Tackling the Water Workforce Challenge: A Stakeholder Summit
The water workforce is the invisible backbone of public health and local economies, from the biggest cities to the smallest towns. By providing safe, clean drinking water and treating wastewater, these mission-critical jobs protect community health 24/7 but are often overlooked in career pathway discussions. This reality will have tangible consequences in the near future here in North Carolina. Nearly 70% of respondents to the SOG EFC’s 2024 Utility Management Survey expressed concern about the future of their workforce. Many small systems in the state rely on only one or two operators nearing retirement, leaving systems vulnerable to a loss of institutional knowledge with real risks for continuity of service, day-to-day operations, and regulatory compliance.[1]
Workforce planning has become an immediate concern, but scalable solutions remain difficult to identify. Urban utilities employ most workers and manage increasingly complex, technology-driven operations, while rural utilities, which make up most systems, often struggle to recruit and retain a small but essential workforce. Both short-term actions to stabilize staffing and longer-term, systemic approaches are needed to support a sustainable workforce.
With funding from Growing Practical Solutions for North Carolina, the SOG Environmental Finance Center and Lead for North Carolina brought together 55 stakeholders from across the state for a one-day summit in October 2025. Participants included representatives from 30 local government units/utilities across 26 counties, plus the NC Department of Environment Quality, technical assistance providers, and other entities engaged with this topic in North Carolina (Figure 1). Throughout the day, participants connected via large group and small group discussions, identifying the core drivers behind workforce challenges, sharing effective “quick wins,” and brainstorming long-term, collaborative solutions.
Figure 1: Counties with representation from local government units or utilities. (Note: Wallace, North Carolina spans two counties.)
Discussion centered around four aspects of the workforce: recruitment, retention, training/upskilling, and the resources needed to support the first three. Broadly, participants identified financial and time constraints, work culture, a lack of advancement opportunities, and insufficient or inaccessible training as drivers of workforce challenges. Low sector visibility or appreciation by both the public and local leadership is also a contributing factor. Together, these lead to limited candidate pools to recruit new staff and an inability to retain current staff, especially for small and/or rural systems. Importantly, drivers can overlap, affecting the workforce in multiple ways (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Example of overlapping drivers of workforce challenges. Aspects of the workforce are shown in gray boxes. Three examples of drivers are shown in colors. Importantly, challenges in training/upskilling and resources can also act as drivers for recruitment and retention challenges.
Participants emphasized that even small, practical changes can have a meaningful impact. Greater schedule flexibility, attention to workplace safety, and consistent, supportive supervision can improve daily working conditions and overall work culture. Modest financial steps, such as correcting pay compression, offering targeted pay for hard-to-fill positions or emergency response duties, and providing limited hiring incentives, can help stabilize morale and reduce turnover in the near term while longer-term solutions are developed. Participants also stressed the value of engaging local elected officials and senior management so that workforce needs are understood as core service infrastructure, alongside physical assets. Many of these actions are within the control of individual utilities and can be implemented on relatively short timelines.
Long-term solutions will require coordination among utilities, external partners, and potential funders. These approaches focus on building clear workforce pathways, expanding access to training, and improving the long-term stability of utility staffing across the state. Participants discussed the value of regional training networks that allow utilities to share instructors, provide on-the-job learning opportunities, and support peer learning. Larger utilities with established training programs could serve as training partners for smaller utilities, helping to address training gaps and increase overall capacity. Organizing training cohorts that include staff from multiple utilities could also strengthen professional networks and promote shared learning around common challenges.
Participants also identified additional ways to reduce vulnerability to staff shortages, including broadening basic utility management training beyond a single primary staff member and exploring staff-sharing arrangements. For staff-sharing models to work, clear interlocal agreements are needed to define roles, responsibilities, liability, cost-sharing, performance expectations, and authority.
A common theme throughout the day was a lack of external funding for workforce development. Participants noted that connecting with state legislators or philanthropic organizations may open new funding pathways for workforce training, certification costs, or salary enhancements for small and rural systems. The full suite of short-term and long-term strategies is available in the summit summary.
The challenges facing the water workforce are real, but they are also shared. By combining practical actions at the local level with sustained statewide collaboration, North Carolina can build a stable, skilled workforce that continues to protect public health and support thriving communities. The SOG Environmental Finance Center and Lead for North Carolina will continue to support this work by convening partners, sharing emerging practices, and identifying opportunities to pilot new approaches.
[1] Joseph Kane and Adie Tomer, Renewing the Water Workforce: Improving water infrastructure and creating a pipeline to opportunity (Brookings: 2018), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Brookings-Metro-Renewing-the-Water-Workforce-June-2018.pdf.