04 July 22
Grant Wordsworth #OurPeople – No two days are the same working in the water industry
In a new #podcast for Affinity Water, Grant Wordsworth, talks about a day in his life, and gives advice on how to pursue any one of the many varied careers the water industry can offer.
Within Affinity Water there are roles in everything, from finance and legal to engineering and science to customer service and operations, digital and transformation and much else in between.
Grant came into the industry later in life after working across Europe and the UK using his engineering qualifications. He wanted to work locally and knew little about how interesting the water industry is to work for. As a Quality Manager he deals day to day with business management and emergency procedures, which can involve very intense working with the 50 or so teams across the business and the emergency services to keep the water flowing to customers’ homes and local hospitals and businesses.
“No two days are the same”, Grant tells listeners. He continues: “We identify the risks; we identify the processes we need to have on the standby and be prepared for. We rehearse those and unfortunately every now and again we must implement them. From those implementations we learn what didn’t work properly, or where things could be improved. The customer is key, public safety is paramount, getting water to customers whether they are vulnerable or just general customers, is really important to us and it is one of the obligations under the legislation we have assigned to us.”
During his working life Grant has kept up his profession CPD, Career and Professional Development, regularly embarking on training courses and is a member of three national professional bodies. He’s a Chartered member of The Chartered Quality Institute; A member of the Institute of Asset Management; and a specialist at the International Institute of Risk and safety Management.
He advised: “Things have changed from when I started. Digital, digital information and the use of digital technology is key. The ability to analyse situations and the ability to respond. Those are the principal fundamentals of any water company across the industry. I would recommend that you would join an Institute. Not necessarily the ones I have joined but the Institute of Environmental Management or the International Register of Certified Auditors, they can advise you on a career that will be of benefit to Affinity Water.
“Within Affinity Water there’s training on the job, and training for graduates, and training for managers done to professional standards”.
Grant’s best and worst moments can come about by attending one of the emergency incidents he may have to deal with:
”The worst moments are being phoned up early one morning and told there is a risk of 150,000 customers being without water and told we would have to supply bottled water to them. We had to work out the logistics of this, and of re-routing and re-modelling the water supply. But 12 hours later that resulted in my best day because no customers had been without water. We had all got together across our teams to deliver a great outcome.
“It can be fun as well, and I have four key words of advice: Plan, Do, Check, Act. Plan everything. Do what you plan. Say what your plan is. Check your plan is working. If it is not put it right!”