Regional Collaboration on Workforce Reliability: The BAYWORK Business Model

BAYWORK, a regional consortium of 28 water/wastewater agencies in Northern California, was founded in 2009 and has accomplished a lot since then in four areas: Development of qualified candidates for mission-critical skilled trades and engineering jobs; Providing current employees with the information they need to do quality work; Modifying work to optimize the use of staffing available; and maximizing the cost-effectiveness of workforce reliability investments through collaboration. As water and wastewater agencies in other parts of the country learn about these accomplishments, BAYWORK signatories often hear interest in the idea of developing similar consortiums in other geographical areas. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief history of what we did, but also to describe to the best of our ability (1) factors that contributed to our success, (2) principles underlying our approach, (3) lessons learned, and (4) our suggestions for water/wastewater utilities who may want to explore creation of similar regional efforts. Factors we think have contributed to BAYWORK’s success, which will be discussed more in the paper, include the following: A practical operations perspective; Geographical proximity of a number of water/wastewater agencies experiencing similar threats to workforce reliability; and a history of cooperation between Bay Area water and wastewater utilities in areas of shared interest. Basic principles in our approach, which will be discussed in the paper, include the following: A comprehensive strategy; A practice of building on careful, methodical research, so that programs are based on documented needs and approaches; An interest in using technology to upgrade the way we do our work; An inclusive approach that involves stakeholders and relies on ongoing input on the priorities of signatories; fastidious attention to branding and quality control in our products and programs; and commitment to sharing everything we learn or produce with the water/wastewater industry as a whole.