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you hello and thanks for joining us on behalf of the environmental finance center network welcome to our Workforce Planning webinar for Alabama water systems my name is Tess Clark I work here at the Syracuse University environmental finance center and before we get started I'm just going to go over a few logistics first everyone will be on mute just to ensure audio quality if you have a question you can go ahead and type it into the GoToWebinar question dialog box any time throughout the session all of the questions are going to be reserved for a Q&A at the end but feel free to send questions at any time we will be posting the presentations from today as well as a video recording on our website and you can reach that website at WWE Fe Network org all of our webinars can be found under the past events tab we will be posting a recording of today's webinar and the presentation slides as soon as we can after the broadcast and we will also send you a link to those materials any follow-up email in just a few days it will be sent to the same email that you have used to register for the webinar okay and just as a reminder we do not submit our webinars to licensing agencies for pre-approval of continuing education credit we do however send a certificate of attendance as a courtesy so if you can join this webinar with the intention of using it to support some pdh or CEU hours please know that we can only supply the certificate after we verify attendance and it can take a couple weeks to send out certificates and you have to attend the entire webinar to receive one and if possible please join the webinar using the join link you received when you registered you must view the slides and listen to audio so if you only called in it will not mark you as attended again we can't guarantee that this webinar will meet the requirements for any sort of specific CEU or license renewal needs if you have questions about this you can email us at small systems at syr gdu okay and now for a little bit about us the environmental finance center network provides training and technical assistance to small public water systems and all US states and territories to help local systems achieve their goals and stay in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act and as you might guess the ESPN is a university based network you can see a list of all of our network members here we work together to create solutions to difficult how to pay issues of environmental protection and improvement on that note I'd like to introduce Leslie Kimball from the Wichita State University environmental science center Leslie started her career in marketing and professional development with the Disney Institute a division of the Disney Company that trained organizations worldwide based on the business insights and best practices of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and we all know how good they are at that at WSU Leslie provides training and technical assistance Workforce Planning topics ranging from employee recruitment and succession planning to water system branding and marketing strategy so welcome Leslie I'm going to hand over screen control to you now and I'll let you take it away all right Thank You Tess I am going to pull up my presentation here ok hello everyone thank you for joining me today today we're gonna talk about a topic that's gained a lot of popularity over the past few years our workforce planning for small water systems topic ok let me just just there we go ok so what we're going to talk about today first I'm going to cover very quickly why water is important which I'm sure if you're on this webinar you have a good idea but we're gonna talk about it and then we're going to connect it to the state of the water workforce today watch how and just were facing we're gonna talk about some succession planning tips in our water organizations and then we're going to talk about how we find those replacement workers and then once we have great workers at our utility how do we keep them there ok so let's take a step back talk about the big picture of water real quick its importance in our lives seems like a pretty simple question and an obvious answer but water is a pretty big deal so it's the only liquid on the planet that's essential for life we rely on it every day not just for health sanitation but safety our local economies depend on reliable water delivery and without the safety and convenience of our water utilities we would not have communities that would exist as we know them today so our communities rely on these services yet ironically if you don't work in this industry very few people know a lot about public water so it's almost like for the customer it gets to their house by magic they don't have to give it much thought but we know it definitely does not get to our houses by magic it takes a lot of work and a lot of people to make this service happen so there is this overall lack of visibility in the water industry and in the water career path so sometimes quite literally our infrastructure is invisible it's buried underground our treatment plants are tucked into the corners of our community it's almost like the water industry prefers to be out of sight that means they're doing a great job nothing's going wrong but it doesn't work in our favor when we're trying to get people to be aware of careers in this industry so it's time for public water utilities to take off that invisibility cloak and start telling people about water and about careers in water so you water public water employees are some of the few people out of the billions on the earth that can take our limited freshwater resources and make it safe for everyone in our entire community that's a really big important job and we need to make sure we have that talent lined up that can continue this important job once our current water workers retire or move on to other career opportunities so that's why this topic of Workforce Planning has become so popular over the last couple of years so if you talk to the average person your average customer on the street in your town about water about how much they think about tap water most of them if they're honest would say that they typically don't give it much thought at all they don't worry about it their glass is half-full when it comes to water but the reality is our public water systems they need a lot of attention and we have crumbling infrastructure we have