The UK water industry faces a significant workforce challenge. An ageing workforce, rising regulatory expectations, and increasing technical complexity demand new skills and ways of working. However, recruitment still focuses on fitting people into established roles rather than redesigning roles to attract broader and more diverse talent. These options can help. Flexible working by design, […]
How to Stay Calm While Building Your Business: Essential Tips
Image via Pexels Entrepreneurship sounds thrilling — until you’re staring at an empty spreadsheet, three open tabs of competitors, and a bank balance that looks like a countdown timer. Every founder hits this wall: the unknown feels endless, and the pressure is real. But resilience isn’t born out of luck; it’s engineered through mindset, systems, […]
Recruiting for attitude
Two questions and an answer that showed a great attitude This post is based on an article I wrote for the 2025 Q4 Instutue of water magazine. We often talk about recruiting for attitude, but that can be hard to assess. In this article I will tell you about three candidates who others may not […]
Unlocking Underutilized Talent: A Leader’s Guide to Spotting and Elevating Hidden Potential
Image via Pexels Modern businesses don’t just suffer from talent shortages—they often suffer from misused talent. The problem isn’t always that you don’t have the right people; it’s that your best potential is quietly idling in the wrong roles. For company leaders and managers, the real challenge is learning to spot the quiet signals, design […]
Embracing Life’s Journey: My Mother’s Inspiring Response to Breast Cancer
Ten years ago, my mum who I adored was told that the breast cancer that she told us had been successfully treated was now terminal. Her response was typical of a woman who successfully raised five children while married to an alcoholic father. She simply said “I will do as much as I can for […]
Mum’s greatest lesson to me
Embracing Life’s Journey: My Mother’s Inspiring Response to Breast Cancer Ten years ago, my mum who I adored was told that the breast cancer that she told us had been successfully treated was now terminal. Her response was typical of a woman who successfully raised five children while married to an alcoholic father. She simply […]
The hardest phone call
A few years ago my best friend Dave, who I met when we were both racing motorbikes, lost his wife Sue after a long and difficult battle with cancer. I found myself in a situation that many people dread. I desperately wanted to give him a call to offer my condolences but I simply didn’t […]
More valuable than gold?
The ideal There is increasing awareness that clean drinking water and good sanitation has a far greater values than the simple economic returns it offers to water supply organisation and countries. To give a simple example: Women’s education is increasingly seen as important in helping some individuals and communities improve the quality of their lives. […]
The Tale of Young Bob
Getting started The very young Bob joined Anglian Water as a trainees laboratory technician having discovered that playing football for his university but not doing any studying wasn’t enough to get him a degree. As part of the role a chemistry HNC was obtained at his local college on day release and a decent career […]
Training ideas that work
But does the theory support the practice? This post is based on an article that John Sunderland Wright and I wrote for the Autumn 2024 edition of the Institute of Water magazine Bob Windmill, Academic Director, British Water Engineering College Entertain, Engage, Educate (c) My teaching approach is to Entertain then Engage then Educate the […]