Water & Wastewater Treatment

and egos are pushed to one side. Teams unite behind a clear, common objective. For our country at the moment it is supporting the NHS who have deployed changes in weeks which would normally have taken six months. They have achieved this through absolute clarity of goal and organisa- tional alignment. For water companies there are only two priorities – keep- ing the water flowing in and ensuring the waste flows out. All tasks will be focussed on these two activities, protect- ing the environment to allow both of those key elements to happen and keep customers safe. Leaders need to main- tain a view of all the moving parts but also watch out for colleagues that have a 'soldier on' and 'don't show weakness' mindset which is clearly dan- gerous in this situation. Last summer Egremont partnered with United Utilities to implement new ways of working across wastewater, and our project team was www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MAY 2020 | 21 is within their power to change working practices in an emer- gency, innovation will flourish. In these uncertain times the pressure points within the organisation become visible to those on the ground. Find a way to highlight them in day- to-day operations in order to develop effective solutions for the critical problems. Create proper forums for identifying the issues and sharing new ideas. During industrial action, senior employees are o‡en deployed in different areas of the business to cover the gaps. In particular, we worked with senior managers who were suddenly working in the control room 24/7 reviewing customer calls and alarms. This led to them recognis- ing an opportunity to better risk manage out of hours workflows and creating an official process to prioritise how the work was dispatched which was maintained upon return to business-as-usual, thereby significantly cutting costs. Utilise the unique perspec- tive of your employees when they are asked to work in a new environment, and let them use their diverse knowl- edge and expertise to devise new ways of working. Action: Focus effort on equipping teams with tools and techniques that enable them to be better problem solvers 'in the moment' when they may well be far from management. Ensure that they feel empowered so that they can problem-solve and make high stakes decisions with lit- tle support. Working in a crisis can bring out the very best (and also the very worst in people). In the water industry, employ- ees and managers have faced huge challenges in the past, so let's build on these. Let us use this time to really take on the positives, embrace new perspectives and find ways of working to ensure that once normality resumes, we have a bright future to look forward to. based near Whaley Bridge during the dam collapse. Our team was in awe at the calm and measured response of United Utilities colleagues as they faced a life and death scenario. What was striking to us was the effort required to rein in the hero tendencies of technicians who felt tremen- dous ownership for the sites and watercourses and would seemingly stop at nothing to 'save the day.' Action: Think about whether your messaging is clear to all? Does everyone know what they need to do? Are you keeping in touch with people properly and ensuring they are working safely and are not overburdened? Do you have a mechanism for teams to report back if they do become overwhelmed by the situa- tion? Keep it simple, that way everyone remains safe. 2. Decision making Resist total centralisation and control, it can slow down decision making and the head office o‡en doesn't really know what is happening on the ground. Pushing decisions down to the front-line managers will speed up decision making and allow those with the best view of the situation to make the call. They can make decisions in line with central guidance which will free up the head office to work on complex systemic issues. Those on the frontline will inevitably make mistakes, but the benefits usu- ally outweigh the costs when well managed. Action: Set out as clearly as possible which decisions can be made by the local teams but also give the front-line workers the freedom to prioritise work in times of emergency. Foster a culture of shared purpose – there will be mistakes made, but make all teams aware that wrong decisions made for the right reasons will not be judged harshly. 3. Ability to innovate Once frontline teams know it "In a crisis, the shortage of time and the severity of the potential impact mean that politics and egos are pushed to one side." Alex Graham Egremont Group

• Cover