our eating treatment plants the economic vitality of our communities is at risk you know our ability to attract jobs and drive economical growth every business every home in our community needs water to make that happen and then we have the issue of rising costs and it's funny how you know it always ends up coming back to money right such a makes it way more difficult so EPA estimates that 473 billion dollars in drinking water infrastructure investment is going to be needed over the next 20 years as we have our aging pipes our storage facilities need upgrades and replacements and then we also have deteriorating source water some of the groundwater sources that we have may be unusable in less than 15 to 20 years if we don't take action to take care of them and then we have this final problem of the shrinking workforce which is what we're going to focus on today but is also you know tied into these other challenges that industry faces so just like our infrastructure is aging so is our water workforce many of our water operators and our employees have worked in this industry for many years they're getting ready to retire so there's this wave of retirements mixed with an overall lack of visibility of water careers that has made finding and replacing talent a big challenge for water systems not just in Alabama but for water systems across the country and of course especially for our smaller water utilities so the good news is that even though we have a lot of challenges and the problems in this industry are very real they are fixable it's gonna take good talent good people to make that happen and we're gonna need them quickly so let's move on and just talk about the overall kind of current state of the water workforce today so we know when we pay our monthly water bill we aren't really paying for the water itself right it's not a product it's only part of it it's the services provided at our water utility where the real value of public water is so before it arrives at the tap great deal of work goes into ensuring that all the water distributed to customers is safe to use readily accessible so we know the three main costs of providing water service or plants the treatment so pipes would be the second the infrastructure and then most importantly the labor our people which in smaller communities the water infrastructure may be the largest investment of the community there's lots of expensive equipment and technology we have to invest in and manage to make sure our community's water is safe and environmentally responsible but at the end of the day the people at our water utility are our most important asset right and we have to manage and invest in our people that our planet really well to ensure that our community's water is in good hands so water jobs are very critical why are they so hard to fill so Brookings Institute did a big study a few years ago on renewing the water workforce and they identified in that study three key factors to the water workforce problem so first of all economic disparity there's communities that struggle to achieve economic growth that provide the equitable and inclusive employment opportunities it takes second we have that aging infrastructure problem again so our water infrastructure is in need of urgent repair maintenance and restoration so we need people to help us fix these problems and we need them fast and then finally there's an employment gap so workers capable of carrying out these efforts are in short supply due to an aging workforce eligible for retirement and that lack of new talent coming into the industry so those are the three key challenges we're facing all right so have you guys ever heard of the term silver tsunami I just learned about it this year but this is a term that has kind of been coined among HR professionals to describe the wave of baby boomer retirements that everyone is going to be facing this year and so for every two experienced workers leaving the workforce only one will enter an everyday 10,000 baby boomers turn 55 so especially in the water industry we have a lot of baby boomers that make up the workforce and they're just getting to that age where they're ready to retire so in the water industry specifically there's three million water professionals that will need to be replaced over the next decade but the need for what people in water industry is going to continue to grow because of communities that are growing infrastructure projects that are happening etc so me and my colleague Tanya who helps me teach the full-day workshop of this topic we put this comic in here but we really don't like it because we think it's very frightening and dire and not at all how baby boomers should be portrayed so we like to think of it like this instead the way we see it baby boomers have put in lots of years of hard work they have lots of experience we should let them retire in style and we don't want them to have to worry about what's gonna happen when they leave so we want them to be appreciated and celebrated but if we want them to do this we have to be prepared we have to think about how we're going to capture all that they know how we're going to replace those knowledge skills and capabilities that are walking out the door with them are we gonna promote existing staff are we gonna invest in training professional development will we need to hire new people if so who so lots of questions need to have a plan you know and despite what some people think we can't just find anyone right off the street to work to run our water utility it's there's too much at stake we have to find the right people with a certain talent set and a certain skill set and you know even a set of soft skills that are necessary personality traits and to be in these types of positions so we know that it is not so much a matter of if we have people leaving our water utility it's a matter of when so this is why succession planning or next topic is so important so just like we take time to update our budget every year our asset management plan our capital improvement plans the utility should also be taking some time to look at their workforce plan so a big part of this process is what we call succession planning so definition of succession planning it's a systematic approach to building replacement workers to ensure continuity by identifying potential successors and critical work processes so what does this mean basically first of all this is systemic and there's a plan it's methodical we got