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Strategic Response 11

Employer of choice

With an ageing population, an increasing shortage of technically skilled employees and increasing demand for
more flexible approaches to working, we will need to continue to be an employer of choice; attracting, developing
and inspiring people from a diverse range of backgrounds, to deliver an excellent service for our customers.

SR11 - Employer of choice with Annette Mason

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The strategic response will include:
• Health, safety and well-being strategy –
demanding safe behaviour and ways of
working, becoming a smoke free
business, well-being champions
supporting employees with both
temporary and permanent mental health
illness, achieving and maintaining the
Welsh Government Platinum Corporate
Health Standard;
• Talent and Resource Plan – embedding
the responsibility for managers to develop
their teams and succession plans at every
level in the business;
• Lean and Service Excellence –
embedding a culture where employees
continually seek out increasingly efficient
and innovative ways of working; and
• Employer of Choice - utilising new
technology and latest recruiting methods
to attract diverse new talent with a
passion for delivering a great customer
experience. Investing in the continuous
development of all employees, promoting
innovation and securing retention of key
knowledge and skills;
• Improved internal communication –
building a shared understanding of our
objectives, plans, policies and the needs
of our customers, enabling integrated
working across teams and better planning
for succession;
• Leadership development - we will
continue to equip our leaders and aspiring
leaders with contemporary coaching,
mentoring and people management skills
via our Welsh Water Leadership
Programme;
• Customer focused employees – We will
develop, coach and continually assess
our colleagues on both a team and
individual basis to enhance our
customers’ experience when they interact
with us, irrespective of which media they
choose to use;
• Strong employee relations – Welsh
Water’s ‘Working Together Agreement’
forms the basis of our partnership
approach with our Trade Unions. In place
for 25 years, this joint problem solving
approach provides a strong foundation for
employee relations. Our mutual aims to
provide a high quality working
environment with good terms and
conditions and opportunities for
development, have provided a solid
platform for progressive levels of flexibility
and service to our customers.
• Creating an inclusive environment and
promoting diversity - changing behaviours
to create a fully inclusive, engaging Welsh
Water. Our leaders will be role models of
inclusive behaviour to ensure all
employees feel safe and able to be
themselves at work. We also will facilitate
diversity and inclusivity training for all our
people, giving them the tools they need to
mitigate the effect of unconscious bias.
We will nominate inspiring leaders to
champion inclusivity activities and
promote the benefits of a diverse
workplace force and inclusive culture.
• Welsh Water aims to be an employer of
choice at all stages of career.
Improvements to succession planning
and operational flexibility will be
implemented to meet the needs of a
changing demographic.
• Promote community work – we will
encourage our people staff to get involved
in community roles.
• Zero tolerance of discrimination – we will
ensure that all our people are aware of
our zero-tolerance approach to any form
or harassment or discrimination through
educations films, e-learning and
workshops;
• Promoting diversity – We will promote and
support activities to ensure we retain
existing talent and continue to attract new
talent from all minority groups. Our
recruitment campaigns will celebrate our
commitment to creating an inclusive
culture;
• Engaging young people –our STEM team
will engage with young people across our
operating area. We will also continue to
support workshops that provide young
people with key skills that are relevant to
our business, through our Welsh
Baccalaureate resource. We will
encourage our leaders and aspiring
leaders to mentor disadvantaged young
people to encourage them to pursue a
career with us;
• Employability – we will expand the
number of internships and work
experience placements we offer every
year and promote them through our
schools, colleges and university contacts.
Moreover, we will continue to offer our
employability skills programme both
internally and externally, with a particular
emphasis on equipping women with the
skills to secure employment and
promotion in STEM roles;
• Apprenticeships – we will expand our
apprenticeship programme to reflect the
skills we need for the future, for example,
data science and cyber security and
promote opportunities widely to schools
and higher education institutions. Our
education and talent development teams
will actively support Welsh Government’s
STEM delivery plan for Wales;
• Graduates – we will continue to invest in
graduate schemes for STEM and other
core skills we rely on, such as data
science and IT; and
• Welsh Water technical academy –
develop a Welsh Water Technical
Academy to ensure sufficient and welltrained
technicians to operate the
increasingly sophisticated control
processes of the future.

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Welsh Water will explore the following
research topics to support this strategic
response:
• Understand future ways of working and
how Welsh Water can develop its work
environments and cultures to encourage
collaborative and efficient working and
healthy and happy colleagues;
• Understand future gaps in skills and
knowledge in our people and work with
colleges, universities and industry
institutions to encourage uptake of those
skills.
We will work with Government, charities and
other interest groups to develop a more
inclusive workplace with greater diversity,
particularly in STEM roles.

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If you would like to find out more about all the Strategic Responses please CLICK HERE
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