Thursday, 23 February 2017, was the award ceremony for the Future Water Association People award and we were delighted that Jason Hine had been shortlisted for this national award which aimed to recognise people within the industry who had made a significant impact both to their organisation and to the industry.
Many people will know that Jason has worked in a number of operational roles within the company and he is drawing on this experience in the development of a range of training and development activities which are enhancing the skills and expertise of our workforce. His overall approach to developing our workforce has made a difference across the business in many ways: improved health and safety performance; our training and assessment records are accurate; approval from our clients and in the recent employee survey many of the respondents commented extremely favourably in relation to the range of training opportunities available.
Jason is currently working on the CITB supported programme of developing and introducing the Diploma in Sewerage and Drain Maintenance – a qualification for our workforce, with the opportunities to acquire new skills and knowledge, where at the moment there is no such award for employees working in this industry. The plan for this is to pilot the scheme with around 6 employees who will work towards the award and then gradually involve more groups of staff as the programme develops.
He played the lead role in implementing the Work Mobile initiative with our Wales colleagues and this was so successful, Welsh Water asked if this could be rolled out to their staff and this request has been fulfilled. A similar request from Leeds Council has also been addressed.
Whilst Jason may not have come away from the ceremony with the award, it was important for him to know how much value the company has placed on his contribution to our training and development activities but also the wider organisation and this, along with his enthusiasm for learning and development, constantly looking for ways to improve working practices and engaging our workforce in their own development – is why we decided he should receive national recognition.