to take time to make the plan and ideally we need to do it before people leave doesn't have to be a complicated plan but we do have to make a plan alright so second part of this definition it's kind of easier to work it backwards so first of all we'll start with the critical work processes so we want it first we're gonna identify that critical work at the water utility and then we're going to think about who can fill that work if the current person doing that work leaves do we have someone in-house do we need to hire someone and then why are we doing this we're doing this to ensure continuity you know we can't just shut down the water treatment plant for two weeks while we find one to rent it you know the show must go on we have to make sure that that continuity of this very critical work for the community continues so that's why the planning ahead apart is so important okay so are you ready for people to leave that's the funny thing about people they don't last forever they don't have a repair and replacement schedule like some of our other assets do they're completely unpredictable so it's not just the silver tsunami that's gonna take our staff away from our utility people leave for all sorts of reasons we have leading for different jobs there's my reasons people leave you know there's other circumstances that could cause you not to come to your job like you could win the lottery and move to an island and never come back or my more pessimistic colleague likes to say you could get hit by a bus so there's all sorts of reasons why we might not show up to work but when people do leave it's never usually at a convenient time right there's rarely a great time for people in our organization to leave us I'm kind of catches us somewhat off-guard sometimes so if we have a plan in place our lives are a whole lot easier when that does happen so we're gonna walk through a really easy way for you to get started with succession planning at your utility it's a process we call gap analysis so it's kind of a three-part process we're gonna start with looking at what is our workforce look like today the current state of our workforce we're gonna skip over and think ahead five to ten years from now what do we need in our workforce tomorrow that's our desired state of our workforce and then we're going to look at the gaps between the two and what is missing is kind of going to be our action plan in our succession planning process so break this down into more details so first step of your gap analysis is going to be thinking about what do you have today and who do you have today at your utility in your workforce this is the current save your workforce basically it's like taking a snapshot in time of what employees we have working for us what positions we have vacant what knowledge skills and abilities to each of these employees or positions currently have so I have that picture of a camera up there in the corner because current state is like a snapshot of your current workforce it's like a picture so other data you might want to collect and analyze during this process that would be helpful I'm painting this picture of what your current workforce looks like would be employee profiles you know a breakdown of how many people and what positions you have working where and also don't forget to look outside of your utility your community demographics what's your popula
ion doing is it growing is it declining and what big businesses do you support today what's your to some look like other things to be considering would be retirement you know what are your employees hard skills and soft skills do you have anyone that you're trying to develop as a new leader are you identifying potential and management and then what's the average age and tenor of your current employee what's your attrition rate what's your vacancy rate turnover rate all good things to kind of think about we're painting that picture of what we're working with today all right so the second step in our gap analysis which is helping us to succession plan is the desired state of our workforce so now we are thinking ahead in five to ten years what is our utility going to need in our workplace so that's why I have a picture of that crystal ball unlike our current state where we know exactly what we have we of course can't predict exactly what we're going to need in the future but we can take a look at some internal and external variables and we can do our best to predict what we're going to need so thinking about this think about you know what retirements you have coming up think about internally is there any ways that we can change the way work has been done you know this is a great time to think outside of the box and and not just keep doing things the way we've always been doing them because that's the way we've done it maybe there's a position that could kind of overlap and skills and maybe there's some new work we do contract that we've been doing ourselves maybe we partner with an existing utility there's different ways we could do work in the future now's the time to kind of play around with that what about changes in our shifts our shift work maybe there's been a shift that we're really struggling to have people cover you know how can we switch that up to maybe make it easier in the future to have people working that shift so then we want to take a look again externally local demographic changes any environmental changes we're facing you know are we facing more droughts are we having increased flooding events how is that going to affect us political changes of course technology is always changing in this industry how is that gonna affect who we need we don't need and then regulatory requirements what regulations do you see coming in the next five to ten years that might affect you know certifications or skills you're gonna need in the future so all of these things are good things to think about when you're thinking about that desired state of the workforce at your utility alright so first step in our workforce gap analysis was to take that snapshot of where we are today that's our current state or our workforce supply the second step we just talked about was to predict to the best of our ability where we need to be in the future that's our desired state it's called our workforce demand now we're going to take the difference between the two and figure out what's missing in the third step that's where the gaps are in our plan that's why this is called gap analysis