Each year the Water Skills Partnership hosts a forum which brings together local and state government staff, registered training organisations and supporting organisations to share experiences of the challenges and opportunities in securing a sustainable workforce to provide an essential service to all Queensland communities.
In 2022, the event started with a keynote address by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment providing an overview of the programs and opportunities available at a Federal level. The day then progressed by following the lifecycle of a water industry worker, starting with pre-vocational ideas and opportunities through traineeships, graduate employment, research postgraduate students solving water industry challenges/ university partnerships, through to making the most of transition to retirement programs.
One of the highlights of the day was a presentation by Grant Powell from Goulburn Valley Water who created much envy in the room when he showed off the excellent set up they’ve created at the Greater Western Water Training Academy.
Participants had some fun in the form of an Attraction Hack to brainstorm ideas for the sector to target non-traditional market segments using “personas” developed for the occasion. Participants split into groups to brainstorm clever slogans and other campaign ideas for six different personas. The winning slogans were “Exit FIFO for the WIFO” targeting mining workers looking for more family time, and “Without Water We Are Dead” with a play on Deadly, for a First Nations persona. We received some positive feedback about the hack and will keep playing around with the idea at future events – who knows, we may end up with a couple of great targeted campaigns to find the right workers for our sector!
The day ended with a Q&A session with Director General, Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water, Dr Graham Fraine. While the day covered many different job roles and stages of the career life cycle, the concerns raised by industry were almost exclusively related to critical shortages of essential services staff including operators.
Water Skills Partnership and qldwater members can access recordings of all the 2022 presentations here.
The 2021 event included a keynote address by Josh Rayner, Executive Director of Jobs Queensland, on building skills to deliver essential services. Brendan Guiney from the NSW Water Directorate shared his experiences on collaboration to address industry skilling, training and workforce issues while Carolina Netto from Queensland Rail shared some research findings on managing an ageing workforce in rail, energy and water utilities. Other presentations covered topics like transition to retirement, tools to support knowledge capture and remote mentoring, Barwon Water's approach to employee wellbeing through Covid, key leadership skills to enhance team culture for change, and insights from Unitywater's redesign of their competency training program.
Water Skills Partnership members can access recordings of all the 2021 presentations here.
Watch this space for details of the 2023 event, coming soon.
brought to you by the Queensland Water Skills Partnership |
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