Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) has developed a project in response to issues facing water utility workers.
There are a range of common workforce issues facing Australian water utilities as a result of changes in the workforce, including aging staff, different expectations and values of younger workforce as well as new technologies and changing customer expectations.
In response to these issues, the People and Capability Committee (PCC), and the National Urban Water Research Strategy have identified the ‘future water industry worker’ project as an opportunity for WSAA to address these changes.
The project will attempt to forecast some of these major changes and provide suggestions of how these could be addressed proactively, to allow the water industry to continue to attract and retain the right workforce that is fit to tackle the challenges of tomorrow and improve workforce productivity.
The project will explore future scenarios which may predict key future requirements of the workforce and the key skill sets and roles needed, develop future staff profiles and articulate key business drivers that are likely to affect the workforce.
These future scenarios will also be able to develop a value proposition to the future workforce, assess the implications for strategic HR, management and leadership as well as analyse the metro, regional and rural implications.
The People and Capability Committee, Human Capital Network and the Research Managers Network have developed a draft business case for the project.
WSAA has also consulted its international research partners, many of which have shown significant interest and the project is expected to commence in April 2016.