it's called your human resources gap and I have a picture of a steak up in the corner of the slide because this is the meat of our succession planning right so what's missing it could be a single position it could be that we have all our positions filled but we're going to be missing a certification or a skill and then we think about you know how are we going to fill that gap are we going to train someone are we going to hire someone and then we can kind of play with the formula here like remove one person from the workforce what knowledge skills and abilities and certifications leave with them you know how vulnerable does that leave us as a utility so depending on your system who you have this tool could be used to think about professional development it could be used to think about reorganization it can be used to think about hiring needs etc so a lot of helpful ways to use this tool and a really easy way to get started with succession planning okay so we realized that process you know we don't have a lot of time to sit down and do this we've got you know a water treatment plant to be running 24/7 so we want to kind of prioritize and identify those critical work processes that the person doing that job if they were to leave tomorrow or something were to happen to them something really bad would happen or our utility wouldn't be able to continue doing its work okay so we want to think about in the different jobs or the different people we have other utility right now which of those people or positions have a very high organizational impact and a high probability of vacancy that makes them very high-risk and those are the people we want to start a succession planning with first okay and then you know we might have people that have a very high organizational impact and maybe you know maybe not so much of a probability of vacancy but we would still want to consider them medium risk so we want to kind of prioritize who we are going to do this process with all right so this is a quote about wastewater that I really like it applied to drinking water as well because it kind of demonstrates the importance and criticality of these jobs and the importance of finding the right people for the job so this is Kyle salmon he is a Public Works employee and my home state of Kansas and he said and one hour shift a wastewater operator will do more for Public Health that a doctor is able to do in a lifetime so you know I think the same could be said about drinking water operators they you know water is medicine for people we need it to live and it affects so many people in our community we just cannot afford to hire anyone right to do these jobs it has to be people to have the skills the talent and really our trust okay so that's going to bring us to our next topic which is recruiting people to work in this industry so this is tough and this is probably the toughest part about the water workforce challenge where do we find these people you know how do we get the younger generations interested in water careers we're gonna talk about all of that and so the short answer is we have to get out there and start telling people about these career opportunities we have to get out there and tell a positive story about working in water so it's kind of like marketing in a way and I know it's not always comfortable to think of recruiting as marketing but it really is we are trying to sell people on a water career and to do this we kind of have to think like a marketer for a little bit sounds scary but it's not we'll talk about it exactly what we need to do but the main thing you need to focus on is just tell your water story what got you in this industry why do you like working in water you know if there's a reason that you like it there's definitely people out there they're gonna resonate with those same reasons so um so side side steps campaign here this is Rosie the Riveter I'm sure you guys are familiar with this campaign or seen the pictures before so this is a recruiting campaign that was created by the US government back at World War two they needed women to work in the munitions industry when all the guys were overseas and so they created this you know bandanna clad strong-looking female Rosie the Riveter to get women to start working in the munitions industry and it did work so between 1940 and 1945 women in that work force increased 10% and so this was one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history and it kind of makes you think okay you know how can the water industry or your water utility create its own campaign to kind of recruit people to work in this industry we got to get out there and start talking about water you know visit schools visit board meetings at community events community events talking on social media online I got to get out there and start sharing our water careers with people so when we're talking about water careers we want to promote the benefits of working in water so we're gonna go through some of those benefits today and talk about how we can kind of use these in our own water campaigns so you guys will know these to be true if you work in water but you may not have thought of these benefits as selling points to the career before so we're gonna talk about four main points that you want to focus on highlighting on your employment websites on your job postings and so the four we're gonna talk about today first environmental stewardship we're gonna talk about public service talk about some personal benefits of working in the water industry and then finally the high-tech nature of the industry which is very much a selling point for people all right so environmental stewardship something we want to focus on when we're talking about how great it is to work in water protecting the environment is a selling point that interest people in not only this career but careers in general research shows that environmental messaging on a company's website increase the job seekers willingness to pursue employment with that company especially in our younger generations or Millennials and the new generation after our Millennials are called Gen Z they have a very very much to have an interest and doing work that does good for the environment so this example is from DC water who simply States on their employment webpage are you ready to improve the environment we are committed to providing world-class water and wastewater services as a leading environmental steward so in other words they're saying when you