses.

Benefits need to support a broader talent proposition built around both security and growth.

Clean-Energy Talent May Have Different Expectations

Employees entering the sector through renewable energy, sustainability and climate-related work may have different expectations from long-tenured utility populations.

They may place greater emphasis on:

• Flexible work
• Mental-health support
• Flexible benefits
• Family-building benefits
• Wellness spending
• Professional development
• Purpose
• Career mobility

This does not mean traditional programs need to be abandoned.

It means the benefits proposition may need to evolve alongside the workforce.

Cybersecurity Has Become a Critical Infrastructure Talent Issue

As utility networks become more digital, cybersecurity becomes increasingly important.

Cybersecurity professionals are also among the most mobile employees in the labour market.

They can work in:

• Technology
• Financial services
• Government
• Consulting
• Telecommunications
• Other critical-infrastructure sectors

A utility’s pension may be a powerful differentiator.

But it may not fully compensate for a benefits and employee experience that feels inflexible.

Utilities should benchmark critical digital talent separately from their traditional workforce.

Digitalization and AI Are Changing the Workforce

Smart grids, predictive maintenance, advanced metering, automation, remote monitoring and artificial intelligence are changing how utilities operate.

Future workforces may require greater capability in:

• Data science
• AI
• Automation
• Software
• Cloud technology
• Cybersecurity
• Digital operations

This creates both opportunity and uncertainty.

Existing employees may need to develop new skills.

Benefits can support the broader transition through:

• Mental-health resources
• Financial wellness
• Career development
• Professional education
• Reskilling support

Technology transformation should be treated as a workforce transformation as well.

Family Benefits Can Strengthen Mid-Career Retention

Utilities compete for engineers, technical professionals and managers who may be in demanding family stages.

Benefits can include:

• Parental-leave top-ups
• Fertility coverage
• Adoption assistance
• Family mental-health services
• Caregiver resources
• Healthcare spending accounts
• Emergency family support

These programs can complement the financial security provided by traditional benefits and pensions.

They can also help modernize the employee proposition without undermining its strongest existing elements.

Hybrid Work Creates a Fairness Challenge

Corporate, engineering and digital employees may have access to hybrid work.

Field employees, operators and many other employees cannot work remotely.

That difference can affect perceptions of fairness.

The solution is not necessarily identical flexibility.

Employers can consider different forms of value for employees who need to be physically present:

• Scheduling flexibility
• Shift preferences
• Additional time-off programs
• Wellness support
• Benefits flexibility
• Commuting support
• Recognition

Fairness does not require sameness.

It requires understanding what employees value within the realities of their roles.

Benefits Communication Needs to Reach the Field

A significant proportion of utility employees may not spend their working day at a desk.

Benefits communication therefore needs to extend beyond email and corporate intranets.

Effective approaches can include:

• Mobile platforms
• Employee apps
• QR codes
• Short videos
• Digital onboarding
• Workplace screens
• Printed materials
• Supervisor toolkits
• Targeted retirement education

Employees should be able to answer:

What do I have?

What is it worth?

How do I use it?

Where do I go for help?

A generous benefits program employees do not understand will always be undervalued.

Unionized Workforces Require Deliberate Benefits Governance

Benefits and pensions can form important components of collective agreements.

This can limit when or how programs change.

It does not eliminate the need for strategic analysis.

Employers should understand:

• Claims trends
• Disability experience
• Retirement outcomes
• Relative competitiveness
• Employee utilization
• Cost trends
• Emerging workforce needs

Evidence can support more productive long-term discussions between employers and employee representatives.

The objective should be sustainable programs that continue delivering meaningful employee value.

Executive Benefits and Supplemental Retirement

Senior utility executives and highly compensated leaders can exceed limits within standard life, disability and registered retirement arrangements.

Potential solutions can include:

• Supplemental life insurance
• Executive disability coverage
• Critical illness insurance
• Executive health programs
• Healthcare spending accounts
• Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans
• Deferred compensation
• Individual insurance arrangements

These programs should address identifiable gaps and align with broader executive compensation philosophy and governance requirements.

Plan Governance Across a Complex Workforce

Utilities can have employees across generating stations, control centres, field operations, maintenance facilities and corporate offices.

