With low unemployment rates, a highly competitive job market and the post-pandemic 'great resignation' phenomenon, attracting and retaining talent is an increasing challenge for our sector, particularly in executive roles and in corporate areas such as IT and finance. We are also facing serious skills shortages and training constraints for technical and specialist roles, both in traditional water operations and emerging business areas like energy and emissions. Added to all this is the need to prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce while still maintaining essential service provision and productivity.

Our panelists will share their insights into the current and future workforce risks and challenges facing our sector, and how we might address them.

Facilitator: Christina Bassani, General Manager-People & Customers, Goulburn Valley Water

Panelists:

• Cameron FitzGerald, Managing Director, Southern Rural Water
• John Day, Executive Operations, North East Water
• Kris Grant, CEO, ASPL Group

FORMAT: Panel
DURATION: 60 minutes including Q&A

Climate change impacts our lives in varied ways, most often from the perspective of weather, catastrophes and social changes. We look at it from a macroeconomics perspective and outline the physical risks, as well as transition risks. Each come with their own challenges and no one believes there is a simple solution. However, these changes will impact economies for decades to come, and this, in turn, will have their own impacts on interest rates.

Speaker: Emma Lawson, Senior Economist, TCV

FORMAT: Presentation
DURATION: 45 minutes including Q&A