work here you do good for the environment and that's something that job seekers can feel good about you know we live in a world where big industries and businesses are kind of being shown in the media as having a detrimental effect on planet Earth and so you know providing a place to work that is helping the earth is something that people can get excited about so if you need the inspiration for updating some of the language on your hiring webpage I encourage you to visit DC waters comm slash careers they do a really great job incorporating some of these messages about working in water that you could kind of just make your own and make work for your utility so I also really like this example because it does a really great job display in our second selling point which is public service it talks about making a difference and making a profound impact in the community you know this work sounds like work that matters that excites people that encourages them to keep reading - click that find a job alright so talk a little bit more about public service and how it's definitely a selling point for working in the water industry so everyone wants to do work that matters show people all of the unique unique ways that water matters in your community show them how water touches everything we care about you know water is vital for our homes our schools our zoos recreation businesses and the street quality of life all these things water is very important - so how much water do you pump to your local pool how many miles of service lines do you have under ground kind of bring to the surface these cool facts about water that aren't easily realized but are very relatable to everyone all right I also really love the idea of using photos of your current employees um along with quotes of you know their opinion of working or what they like about working at your utility this example it shows recruits how this job is dedicated to a larger purpose how it contributes to the environment and public health alright so let's move on to talk about some personal benefits about working in the water industry as far as personal benefits there's lots of advancement opportunities in the water industry you know lots of operators start out as smaller systems and they can put in those years of experience they can take their exams to be able to kind of work up and maybe work at larger systems someday you know operators often transition from technical to more managerial positions over time and then most jobs in public works offer a variety of roles and tasks you're not going to be stuck doing the same thing every day you're not going to be stuck behind a desk all day every day you know you're gonna be able to get outside and do different things and really kind of work in different places in your community those are all things that sound interesting to people okay another personal benefit is the this industry provides an opportunity to keep learning and to keep growing so the on-the-job training opportunities professional development you know things that are gonna help people continue to grow and learn you know professionally and personally in their position all make a job very interesting and more attractive the water industry is constantly changing you know we you know this it's not stagnant regulations change to make sure the water is healthier technology is changing to help us neat regulations regulations are changing um you know and another thing that we hear people say when we ask them at our request is you know why do you like working in water or what's something that drew you to this industry we hear a lot people say well I knew that water wasn't going anywhere right there's a certain stability in this industry we're always going to need water and we're going to need clean water okay so another great selling point is all the strong and professional the strong active professional organizations both nationally and locally that provide mentoring training networking opportunities you know tell people about these opportunities to be a part of these I remember when I first kind of started working at the environmental finance center he was just learning about public water and I learned about American Water Works Association and I went home and I told my husband do you know that there is an entire national network of people just dedicated to water and he kind of looked at me and he was like I didn't but I'm not surprised like water is a pretty big deal and I was like had a lightbulb moment where I was like you know what water is a really big deal and it really got me excited and interested in the industry so make sure your recruits know how many people are working and same type of industry and what type of organization the network they'd have accessed you okay so want to take a second to talk about pay sometimes it's a touchy topic in the water industry but according to national statistics the average wage of a water worker exceeds the average national wage across all occupations so the wage advantage is especially a little more apparent at the lower end of the income scale but what this graph tells us is that for median wages in the top 75 percent of all occupations water related occupations pay slightly more than other occupations now these wages are especially attractive maybe for someone looking to earn a livable wage right out of high school there's a lot of Gen Z's who are looking for a way to make income without taking on that enormous amount of college debt so if your utility can provide them a decent wage out of high school while they maybe figure out what they want to do that's great so according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics the 2015 median pay for a water and wastewater treatment plant operator was forty-four thousand seven hundred ninety that's only four thousand under the median pay of recent graduates of four-year college programs so it is a way if you're looking to kind of avoid the college debt maybe you know high schools that we work with on our work in water program there's always counselors who are looking they're hungry for opportunities for their students that they know have great skills great potential but are not college bound students they're always looking for opportunities to put them in jobs out of high school so if you can connect with them maybe and work something out there that could be an opportunity to kind of funnel talent into your system okay so another personal benefit is just that professional connection to the communities you know part of working in water we want to educate the public about water I know lots of utilities have programs where they teach students in their community about water so
