Water industry tackles workforce issues with e-learning

With many regions of Australia facing tandem challenges of drought and burgeoning population growth, ensuring continued supplies of safe water has never been more important.

However, the water industry sector, which also incorporates waste treatment, is facing a number of critical workforce issues. These include a shortage of skilled professionals, workers leaving the industry, high rates of retirement and a reduction in the number of new recruits.

This is compounded by the fact some regional and remote centres are witnessing declining populations, as well as an ageing population – reducing the base from which the water industry sector can draw new workers.

The sector is also structured in varying ways around the country. Water operations are managed by a mix of local governments, statutory authorities, government-owned corporations and private providers.

And as a further challenge, there are significant changes going on in institutional arrangements, legislative requirements and workforce structure throughout the sector.

To tackle these issues, the water industry sector is moving to implement a coordinated, industry-wide approach to training and development for its workers.

The Queensland Water Directorate (qldwater), in conjunction with TAFE Queensland, is spearheading a national project to promote workforce development plans that incorporate e-learning.

E-learning will help in many aspects of water industry training when face-to-face learning and distance education are insufficient because of shiftwork, staff shortages, time constraints or the remoteness of many workers.

qldwater Executive Manager Dr Rob Fearon said using e-learning as part of an overarching workforce development plan would help attract and retain staff, as well as assist them in adapting to changes facing the industry sector.

“Online learning has not been embraced broadly by the water industry,” Dr Fearon said. “However, there is growing interest from those who have seen the benefits of new and innovative approaches to e-learning.

“E-learning for water industry workers has been initially developed in Queensland with Wide Bay Institute of TAFE in an innovative way that complements face-to-face and distance education modes.”

TAFE Queensland will partner with the water industry in Queensland to develop a strategy to diffuse e-learning throughout the sector, with plans to collaborate with other registered training organisations (RTOs).

This collaboration will be informed by a reference group of national peak water bodies and RTOs as the project takes on an Australia-wide focus during its three-year span.

The project escalates the initial work of Wide Bay Institute of TAFE, which was the first RTO in Australia to comprehensively develop e-learning for the water industry sector.

Wide Bay has also developed an online ‘e-learning support process’ to help water industry sector workplaces that may have not been involved in this form of learning before.

This online tool emphasises ‘e-coaching and e-mentoring for e-learners’ by giving supervisors strategies to support their staff in their e-learning, and will be a valuable resource for the project.

This industry sector project is being funded and supported by the national training system’s e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

For information about this and other industry e-learning projects, visit the E-learning for Industry website at: http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au. This website provides rich resources, such as an online Practical guide to e-learning for industry where businesses can discover how to make e-learning work in their organisation.

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Published on 15/10/2008