Breaking Waves

Perry Woolner works full time for Wave as a commercial customer manager. He has worked in the water industry for many years and his knowledge and enthusiasm for helping customers to manage their water wisely and get the best possible customer service from Wave is invaluable. But managing business water isn’t his only passion. 

In his spare time, Perry is a Special Constable with Essex Police. He works as a member of the roads policing team and is also a police search specialist. Perry has been a Special Constable for almost 20 years and is a highly trained, experienced, and respected member of his policing team. This is because Wave fully supports Perry in his voluntary policing role which allows him greater flexibility around his policing duties and helps him to increase his knowledge and effectiveness within the force. 

Support from Wave

Perry explains: “Wave allow me 10 days a year on top of my annual leave entitlement to

undertake police duties. This has proved really useful as some training courses are not run over a weekend; they have to be completed with our regular officer colleagues and this additional time has allowed me to attend.

I feel suitably supported and a lot of the senior management, directors included, are genuinely keen to understand what I get up to; obviously some bits I can’t mention, suffice to say, they are content with what I can tell them!

The training offered to Special Constables in Essex is identical to that given to the regular police officers and therefore the quality of delivery and subject matter is always guaranteed. Some of the training that I’ve received over the years is clearly transferable and I’d like to think that it also provides my employer with other softer, but equally important skills such as acting with honesty and integrity at all times, listening and genuinely caring for others who, on occasions, may need some support.”

 The benefits of ESP

The forces have a real enthusiasm for helping employers understand the wider benefits that the Employer Supported Policing initiative brings to the communities. Recently, Jane Austin, Wave’s Director of HR got the opportunity to spend the day on duty with Perry and see first-hand the impact he makes in his local area. 

Jane fully supports the work Perry does to support his local community and is also proud of the fact that Perry’s training, experience and passion for his voluntary role has enabled him to lend himself to some very high-profile events across the country. In addition, Wave’s involvement in ESP has helped to raise the profile of the business across the communities in which our Special Constables work. 

Jane explained, ”Wave really cares about its employees and about its role in the community. We became an ESP partner to celebrate and promote the importance of workplaces supporting ‘Specials’. Wave give 10 days’ additional paid leave per year for our ‘Specials’ to attend police training and other duties.

The transferrable skills Special Constables have should not be underestimated. We’re so lucky to have Perry working for us, he is a valued senior manager and he has supported the HR department on many occasions. Perry is trauma trained and was able to give immediate help when one of our senior managers arrived into work one day in complete shock, having been the first on the scene of a serious road traffic accident on his way to work. No one in our organisation could have dealt with this in the way Perry did, and as well as bringing much needed calm, he was able to advise of what to do next and how to get ongoing support.

As HR Director at Wave, I deal with many employee cases, including stalking, domestic violence, and other difficult situations and on occasion, Perry has been able to give me immediate and guided advice on these issues, and has shared the specialist knowledge and training he has. I can’t recommend enough the value to the business of supporting this great national programme.”

Work with your local force 

If you have Special Constables working within your business are you able to offer them extra leave to take part in specialist training? Are you taking advantage of the extra skills they have to offer? Why not talk to your local police about how you can work more closely together. 

Our volunteering plans started back in 2019 as part of our work with public sector bodies across the London area. 

We set up a partnership with the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority who look after a number of special sites, wildlife and visitor attractions down the length of the Lee Valley and they were keen to help us deliver our vision in London. 

Covid-19 halted plans, but we’re back!

When Covid-19 hit, everything ground to a halt. But just like Arnie, we’re back and we’re excited to share news of our new partnership with the Canal & River Trust! They’re a registered charity who care for over 2,000 locations across the UK’s canals and rivers, preserving sites of England’s industrial heritage and improving areas for the benefit of the wildlife and plants that inhabit them. For local communities, they also create wonderful experiences for visitors to relax in, enjoy sporting pastimes and just be near the water.

On 20 October we were delighted to hold our first event with the Canal & River Trust at the Tees Barrage in Stockton on Tees. We spent the day outside in the fresh air getting stuck into some wildlife and environment maintenance projects to support this charity’s great work. 

We were in the safe hands of the charity's rangers who provided the tools and instructions we needed to carry out the tasks needed to preserve the environment for local wildlife and visitors. 

There was a great turn out from our local public sector customers, and to mark the occasion, we invited the Leader of Stockton on Tees Borough Council, Bob Cook, to open the event as well as join us for the first hour to learn about the activities we carried out and the benefits they will bring. 

Look out for our upcoming social value days 

As part of our commitment to the public sector, we’ll be running more volunteering days just like this one. This is what we have on offer:

• The opportunity to support great charities who are preserving our heritage and wonderful places for plants and animals to live and for people to visit
• The chance to spend the day networking with other people in similar positions to yourself, sharing tasks and building relationships
• A great PR exercise that will be promoted widely 
• An opportunity for your organisation to clock up some valuable social value brownie points towards your community support goals.

On the 1st of October, we held the first ever meet of our Public Sector Innovation Forum over Microsoft Teams. Its purpose is to bring together representatives from across the Public Sector to openly discuss and debate the current challenges and opportunities surrounding water and wastewater management.

The forum is chaired by Oli Shelley, Wave’s Head of Operations and supported by the Deputy Chair, Yulia Treskova, from Lewisham Borough Council who was elected by forum members to fulfil this extremely important role. Throughout the forum, she will have the final say on the agenda of future meetings in order to ensure the forum is focused on finding solutions that fully serve the Public Sector, so our sincere thanks to Yulia for stepping up!

Understanding the challenges facing the Public Sector

In the first session we had a detailed discussion about some of the challenges facing the sector around water and waste water management. We intend to take these and form a Challenge Register that will be used by Wave and the Public Sector to tap into the vast market place of innovators to find new and novel solutions.

The Challenge Register is currently being reviewed but some strong themes are already emerging, such as:

• Better/cheaper Data Collection options
• Streamlining resolution of operational issues (e.g. meter exchanges/leaks on meters)
• Managing water consumption on remote sites/sites not frequently visited
• Better access to water efficient devices
• Effective management of landlord supplies not currently in the non-household market.

Meet the innovator

The forum also aims to bring in innovators and new technology providers whose ideas and technology are at development or beta stage, to gain insight and feedback from end users.

At the first session we were joined by Colin Payne and Jana Voigt of InferSens to demonstrate their low cost, remote water temperature and flow sensing technology. 

Following their presentation, a good discussion was held within the forum and members felt the device had some interesting applications around effective management of legionella risk. InferSens even offered some free trials to members of the forum and we very much hope to be in a position to report back on the progress of these for the next newsletter.

If you’d like any further information on the InferSens product or a copy of the presentation from the day please contact the Innovation Forum Chair, Oli Shelley.

Next Steps

Our next meeting will take place in January 2022 where we’ll review the first draft of the Challenge Register and meet more new innovators.

The membership of the group is very fluid (pardon the pun!) so if you’d like to take part, please contact your Wave account manager or the Chair, Oli Shelley.