Australian Water Industry Operator Exchange Program
The Water Industry Operators Association of Australia (WIOA) in partnership with the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), are collaborating with a new initiative being the first Australian Water Industry Operator Exchange Program. Both WIOA and WSAA recognise the need to proactively address a critical problem facing the urban water sector nationally, notably a growing shortage of quality training options to support critical water occupations such as our operators.
The aim of the Operator Exchange Program is to provide selected operators with an opportunity for development outside of their direct employment. This is to be achieved by spending time at another organisation’s water treatment plant, or wastewater treatment plant, or field services depot.
The participating operator can share experiences with processes, monitoring, technologies, equipment used and then take those learnings back to their organization for consideration and discussion.
How would the exchange work?
The exchange does not have to be reciprocal and can be an operator from one organisation visiting another organisation’s facility for one week. Participating organisations will need to support the program and their employee’s expenses i.e. accommodation, travel and any out of pocket expenses.
WIOA will provide a coordination role, and the opportunity to share employee learnings and development with the broader water industry and other participating organisations. WIOA will arrange an introductory meeting between the participant and the participating organisation prior to the exchange taking place.
WSAA will promote the Program and assist with facilitating collaboration and identification of leading practice.
How to nominate?
The first step in the process is for your organisation to complete an Expression of Interest of your intent to participate in the Program. Please complete the web form below to nominate your organisation, and to provide the details (name, title, phone, and email address) of a high level contact for further development of the Program and communication with your organisation.
Once we have received all the Expressions of Interest, we will contact all interested organisations for a second time and request them to provide details on a proforma sheet of the plant(s) they wish to make available for visits from other operators. These details will then be entered into a database.
When we have established this database, we will contact you a third and final time in this initial phase for you to identify and nominate operators who you wish to offer this opportunity to, and for them to search the database, decide which plant they wish to visit, enter those details to the data base, and then make contact with WIOA to initiate the exchange.
For further information contact WIOA on 03 5821 6744 or info@wioa.org.au