Strong governance can include:

• Clearly documented eligibility
• Formal benefits and retirement oversight
• Claims and pharmacy analysis
• Disability and absence reporting
• Occupational-health coordination
• Mental-health analysis
• Carrier and vendor performance reviews
• Pension and retirement-plan monitoring
• Competitive benchmarking
• Employee feedback
• Data reconciliation
• Collective-agreement considerations
• Retiree-benefit oversight
• Communication standards

Governance should also examine whether programs remain appropriate as the workforce changes.

A benefits strategy designed around the traditional utility workforce may not fully support the workforce required for the energy transition.

Benchmarking: Utility Employers by Workforce Model

The appropriate benchmark depends on both the organization and the workforce being recruited.

Case Study: Modernizing Benefits for a Canadian Utility

Illustrative example

Context:

• 3,800 employees across multiple operating locations
• Significant unionized workforce
• Large populations of lineworkers, skilled trades, operators and engineers
• Strong defined benefit pension and traditional health benefits
• Increasing musculoskeletal and mental-health disability
• Significant proportion of experienced technical employees approaching retirement
• Increasing competition for engineering, cybersecurity and digital talent
• Employee research showed strong appreciation for the pension but demand for greater benefits flexibility

Actions Taken:

• Segmented health and disability data by occupation and location
• Expanded early musculoskeletal intervention
• Increased psychology and psychotherapy coverage
• Introduced additional virtual healthcare
• Established enhanced critical-incident support
• Integrated benefits, occupational-health and disability reporting
• Conducted retirement-readiness analysis by critical occupation
• Identified roles with significant succession exposure
• Benchmarked cybersecurity and digital talent separately against technology employers
• Introduced greater flexible spending for selected employee populations
• Improved communication of the economic value of the pension and broader Total Rewards package

Outcomes:

• Improved access to physical and mental-health support
• Better visibility into disability drivers
• Stronger coordination between occupational health and benefits
• Greater understanding of upcoming retirement and succession risk
• Improved competitive positioning for emerging digital capabilities
• Greater employee understanding of pension value
• More flexible employee experience without undermining core financial-security programs
• Better alignment between benefits investment and long-term workforce strategy

Strategic Takeaways for Utility Leaders and HR

• Protect the sector’s traditional strengths. Strong benefits and retirement security remain meaningful competitive advantages.
• Modernize rather than simply replace. Flexibility can be added without abandoning the programs employees value most.
• Connect workforce health with operational reliability. Healthy employees are part of resilient infrastructure.
• Integrate safety, occupational health, benefits and disability. The employee-health journey should not be managed in silos.
• Intervene early on physical health. Musculoskeletal conditions can affect both employee wellbeing and workforce capacity.
• Prepare for emergency-response pressures. Mental health, fatigue and family support should be incorporated into resilience planning.
• Treat disability as an operational issue. The absence of specialized employees can affect service delivery.
• Use pensions strategically. Retirement programs can provide significant differentiation if employees understand their value.
• Connect retirement with succession planning. An aging workforce can create infrastructure and knowledge-transfer risk.
• Benchmark skilled trades against adjacent industries. Utilities are competing with construction, mining, energy and infrastructure.
• Benchmark cybersecurity and digital talent differently. Traditional utility benchmarks may not reflect these labour markets.
• Prepare for the energy transition. Electrification and clean energy are changing the workforce as well as the infrastructure.
• Create fairness across different work models. Hybrid flexibility cannot be identical for every role.
• Reach employees where they work. Benefits communication needs to extend beyond office-based channels.
• Measure outcomes, not simply costs. Workforce health, disability, retirement readiness, employee experience and critical-talent retention provide a more strategic view of benefits performance.

The Opportunity for Utility Employers

Utilities understand long-term investment.

Infrastructure built today may serve communities for decades.

Employee benefits and retirement programs deserve a similar perspective.

The strongest programs protect employees performing difficult and safety-sensitive work.

They provide financial security over a career.

They help experienced employees prepare for retirement while giving employers visibility into the knowledge and skills that will need to be replaced.

They support employees responding when storms, fires and other emergencies place extraordinary demands on the workforce.

And they evolve as utilities recruit the engineers, cybersecurity professionals, data specialists and clean-energy talent required for a more electrified and digital future.

The strategic opportunity is not to choose between the traditional utility employment proposition and a modern one.

It is to combine them.

Keep the financial security, comprehensive protection and long-term orientation that have historically made utilities attractive employers.

Add the flexibility, mental-health support, family benefits, digital experience and career proposition increasingly expected by the