|
brought to you by the Queensland Water Skills Partnership |
 |
The Queensland Water Skills Partnership hosted its seventh annual Water Skills Forum on Friday 19 April at Parliament House. Around 80 people attended the event with a good spread of our key stakeholders in attendance including water managers, HR professionals, Registered Training Organisations, Government officials and more.
The theme for the event was The Urban Water Workforce - Recognition & Resilience. Over the past twelve months, significant progress has been made across a range of workforce and training initiatives. This Forum showcased some of those projects from a range of organisations and outlined several new workforce resources designed by the sector for the sector.
An image gallery of the forum is available here.
We thank the following speakers for participating on the day and sharing their engaging content:
Ministerial Welcome
by The Honourable Lance McCallum, Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development
The day kicked off with a presentation by the Honourable Lance McCallum who highlighted the importance of a skilled workforce. The Minister also launched a series of new Micro-Credential Courses which will be delivered over the coming months.
The Micro-Credentialing Program is part of the Queensland Workforce Strategy 2022-2032 and is proudly supported and funded by the Queensland Government.
Event Sponsor Address
by Adrian Blinman, Business Growth Manager at TRILITY
Adrian announced Trility Training’s acceptance as a Skills Assured Supplier (SAS), taking the number of RTOs on the Queensland SAS platform from 2 to 4. This is important for the sector as only SAS approved RTOs can get access to the Government funding initiatives like C3G and User Choice. Adrian also talked about Trility’s support for the sector by sharing five training modules to be added to the watertraining website.
Unitywater and the Water Industry Worker journey
by Kenan Hibberd, Executive Manager - People, Culture and Safety at Unitywater
Kenan provided an overview of the Water Industry Worker journey and the learnings and insights from the attraction, development and retention of Operator teams and the journey that the organisation has been on to improve the Employee Value Propositions (EVP).
BuildSkills Australia Update
by George Wall, National Manager Water Sector Industry Engagement, BuildSkills Australia
George Wall, National Manager Water Sector Industry Engagement at BuildSkills Australia, provided an update on the new Jobs and Skills Council for the built environment. George was questioned about the new entity’s data that seemed to suggest there were no issues with workforce capacity for the water sector when our members clearly have a different perspective.
qldwater will maintain our advocacy in this space to ensure that the water sector won’t be overlooked in the broader construction and property sectors.
RDMW Water Initiatives
by Linda Dobe, A/Director-General, Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water (RDMW)
Session 2 started with a presentation by Linda Dobe, who provided an overview of the Urban Water Risk Assessment work being undertaken by the Department. Linda gave some examples of successful engagement with schools by other sectors. She encouraged members to grow their own workforces and to tap into community workers with flexible working arrangements that could attract more entrants to the sector.
Introducing the SWIM Water Skills Data Capture Tool
by David Wiskar, Director QWRAP
David introduced the SWIM Water Skills Data Capture tool being developed by qldwater to ensure the industry has access to up-to-date data around skills gaps using a trusted data capture tool like SWIM. The tool will be delivered in stages following work with two QWRAP regions to pilot the project roll out. Trility has started work with the WBBUWA and the NW Water Alliance to capture workforce skills information, linking plant infrastructure and processes back to NWP units of competency required to successfully manage those facilities.
Growing Our Non Accredited Course Offerings
by Des Gralton and Jess Dean from qldwater
Des Gralton and Jess Dean provided an update on the new non-accredited training resources being added to the watertraining website. These include five new introductory courses provided by Trility and a series of Micro-Credentials funded by the Department of Employment, Small Business and Training, as part of the Queensland Workforce Strategy 2022-2032.
qldwater seeks input from our members to help build and improve on the Trililty course materials. Charles Dyer (previously from Winton but now at Tablelands Regional Council) took a lead with the Chemistry course, recording short video presentations to explain the course material and developing industry-specific examples for the quiz questions. All event attendees were enrolled in the Chemistry course and encouraged to provide feedback to ensure we deliver courses relevant to our members.
The Micro-Credential courses will start in May with a series of webinars to introduce each course before full delivery scheduled between June and September 2024. Check the Upcoming Events page for webinar dates.
Enrolments in the full courses will be managed by Lee-Anne Willis, Water Industry Worker Coordinator, who will aggregate demand, and ensure maximum participation for members.
