Aquafed and RWSN have carried out research to inform a project that will design guidance for utility and service provision managers to help them create opportunities in the sector that attracts the most talented young people. As such, water and sanitation services providers, including utility managers, are being called on to support work to recruit and retain the best young professionals for the sector.
From listening to young professionals both in the sector and other connected sectors such as climate change and health, the messages are that they:
- Want to move around between jobs more easily within the sector rather than stay in one organisation;
- Want to be able to move between related sectors such as water, health, environment, and climate change;
- Don’t want to be known as just water professionals and see themselves as part of wider agendas on climate change and sustainability;
- Have new skills and ways of working that are not recognised or understood by employers and that are much more transferrable than employers acknowledge;
- Can be encouraged and incentivised not just financially but through the opportunities of experiences, networks and more formal recognition of their contributions.