hat opportunity to share your work can just share the importance of your job with the community is something that it's kind of out of the ordinary and people might see is exciting all right and then finally more focusing on personal benefits think about selling your community as a great place to live and work I know a lot of smaller systems from smaller communities in our workshops say you know we feel like we can't compete because everyone wants to move to that up-and-coming part of the state everyone wants to live in that up-and-coming city with the jobs and the restaurants and the stuff and that's where all the younger kids are moving and but what's unique about your small town think about why you love working there and why you love living there do you have a great farmers market you know with fresh produce you know what about a local cafe or a restaurant that's kind of a hidden gym or community events like fall festivals think other reasons that you love living in your town and use those reasons to make people want to live in your town too so you know big city living it's kind of overrated there's traffic you know how long is the commute in your city how close are the schools to where you work how far away so you know people sometimes are looking for that reason to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city all of that could be very taxing and speaking of taxes you know what is your city's sales tax I live in the very up-and-coming part of Kansas and my sales tax is nine point five percent and it's tough the cost of living is very high and so if your cost of living is great make sure people know that because there could be Millennials who are ready to settle down with their family buy a house and you might be the perfect next place for them to live alright finally let's move on from personal benefits to technologies so we want to talk about all that new technology that's being used in the water industry technology is vital for younger generations there is a Pew Research study that found that students put technology in the same category as air and water so necessary for survival they need water they need air they need technology ok so younger generations are not afraid of technology it's a hallmark of success and progress it shows them that your industry is still relevant because people are investing technology into it so make sure we spell that to them ok so you know some selling points now and when I include in our job postings so next step is to take a look at your utilities job postings take a look at your employment website and get it updated so make sure you have an effective job description down for each position in your company you know they should reflect careful thought as to the roles that that individual fill the skills they'll need the personality attributes that are important to completing the tasks may sound fairly basic but you know you'd be surprised how many small companies or small systems don't have updated job descriptions on hand so I know there's a lot of HR requirements that we have to list in the actual job description or the job posting but we don't have to lead with those when we are trying to get the word out about this job right when we're posting on social media when we have kind of the opening paragraphs of our our hiring websites or we're handing out flyers and they at an event we don't have to lead with all those kind of like you know must be able to lift 50 pounds and and must be able to work outside and hot temperatures we don't have to lead with those instead we want to lead with those selling points that we talked about so use your water industry marketing campaign techniques to create targeted and meaningful attractive messaging this is your chance to really get people interested in the job really get people to keep reading so also I end with an impactful call-to-action something that encourages prospective King it's to hit that apply button something like you know if this sounds like the place where you thrive check out these opportunities or or search careers join our team and with that call to action what do you want them to do next and then if you ever get stuck or you aren't sure how to kind of update your job posting I like to just Google online or maybe look at some bigger utilities that have an entire team dedicated to these tasks to kind of find inspiration or sentences that you like and they kind of make them your own for your utility all right real quickly we are going to cover staff retention strategies because I want to have some time for some questions here at the end so there's lots of things that we can do to improve retention that doesn't involve increasing salary but let's just be honest sometimes it is about the salary okay so you know sometimes we really have to step back and have a tough conversation with our leaders our board is our utility paying more than what someone could make at you know the local big-box stores local restaurant what about competing tech industries like linemen work if the answer is no then we're not paying competitively enough with these other job opportunities and you know we're going to have to have some type of conversations about how much we're willing to pay to ensure our community has access to safe clean water so we want to think about you know on this note no business no home no school can thrive without water does our pay scale reflect that importance all right so sometimes we get it it's just not going to happen cannot increase our salaries it's not an option so if that's the case that's okay there's other ways that we can provide compensation that goes beyond the dollar beyond the bank but we're gonna have to get creative here we're gonna have to go above and beyond to attract employees with great benefits so not only official benefits like health and retirement vacation sick leave but also benefits that make working at your utility and you know and invent make it more appealing to work at your utility than to work somewhere else you know so for today's world of dual income families it can be really hard to balance work and family what benefits could your organization provide to make work and life balance achievable for your employees because work/life balance can be more important