Water Industry Worker Update
by Lee-Anne Willis, Learning and Development Project Coordinator for the Water Industry Worker Program
Lee-Anne provided an update on the Water Industry Worker program, speaking to the extension into Treatment worker training and to supports that the program can offer even for non accredited training.
Workforce Attraction and Career Development in Water Operations
by Elle Ackland, Manager Workforce and Industrial Relations at LGAQ and Chris Hancock, Director at CJ Consulting HR Solutions
Elle and Chris gave a fabulous presentation on Workforce Attraction and Career Development in Water Operations. The presentation built on the excellent work done by Chris in developing an HR Toolkit for the sector and the support of Elle to develop a series of Position Descriptions aligned with the Queensland Local Government Industry (Stream B) Award. The toolkit can be accessed here.
Urban Utilities Workforce Retention Strategies
by Kathryn Turner, Resource Recovery Program Lead, Environmental and Industrial at Urban Utilities
Kathryn delivered an overview of the way UU deals with the challenging labour market, including a rolling average of 14.5% staff turnover. Kathryn talked about the great results they experienced from taking on a number of staff from Incitec Pivot when it closed down.
While these workers didn’t have water industry experience as such, their process knowledge was extremely valuable when they were teamed up with operators. UU also allowed their Operators to decide how their rosters should work to ensure it would suit their work-life balance.
Beyond Perks: Understanding the Strategic Imperative of a Compelling EVP
by Kate Hamilton, Manager People Experience at Seqwater
Kate livened up the room by starting her presentation with a short interactive session where attendees had to deliver a one minute elevator pitch to convince the person next to them to join the water sector.
Kate’s excellent presentation highlighted the fact that EVPs should be punchy, memorable and authentic and told the story how Seqwater staff latched on to their mantra as presented by one of their operators: “We do good work, with great people, in beautiful places.” This seemed to resonate with all people at some level. Staff were also upskilled in social media to share jobs on LinkedIn and other platforms.
Strengthening the link between the HR and Water Team
by Amber Robinson, Manager Water Utilities and Tarnya Lowe, Manager People & Safety at Central Highlands Regional Council
Amber and Tarnya delivered another outstanding presentation focused on the need to strengthen the link between the HR and water teams.
By working closely together, the HR team could redefine the Position Descriptions to provide career and salary progression. The HR team now goes on site tours and attend toolbox meetings to gain a better understanding of the water business needs. This was all part of a change management process that included one on one meetings with every operator.
Working in the water business is now a lot more attractive with retention bonuses and subsidised housing. Job applicants no longer need to address lengthy selection criteria and have different options to apply, including via a video recording. A series of advertising campaigns were developed to show exactly what water industry workers do daily. New starters can join a rolling onboarding process starting every two weeks in line with pay days and complete a 3-month probation period before they start any training.
National Careers in Water Campaign
by Peter Gee, Manager Performance Improvement at Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and Carlie Sargent, Member Engagement Manager - Queensland at the Australian Water Association (AWA)
Peter and Carlie provided an update on the National Careers in Water Campaign including the new website and a range of resources that can be used by our members when recruiting or seeking to attract new talent.
The campaign branding assets include Powerpoint templates, media tiles to be used in social channels, icons, graphics, images, colours and more which can be downloaded here.
The Careers in Water website is available here.
FNQROC Regional Water Capability Plan
by Amanda Hancock, Regional Strategic Infrastructure Coordinator for the FNQ Regional Organisation of Councils (FNQROC) and Ben Steel, Practice Leader Strategic Advisory (Water) at Stantec
Amanda and provided an update on the FNQROC Regional Water Capability Plan being developed for the region.
This important piece of work also aligns with the Skills Data Capture tool work in providing that skills gap analysis so critical in understanding workforce needs.
Introducing the iKnow weKnow Project
by Dr Cara Beal, Director Cities Research Institute and lecturer at Griffith University
Cara introduced us to the iKnow weKnow Project to create a transformative community water and energy toolbox for Indigenous Councils.
She emphasised the need for co-design of projects as the only way to reach a solution that recognises cultural differences and is therefore fit for purpose.
And finally, a big thanks to our event sponsor TRILITY and to Boomerang Bags Noosa for the collector's item Hi-Vis tradie bags used to reward our speakers.
