Employee Training and Career Development

AWWA Policy Statement on Employee Training and Career Development

It is the policy of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) to:

• advocate for competency‐based training and career development within the water profession;
• develop and offer relevant and timely curricula and learning resources for its members; and,
• strongly encourage member organizations to formally dedicate time and resources for employee participation in training and career development opportunities.

Competency and continuing skills updates are critical for water professional employees who carry an immense responsibility of guarding public health and safety. Training and skill updates are essential to keep pace with ongoing changes resulting from multiple factors, among them new scientific findings, more stringent regulations, technological updates, increasing customer expectations, aging infrastructure, growing focus on health, dwindling supplies of high‐quality source water and increasing costs.

Skill enhancement and career development improve the water profession’s ability to retain qualified, experienced employees and to attract new, highly‐capable, enthusiastic individuals.

For all of these reasons, AWWA strongly recommends that member organizations adopt formal policies to endorse and allocate resources to provide competency‐based training and career development for employees in all career lines, at all levels, and based on equal opportunity.

Practices specified in this policy statement are consistent with all other pertinent AWWA policy statements.

Adopted by the Board of Directors Jan. 30, 1977, revised June 22, 1986, and reaffirmed Jan. 27, 1991, and revised Feb. 2, 1997, and June 17, 2001, and June 12, 2005, and June 8, 2008. Reaffirmed by the Board of Directors January 20, 2013. Revised Jan 14, 2017.