Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | DECEMBER 2018 | 15 • WIDENING WATER'S APPEAL A ttracting new talent relies on creating greater awareness of the sector and boosting its appeal, and EU Skills is working to do exactly that through the Talent Source Network. A web portal that was created to bring about a major influx of new blood, it helps show young people – and particularly women and those from minority groups – that the utilities can offer fulfilling career options. It emerged from the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership, a collaboration of 28 organisations – including Anglian, North- umbrian, Scottish, SES, Thames, United Utilities and Yorkshire as well as major water contractors – that shared a need to bring in quality staff in large numbers. Talent Source Network details vacan- cies, apprenticeship schemes and graduate programmes and highlights success stories. Those sharing their stories work at all levels in the utility industries and come from a va- riety of backgrounds – Alison Fergusson, for example, discusses her journey to becom- ing Ofwat's principal engineer, while Jade Richardson talks about why she became a smart meter engineer and technical special- ist at Morrison Utility Services a'er having who are experts at digital media but know little about the utilities. "When you're talking about a job, you don't intend to but you load the statement with a whole series of beliefs, and if those beliefs aren't focused on the audience you're pitching towards, it doesn't work," he says. "With the Talent Source Network, it tends to talk more about the outcomes of what the water industry does when it's directed at females and more about the inputs when it's talking to males. "An example is wastewater treatment. When people understand that working for a water company on waste treatment is about environmental protection, and that the quality of the final effluent entering our rivers is directly linked to protection of wildlife, it can be of personal and signifi- cant interest. You get a completely different type of person apply than you do when you talk only about the engineering necessary to bring about that high-quality river water." British Water is also hoping to play a leading role in the drive to encourage wom- en to enter and recently held a new event called Women in Water, where attendees could hear from the likes of Northumbrian CEO Heidi Mottram and Parliamentary Water Group co-chair Angela Smith. Lila Thompson envisages a network similar in character to Women in Mining, an organisation created in 2006 that has over 2,000 members. It is free to join for any women working in the industry and organises a wide range of initiatives such as seminars and mentoring programmes. "We'll be looking at Women in Mining as a model," she says. "It's very high- profile internationally and they are very successful. There are different initiatives in this space so we don't want to duplicate anything, but if there's a need for Women in Water and we can collaborate with our partners to help to support women in the industry and raise the profile of the water industry as a career option, definitely that would be of interest." EU Skills CEO Nick Ellins (le ) speaking at a pan-utility conference on the topic of skills studied both health & beauty and plumbing at the same time as working in retail. "Once people express an interest, it sends them to a portal where any of the employers who are registered can change their adverts to be more attractive to non- industry applicants and pluck people from it," EU Skills chief executive Nick Ellins explains. "We've hit our 3,000,000th person contacted on it already. It's currently run- ning in excess of 50 per cent females – we hit a peak of 62 per cent earlier this year." Ellins believes the percentage of women is down to the language used. To bring about a new approach, Talent Source Network has employed two younger people • BRIDGING THE GAP T ackling the skills gap will require efforts on numerous fronts, and clearly many in the industry recognise the scale of the task. While the Government's apprenticeship levy prompted a 60 per cent drop in the number of apprenticeship starts in the six months a'er it was introduced in April 2017, utilities employers found ways to make it work. The sector – along with the Energy & Utilities Independent Assessment Service, the dedicated end-point assessment body run by EU Skills – was praised in the House of Lords in November as "one of the most trailblazing of all those involved with developing new apprenticeships". The Future Water Association has also launched a 'Corporate Knowledge Retention' group to help retain the knowledge, experience and understanding of older workers who could leave the industry over the coming years. Even so, there is much to be done to prepare for the challenges ahead. According to the EUA, while 75,000 people graduated with a STEM degree in 2016, only 24 per cent were known to be working in a STEM occupation within six months; given the vast number of companies struggling to recruit STEM candidates, it hints at the scale of the battle to convince potential employees that their future is in water. While bringing greater numbers of women and ethnic minorities into the sector would appear to be an important part of the solution, Horton suggests the search for greater diversity should extend even further. "The sector needs a range of skills, from Morrison Utility Services' Jade Richardson shared her story on the Talent Source Network Continued on page16