Utility Leadership - Career Progressions for Recruitment & Retention

Purpose of your presentation The purpose of this presentation will be to educate utility professionals on the career progression efforts Johnson County Wastewater (JCW) developed for our Collection System Division. Collections System did not have a career progression in place, but our operations (treatment plant staff) did. With current workforce recruitment/retention challenges, the Collections Division is where we had over 10% vacancy. This effort assisted greatly in retaining our existing employees and recruiting new employees. The career progression effort was significant, took a lot of planning and committed time from several key individuals in our organization. The career progression impacted over 50 FTE's directly and cost JCW over $500,000 to completely implement annually moving forward. We had to make sure our rate model was not impacted significantly, and it took some balancing efforts to ensure our rate-model did not change from what we had originally projected for rate increases in years prior. It was time well spent and has helped JCW maintain staffing levels which directly contribute to impacting our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) around risk in our collection system. Benefit and relevance to the water/wastewater industry Industry wide there is a national shortage of water/wastewater workers. It is anticipated, in the next 3-5 years is that 30%-50% of the water workforce is projected to retire. Nationally, the blue-collar workforce has become a constant struggle to recruit and retain employees in these vital positions. To combat these dynamics that have happened post-COVID, JCW strategically approached the collections progression implementation. Within JCW Operations & Maintenance, these positions account for over 50 FTE's and frustration/burnout was a common factor as to why people would leave the organization, along with no opportunities to move up. Further, the career progression is used as a recruitment strategy to illustrate how a 'entry level' employee can build a career at JCW. We not only developed a career progression but took the time to align the career progression with the County's Pillars of Performance and Merit scoring. Key findings and conclusions The career progression effort for JCW Collections Division improved staffing levels _____ %. We are currently still evaluating these numbers and will have final percentage numbers for this presentation. Unique aspects of your project The development of the career progression established consistency between our organization merit scoring and pillars of performance/values. We made intentional efforts to aligned these items into our career progression to ensure that we are progressing the highest level of employees and establishing the expectation that the higher they progress in their career, the more is expected in (4) four categories: Teamwork Job Proficiency Learning & Development Leadership Practices These categories derive directly from our end of year merit scoring on employee performance. They are key performance indicators based on our organization values/mission. We believe aligning these considerations strategically moves us away from 'been here the longest' progression, or 'best technical person' progression and takes into account the whole body of effort/work associated with the employees performance. JCW prides itself on being a High-Performing Organization and the progression will help us maintain our service levels in our Collections Division for the foreseeable future.