for people than pay so what can we do could we offer flexible schedules you know it could be as simple as maybe one of your employees once a longer lunch so they can get their workout in and they'll work either 15 minutes early or 15 minutes later you know it could be time off for volunteering training tuition reimbursement compressed work weeks are really popular for some employees if they have that ability to work maybe for 10-hour shifts instead of five eight-hour shifts that could be perfect for helping them manage their family life that could be the perfect job for them so get creative with what benefits and flexibility you can offer it doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all you know we can ask our employees what they need what would make their work-life balance better seem like little things that don't matter but they matter so much flexibility um helps keep our employees longer all right so um second step in retention strategy is going to be evaluation so 52% of exiting employees say their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving so we would have been taking time to give frequent feedback and evaluation with our employees we could learn you know what we can do to keep them happy before it's too late and it could be something really simple that's completely you know easy to do for us so give frequent feedback find those opportunities to talk and listen to your employees and shift the focus of the job from the evaluation of the job I'm not the person so we're evaluating the job not the person and the evaluation should not be about them as an employee but what they can do as an employee and that empowers them to kind of take control of their role in the organization so just giving your employees the chance to check in with you as a leader to talk about what's going well what challenges they're facing even if you can't fix their problems for them just giving them that chance to be heard that means a lot and that can be reciprocated and boosted morale and maybe just the thing that keeps you from losing when you're really great employees all right training there's so many training opportunities in this job so employees want to grow in their positions keeps their job from becoming stagnant so it's important for employees to see that your utility is investing in him or her the individual feels like they can continue to learn feels like they're more comfortable in their job and you know people worry about paying for staff you know to train them and then they just leave but what happens if we don't pay to train them and they stay all right final way that we can focus on employee retention is one of my favorites because it's very effective but it's completely free and that is having a continual employee focus so we pay a lot attention to making our customers happy we wanted to have that same energy and focus on making sure our staff is happy because happy staff don't leave us so assess your work environment is it comfortable is it inviting is it someplace that you want to spend 40 plus hours a week working on now some positions you know some jobs in this industry are never going to be comfortable but for this guy you know what could we do to make this guy's jobs better on this day make sure he has good equipment a truck that runs you know that has the heat working in it maybe just appreciation for his hard work on this snow day maybe it's having warm coffee back at the office you know think of ways that we can you know kind of serve our employees and show our appreciation for them simply giving recognition is so effective in keeping our employees happy so don't forget to give your attention and recognition to your all-star employees you know we think that our really good employees know that they're doing a good job but they don't always know so these employees above all the others are the ones that we don't want to leave and they need our feedback and positive recognition as well so try to reshift your energy from constantly managing maybe your more delinquent employees that take a little more oversight and start shifting your energy on your really great employees making sure they're recognized and making sure that they're happy okay to wrap it up for today we talked about why water jobs are so critical why they're so important we talked about some of the challenges that the water workforce is facing we talked about how important succession planning is we need to plan for people to leave and we need to do it before they leave and then we also talked about recruitment how we want to promote water industry jobs with key selling points and finally we talked about retention and although sometimes we do have to look at our wages we can create a value beyond the dollar recognition is a very good way to do that so that is all I have to day I think I've left us with about ten minutes for questions so it says I will hand it back over to you I think you have a quick polling question for us yes I definitely do so as you've all heard there are numerous challenges with recruiting retaining having a succession plan if you like many people struggle with this and you'd like some help maybe getting started or looking at your own gap someone like Lesley might be available to help you if you are from a small system so please go ahead and take this poll we just want to know maybe if you'd like some information about technical assistance let us know if not you can let us know and we will get in touch with you if that's something that you might be interested in so I will give you one more second just to fill this out and then I'll close it and then a second order of like housekeeping business that I wanted to take care of we have a quick evaluation form if you'd like to give us some feedback we really love just learning what you think and we include we incorporate it and all of our program updates and in our planning so there is an evaluation form going into the chat feel free to click on that and give us your feedback and I think now we can get right into the questions okay so there's just a few so I think this one this is just to reiterate yes the PowerPoint slides we will upload them as a PDF to our website and you will have access to them we will give you a link in our follow-up email and you'll be able to page through them yourself and you'll have a we should be able to send that email out within a few days okay all right so our first question for you Leslie you had mentioned that you