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Are you interested in driving business performance and delivering an essential service to 15 million customers?
Our Operations graduates get the chance to make a real impact on people’s lives on a daily basis. This is a two-year pathway that includes learning all about the industry, on-the-job placements, and lots of development. You’ll be our operational and technical leaders of the future, so we’ll get you ready for this challenge with a mixture of technical and aspiring leaders training, and hands-on experience. You’ll get exposure to senior leaders, technical experts and our frontline teams at the heart of the business. All we ask is that you have undertaken and passed a degree level qualification and come with loads of energy, ideas, and a determination to succeed.
Your base will change dependent on your on-the-job role placements and career path as you progress. Therefore, we look for graduates who can be flexible and our operating area runs from East London, throughout the Thames Valley to Swindon, with our head office in Reading.
What could you be doing as an Operations Graduate?
Our operational teams manage our water and wastewater networks, treatment, operational sites and frontline operational service delivery. They look after our sites, equipment, people, and customers on a daily basis. As well as this, they also drive a variety of projects and programmes to continuously develop what we do and drive efficiency and service. You’ll be based at one of our key sites and will eventually be responsible for leading and developing our front-line teams to deliver excellent customer service and operational performance. Between the office and the field, you’ll provide direct support, engagement and performance management both to the team as a whole and on a 1-to-1 basis. Alternatively, you may be carrying out a project to increase efficiency, improve a process or implement a new initiative.
What can you expect from the Operations Pathway?
All our graduates complete a two-year core graduate development programme, supported by two on-the-job role placements and additional training and development. Throughout, you’ll have support from managers and mentors. The programme has been designed around you to make sure you can maximize your potential. It has several elements that support you starting confidently in our business and develop your knowledge, skills and experience to succeed. You’ll be joining a network of graduates already in our business and will have all the support you need from day one. We review our programme each year, with core elements including:
- Business and personal development modules
- Health and safety training
- A charity business challenge
- Time to Give volunteering days
- Coaching
- Mentoring and buddying opportunities
Life after the Graduate Programme
Our Operations Graduates have careers as unique as they are and you’ll find them in a variety of roles across our business, including senior leadership roles. Wherever you start in our business will give you a good grounding to develop and shape your career. You will work towards leading our operational front-line teams. You may lead key projects or initiatives to improve our business too. After successfully completing the Operations pathway our graduates have landed in roles leading frontline teams, as Performance Managers, Business Analysts, Programme Managers, and more!
What kind of graduate are we looking for?
We are a diverse business and are looking for self-driven graduates who are confident stepping into new environments, adding value and whose values reflect ours:
- Reach higher, be better
- Take care
- Passionate about everything we do
- Be respectful and value everyone
- Be proud, be blue
We’re looking for individuals who would describe themselves as driven towards understanding how things work; enjoy putting in place solutions and have many ideas and activities on the go at any time. Our graduates enjoy influencing colleagues and sharing ideas and creativity. They thrive on working with others, respecting their views and valuing the diversity around them. They are humble and decent and treat others the way they’d like to be treated. They also hold great passion for the industry we work in and our future aspirations.
Requirements
A bachelor’s degree along with loads of energy, ideas and determination to succeed.
We have a variety of placements in our Operations Programme and find that those with a STEM degrees tend to be well suited to our business, however we do accept applications from all degree disciplines.
