A few weeks ago I was on site filming, and within minutes I was being mocked for my clean boots. They were brand new 😉
Fair enough. How dirty your boots are says a lot about your experience in this industry. It’s also a quick way to earn a bit of trust. By the end of the week mine were thick with mud, and I’d like to think the team trusted me that bit more.
It made me think about how important it is to be on site and see real life. You can’t set expectations from the comfort of an office, or change behaviour from a Teams call. People respect training that comes from experience and an understanding of the delivery end.
And that especially matters because the water industry needs new people to deliver AMP8. Energy & Utility Skills estimates the UK water industry will need 43,700 people to join its workforce for the first time by 2030. That includes replacing 13,700 people, 16% of the workforce, who are forecast to retire.
Plenty of those retiring started on the tools and worked their way up. They have the dirtiest boots in the industry, and their knowledge and experience is hard to replace. Many of those joining will have brand new boots and limited experience.
That’s a lot of knowledge walking out the door.
So get back to basics. Show people what good looks like. And get your most experienced people sharing what they know while they’re still here.
Who in your business holds knowledge you couldn’t replace if they left tomorrow?
