This post is based on an editorial piece I wrote for the Q1 2016 Institute of Water Journal which was focused on current and future skills issues<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think that the two most important future skills for the water industry are Measuring the Future and Non-Traditional Recruitment. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is tempting to think of future skills in terms of roles and numbers in years ahead, but I believe this approach is doomed to fail. Our world is simply too complex for any one approach to succeed. In this article I explain why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
By \u201cMeasuring The Future\u201d I mean using data modelling for role specific planning, identifying and using strong and weak signals to highlight trends, and building scenarios to identify current and emerging skills needs in a timely manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my experience a good role specific modelling solution is EU Skills\u2019 Workforce Planning Model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By contrast AMI Enterprise Intelligence is excellent for mining of unstructured web data to uncover the strong trends and weak signals that give insight into future skills trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenario planning I see as a core skill that all aspiring and existing managers should have at their fingertips as a way of gaining insight into the skills needs of potential futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, any forecast, prediction or scenario is only as good as the action that it leads to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Backcasting provides this, asking the question \u201cwhat do I need to be doing today to take best advantage of the future that I see?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The key point is that just because you are looking a long way in the future doesn’t mean that prioritised, costed action plans are not needed today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do a young pay corporal from the RAF and an unemployed 54-year old electrician have in common? I appointed both as works technicians against the advice of my peers \u00a0and both went on to have great careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the pay corporal I saw a man who could take 200 troops abroad for three months, get them all back home and make the books tally to the penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Organisational skills like that rare and he used them to great effect in the technician role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The electrician, while unemployed, went back to college and gained two further HNCs, and at interview articulated beautifully what he could bring to the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He quickly became the respected father figure of the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The water industry is operating in an exponentially changing environment and needs to equip itself with the skills to understand and manage the future at all organisational levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Against this uncertainty are the two certainties of the falling number of young people in the population and lack of engagement with STEM subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get the future workforce that it needs the water industry will have to re-think at how it turns work into roles and jobs and look outside the traditional candidate pools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post. If you have thoughts on what I have written so far please leave a comment. Also if you have an idea for another business topic let me know and I\u2019ll be delighted to find a space for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks again<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bob windmill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Post This post is based on an editorial piece I wrote for the Q1 2016 Institute of Water Journal which was focused on current and future skills issues I think that the two most important future skills for the water industry are Measuring the Future and Non-Traditional Recruitment. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-publications"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Bob Windmill","author_link":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/?author=2"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajodT-6R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":763,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}