have a work in water program just briefly could you maybe say more about what that program is and let us know how that came to be yes I can so let me actually type in the chat box here the website linked to that program it's www-what are you / working water I want to make sure I type it right so hold on bear with me there we go okay I put it in the chat box so if you wanted to go check it out you can so this is a program that we started at my university with an environmental education grant from EPA and in Kansas we basically kind of did this pilot program where we went out to different high schools and we partnered with the local utility there and we did a half-day program that educated high school students about public water and about public water careers so the first part of the day was kind of an interactive classroom session we did like some fun hands-on you know demonstrations like you know teaching them about what ground water is we had like a glass of ice that we poured orange soda in and then you know put the straw in and it was our pump and we sucked the soda out from the ground and taught them you know that's what ground water is like so we did some fun stuff like that and then the second part of the day is when we go on a field trip of the utility and just get you know students aware of what public water is and what career opportunities there are and then so for our grant we also offered an internship program so their students would apply they would interview with the utility and they would hire one summer intern that would work at the utility for the year or for the semester of summer I'm doing different jobs around the utility and so our first intern was at city of Eldorado Kansas and she was going to go to college to be an actuary and she actually decided to change her major to civic engineering and she wants to do engineering for water infrastructure now so she changed her career path and she just got a scholarship from Kansas AWWA so it's been a very successful program and I think that our water utilities that I participated in and the program have been really kind of blown away at how interested the students really were and their work you know it's just this kind of eye-opening and refreshing for the utility staff as it was for the students but if you want to learn more about that you can check it out at the website in the chatbox awesome maybe just to follow up on on that you know there are a lot of schools popping up in technical schools even charter schools and they have more of a focus on the types of competencies that would be related to the water workforce but in your experience what are some of the best ways to start the conversation or you know reach out to the counselors and get a program started that might help train some of these incoming johash that's a great great question and I should have mentioned also that at that website we have tools and templates that we use that we're very successful in helping us connect with career counselors that we have kind of just created for utilities to download to use for their own you know if they want to try to do it in their community so this year actually we took the project and we kind of made it into a train-the-trainer where we are going around to utilities and teaching them you know how we got this program started and how they can do it in their community and so we've only done that in our region EPA region 7 we haven't made it out to Alabama yet but if you're interested in his resources my colleague Tany
who manages the program would absolutely you know she would love to talk to you and get you started um but on our website we have like the PowerPoint we used for the student presentation we have tips for leading great tours of your facility and we have kind of like email templates that you can use when you're reaching out to school counselors but during this program we were surprised how on board the counselors were um with the program like I said they're just looking for opportunities for their students that maybe aren't College found so they're usually really on board but you do have to be willing to kind of do the heavy lifting for them because they just don't have time to put the program together themselves so that's why we wanted to make the program easier for you guys to get started with so if you check out that website we have all our tools all our powerpoints all our materials for you to use if you want to check it out that's fantastic so maybe just building off this discussion of resources you know you had mentioned the importance of getting all the you know the benefits and the selling points into a good job description do you also can you recommend a good place to look for some good examples of job descriptions or some good examples of really compelling or powerful usage of job descriptions and recruiting online that you've seen from water systems or where can where can people go to find some of those examples yeah so I wrote DC water does a really great job they of course have like a huge Department you know dedicated to human resources and so they have invented the wheel if you don't have to recreate or reinvent the wheel and so DC water is a great place to check out and it's usually just the bigger utilities have a little more time and resources to do it so if there's a bigger utility um near you they might have some resources if they'd be willing to share with you but really with Google um you can search really quickly and find some really great examples online even just searching on indeed there's a lot of different you know if you just search water operator there's lots of great job postings that pop up and you know there's always parts I like of some and some I don't like so much so you can just kind of pull what parts work for you and really just make it work for you your utility and make it your own awesome so we are right at the top of the hour so I think we're out of time if there's any other questions go ahead and you can always reply to any of the GoToWebinar messages or email us at small systems we will get you know your questions shuffled over to Leslie or anyone else that might be able to answer them and on that note I'd like Leslie to turn it back to you for any closing comments all right I don't think I have anything else thank you guys so much for joining me today I hope you found some of this content valuable and testsuite I think we can close it down thank you guys have a good day have a great day
