The Institute of Water has joined over 40 other employers in making a commitment to ensure the Energy & Utilities sector workforce is inclusive and diverse.
A key priority of the Energy & Utilities Workforce Renewal Skills Strategy 2020 is attracting and recruiting more diverse talent into our sector which reflects our local communities. Currently, our sector is not yet representative of the UK workforce for gender, BAME, disability, and under 24s. Only 5% of the sector’s employees are from black, Asian or minority ethnic groups compared to 15% nationally; most of our workforce is male and white.
Facing this challenge, CEOs from the sector’s leading businesses have committed to proactively changing these statistics and promote their businesses to under-represented talent. The Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership is committed to recruiting and attracting a workforce that mirrors and speaks to the communities it serves.
The Inclusion Commitment was launched in 2019 and is now gathering pace, with a series of webinars to learn and share best practice running from July to September.
Five principles underpin the Inclusion Commitment:
- Work collaboratively as a sector to drive change, challenging ourselves to do things differently, by sharing best practice and delivering sector priorities
- Focus on inclusion in its entirety, however our sector history requires targeted sector action to start by increasing gender, BAME and disability workforce representation.
- Measure and be transparent about progress in our individual organisations and as a sector.
- Ensure we create the culture we need to attract the workforce of tomorrow.
- Be inclusive in the way we attract, recruit and develop our people.
The Institute of Water is already committed to a policy of inclusion and equality for all its staff, members and stakeholders. We recognise the value that a diverse water industry brings to society and we are committed to promoting these benefits. We aim to be representative of the industry we serve and to ensure that there are no barriers to membership.
Sarah Murray is Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Champion on our Board of Directors and is working through an action plan which is reviewed regularly. Sarah will be reporting to members at the AGM in September but if you are interested in our policy and action plan please visit the Diversity, Equality & Inclusion page on our website.