The jewel in our crown is our new Management Development framework, ‘Leadership, Excellence, Action and Development’ (LEAD) programme. LEAD represents an unprecedented investment by NI Water to grow current and future management capability throughout the organisation. This 7 year framework is delivered in partnership with a consortium of expert learning consultants since 2023 and will ultimately see a 30% of the workforce trained by the end of 2024/25. This framework develops world class leadership skills to drive and inspire high performance at all levels in NI Water, supporting our people at every stage of their career development and continue our commitment to provide a great place to work.
Outcomes of our employees’ skills development and lifelong learning culture
- Through developing our employees’ skills, 85% of 2023 promotions were filled internally including two Director positions.
- Our people choose to stay with us, we have low staff turnover of 5.4% (1/3 due to retirement) and high average tenure of 18 years. When people stay, their knowledge, experience and skills remain.
- Our employer brand is strong in the marketplace attracting almost 1000 applications for 28 apprenticeship places and 650 applications for our re-skilling programmes (24 roles) in 2023.
- We are levelling up Northern Ireland through effective outreach programmes in schools, further education colleges and local universities. We are removing barriers to employment for young people from socially deprived areas such as replacing the requirement for GCSE English and Maths for our Water Utility Apprenticeship Programme, with a skills-based assessment.
Our commitment to champion employee skills development and lifelong learning culture has helped us achieve one of our most successful business years to date, achieving and even exceeding operational, analytical and customer targets.