At PPL Electric, the premise is simple.
First-quartile performance in safety, reliability, customer satisfaction and cost management is necessary for long-term sustainable success.
“Achieving and maintaining first-quartile performance matters for a number of reasons,” said PPL Electric Utilities President Greg Dudkin. “We will control our own destiny and become a safer, more efficient and more responsive organization that is focused on our customers. Investors will view our company as a place where people deliver on their promises, and we’ll attract and retain talent to enable continued long-term success.”
Being a first-quartile utility is a mindset that lives at the heart of the workplace. From tailboards at job sites to engineering solutions to creative ideas on operating more efficiently, it’s a reflection of the culture of excellence and continuous improvement.
PPL communicates its drive for first-quartile performance in several ways, including through a regularly updated set of posters that show where the company stands compared to its peers on the key metrics.
It is firmly in first quartile on reliability, measured as outages per customer, and is poised to enter the top 10 percent as continued grid investments bring more benefits for customers.
A repeated J.D. Power award winner for residential customer satisfaction among large utilities in the eastern U.S., PPL currently ranks at the top of the second quartile nationally.
On safety, the utility was in the third quartile nationally in 2016 when compared to its peers. However, a record safety year in 2017 propelled the company into the second quartile. The company is in the second quartile on costs per customer and is continuously working to reduce operating costs. The continued fostering of a constructive culture is at the center of the advance toward first-quartile performance in all key areas.
“We believe we can be the best large electric utility in the United States,” said Dudkin. “By communicating expectations and engaging with employees, by never being satisfied with the status quo, and by measuring ourselves against our peers, we position ourselves for success.”
