From HR to Human Capital in Bangladesh’s Power Distribution: A Sector Review with a Utility Transformation Roadmap (DESCO as a Case)

Bangladesh’s energy and utilities sector faces a triple mandate: expand and improve service quality, modernize networks for digital operations, and strengthen climate resilience while enabling clean-energy integration. In the electricity subsector, distribution utilities are central to achieving these goals because they operate the low- and medium-voltage systems where outages, losses, and service complaints occur, and they sit at the direct customer interface.
Across national policy documents and development partner programs, a consistent conclusion is clear: technology and capital investments deliver limited value unless utilities have the institutional and workforce capabilities to implement, operate, and sustain them. For example, the Electricity Distribution Modernization Program (P174650) [1] explicitly emphasizes capacity building and institutional strengthening alongside investments in modernization technologies such as SCADA and AMI.
This review examines human capital (HC) as a core performance driver for distribution utilities. HC is defined as the combined stock of workforce skills, leadership practices, organizational systems, health and safety discipline, and culture that enable reliable, safe, and customer-responsive service. In practice, HC is managed through connected systems: workforce planning, competency management, learning and certification, performance management, safety management, and workforce analytics.
Six propositions summarize the findings. (1) Skills gaps in modern distribution operations and digital utility functions—SCADA/AMI operations, analytics, and cyber-resilient practices—are binding constraints. (2) Training is often activity-based rather than capability-based; certification and transfer-to-job approaches improve impact. (3) Performance management must be tied to operational KPIs and perceived as fair to change behavior. (4) HC information systems and analytics are essential for planning and transparency. (5) Safety and contractor management require systematic OHS leadership and enforcement. (6) Inclusion and gender are both equity and talent strategies; WePOWER evidence indicates women remain underrepresented, especially in technical roles.
To translate evidence into action, the manuscript aligns these insights with DESCO’s HR-to-HC transformation roadmap and proposes a sequenced 12-month plan and an HC Scorecard linked to reliability and modernization outcomes.