Utility Week

10 | 14TH - 20TH FEBRUARY 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Utility of the Future: Business models and skills Solution 2: inclusion and diversity A diverse and inclusive team creates a positive, productive business that makes every employee proud and comfortable to work for us. Also, with 6,000 sta in 128 locations spread across three regions, it's important we recruit and retain a diverse workforce to look a• er and re• ect the interests of people in the 8.3 million homes and businesses that receive our power. We were the UK's € rst electricity distributor to sign up to the National Equality Standard, which has accelerated our diversity and inclusivity (D&I) activities, improved the way we attract, develop and retain our diverse talent and provided us with a comprehensive framework that allows us to integrate D&I into all areas of our business, then track, measure and monitor our progress. Recruitment In addition to creating a fair environment for our employees where they can perform at their best, we also appreciate the need to be adaptable to changes in the talent market, infrastructure services and legislative requirements. In the past year we have focused on recruiting diverse talent into our industry to be more representative of the growing diversity of the UK's workforce. Ten of the 27 schools we attended in 2018 as part of our recruitment campaign had a majority of BAME stu- dents from disadvantaged areas. We have recruited six former students from there. We received 67 applications for less than 20 apprenticeships, from six schools where we successfully recruited, which was 10 per cent of total applications. UKPN: everyone's invited Last year UK Power Networks won the Utility Week Diversity Award. Here, Jean Kelly outlines the company's success so far in tackling diversity and inclusivity and explains what more there is to do. We now use a range of diversity job boards such as Vercida to € nd the best candidates for roles, and take steps to remove barriers and minimise bias in our recruit- ment process. As part of our recruitment process we introduced a "blind CV", removing names and personal details. This increased BAME apprenticeships from eight to 15 in 2018, and BAME graduates from 50 per cent to 64 per cent the same year. Overall we have increased our BAME intake from 12.5 per cent in 2018 to 16 per cent in 2019. Looking at possible gender bias in our adverts, we identi€ ed 35 phrases deemed masculine when advertis- ing a vacancy for a project manager. For example, on one advert changing the "project manager" to "you", "lead" to "manage", and "KPIs" to "meaningful metrics". As a result we saw an increase in female applicants from 8 per cent to 12 per cent for this vacancy. Sta retention It's not just about people coming into our business. In addition to recruitment, our Together the Best campaign focuses on developing a culture of retaining our diverse workforce, by ensuring all employees have equal access to development and career progression. We recently reduced our gender pay gap, with more women progressing into leadership roles, and this will continue to be our focus for 2020. Leadership buy-in is essential to drive change, so we recorded videos where business leaders talked about what inclusive leadership meant to them – to role model the correct behaviours. UKPN: everyone's invited Diversity Award. Here, Jean Kelly outlines the company's "We recently reduced our gender pay gap, with more women progressing into leadership roles, and this will continue to be our focus for 2020."

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