Operations and Customer Technical Lead

We are Uisce Éireann. Every day, we are responsible for the delivery of secure, safe, and sustainable water services for the people of Ireland. As Ireland's national regulated water utility, our vision is a sustainable Ireland where water is respected and protected, for the planet and all the lives it supports.

Our purpose at Uisce Éireann is to rise to the challenge of delivering transformative water services that enable communities to thrive. That means we are proud to take on the responsibility of protecting our water supply and passing on a safe and secure water system to a rapidly growing population and empowering Ireland's social and economic growth.

We are passionate about empowering our people, enabling them to make a positive impact on communities across Ireland. We are guided by a shared vision and purpose, grounded in values that define who we are and shape how we work, where we deliver for customers and communities, we work better together, we do the right thing, we aim high, and we keep each other safe. Our behaviours define how we interact, communicate, and succeed together. These values and behaviours apply to each one of us, across every role, location, and level.

Our goal is to attract and develop skilled and talented people from diverse backgrounds, who bring a dynamic range of expertise and insights to our work. With a strong, values-driven workforce, we ensure Uisce Éireann can continue advancing Ireland's water services and meeting the needs of the communities we serve for generations to come.

The Role:

The Asset Operations function forms the cornerstone of service delivery to customers, protecting the environment and meeting regulatory standards as well as managing the majority of operational expenditure. The Asset Operations function has responsibility for operational and maintenance strategy, policies, planning and standard operating procedures for Water and Wastewater operations both nationally and regionally, ensuring that value for money and customer service is delivered.

The Operations and Customer Technical Team is responsible for overseeing the resolution of technical/engineering issues and service risk as they arise within the region. The focus of this team will be to ensure the provision of technical analysis, service risk management and enhanced Customer service through efficient handling of escalated complaints and queries.

Reporting to the Regional Technical Operations Manager, the Operations and Customer Technical Lead will be assigned an appropriate role in the Regional Technical Operations team and will be responsible for supporting customers in the resolution of escalated technical/engineering issues, including service risk and safety issues, as they arise within the region. The focus of this role will be to support customers and service risk management, providing technical support and knowledge of operational performance capabilities in order to contribute to the efficient and effective operation of water and wastewater assets.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Responsible for promoting a culture of safe practice and ensuring full compliance with health and safety legislative and UÉ requirements.
• Responsible for supporting customers through the resolution of Asset Operations escalations, complaints and Elected/Local Representative queries.
• Manage the responses to Information Requests including FOI, AIE, Media, Legal and Insurance Claims.
• Responsible for reporting progress on customer risk identification, mitigation and escalation.
• Responsible for supporting the resolution of technical/engineering escalations.
• Provide sound technical analysis of the escalated operational, maintenance and repair issues across both Treatment and Network assets. This includes the sourcing of local knowledge of assets and operational performance capabilities to support the timely resolution of non routine, specialised activities (e.g. nuisance issues, complaints, troubleshoot equipment failures, network and infrastructure failures).
• Responsible for making technically correct operational, maintenance and repair decisions in a timely manner (using the available data), with efficient use of resources and budget, giving consideration to innovative solutions where relevant and in line with sustainability targets.
• Responsible for providing good service to support customers during the resolution of operational, maintenance and repair issues at a Regional level. This includes ensuring that there are minimal escalations of issues to other Uisce Éireann functions and driving to resolve within Operations as quickly as possible to minimise delay and disruption to customer service.
• Work collaboratively to act as a technical interface for other specialised teams in UÉ.
• Act as the Asset Operations technical interface to external bodies e.g. Local Authorities, Road Authorities, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and assist with audits or information requests as necessary.
• Responsible for supporting with complex water/wastewater system integrity challenges, acting as an escalation point for determining cause of challenge, forecasting the impact of challenge, defining scope for site surveys and investigations, and identifying options for resolving challenges.
• Ensure all information (including service risks) are accurately recorded and promptly reported for audit purposes and service risk escalations using the technology systems provided.
• Contribute to the development of business processes/procedures as may be required.
• Contribute to achieving the objectives and targets of the Asset Operations Business plans.
• Responsible for monitoring and reporting KPIs for processes over which ownership is held.
• Provide network and engineering support as required in incident and emergency response.
• Participate in the support and management of Task Forces / Focus Groups set up to manage key needs of the business.
• Participate in the support of National Initiatives established to meet the needs of the business.
• Manage technical scoping workshops as required to verify scope of capital maintenance requests to Asset Planning.
• Participate in out of hours and standby working as required.
• Perform line and performance management duties as required.
• Carry out any other duties deemed necessary and / or required by management.

General Duties and Responsibilities

• Collaboration with key external and internal stakeholders across the UÉ business
• Responsible for promoting and delivering health and safety commitments across UÉ and its supply chain, reinforcing positive behaviours and delivering health and safety objectives and requirements to the highest industry standards.
• Support the delivery of the Uisce Éireann Transformation Programme, driving results required within the Directorate and supporting organisation-wide objectives.
• Conducts duties and responsibilities in accordance with Uisce Éireann's Information Security policies, standards, processes and controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of UÉ business information, and delivery of critical services, in accordance with the NIS Directive and any other relevant cybersecurity regulation.
• Other duties as required.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Relevantthird level qualification and / or accreditation is desirable
• A minimum of 5 years' experience in a customer-focused role in the water, utilities or similar industries is desirable and / or relevant experience
• We keep each other safe - experience / understanding of working within a strong health & safety culture
• Knowledge of water or wastewater treatment and network assets
• We do the right thing - knowledge of risk management principles and guidelines (ISO 31000) and risk identification at water and wastewater assets
• Knowledge of the application of the current legislation, standards, processes and procedures relevant to water abstraction and treatment / wastewater treatment and network management
• Knowledge of assets and operational performance capabilities to support the timely resolution of non-routine, specialised activities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• We work better together - ability to engage collaboratively with Frontline staff and a broad range of internal stakeholders across various functions and achieve set objectives
• Ability to prioritise and make decisions based on analysis of information within a very fast paced, customer-focused environment
• Knowledge of managing process compliance an advantage
• Experience of line and performance management duties

Uisce Éireann is an equal opportunities employer.

We are committed to providing a diverse and inclusive place of work and have a robust strategy and framework called ibelong to enable this. We are an equal opportunity employer and through our recruitment process we welcome and encourage applications from interested and suitably qualified individuals regardless of gender, age, racial or ethnic origin, membership of the traveller community, religion or beliefs, family or civil status, sexual orientation/gender identity or disability.