"Not to push, but to pull!”

Over the last few years, RWE Nuclear has evolved from being solely a power provider into a complex, highly specialized business that handles the post-operations, decommissioning, and dismantling of nuclear power stations, recycles and sells the resulting materials, and correctly packages radioactive waste. With the "we in nuclear" program, Nikolaus Valerius, Chief Technology Officer of RWE Nuclear GmbH and Member of the Executive Board, Nuclear at RWE Power AG is pursuing the goal of taking everyone along on the transformation journey. Right from the start, the focus was on establishing a corporate culture and introducing new processes, a new control system and structure to handle the dismantling work.

One of the biggest challenges was to inspire the workforce to embrace the change. “If conviction and enthusiasm are what you're after, you have to start with yourself. And that includes understanding the situation, formulating the goal, and charting a new course—from the perspective of both the company and the employees,” says Valerius. He emphasizes that it's just as crucial to bring direct leadership on board as it is to take a program or project approach to reach employees from all corners and levels of the hierarchy. “The more the workforce can understand the solid logic behind the change and assimilate that, the faster the transformation can proceed. In our case, understanding was followed by enthusiasm. And the desire to be part of it,” he says.