Our responsible business commitment to ensure fair pay, reward and recognition for all our employees.
We will ensure our executive salaries are reasonable and justifiable. Aiming to reduce the gender pay gap year-on-year.
Desired impact – To achieve our vision to be the company people want to be supplied by and want to work for, we will have an engaged and motivated workforce.
How have we performed?
We remain committed to the Real Living Wage and check our compliance annually. This year we have seen an improvement in the gender pay gap of 0.5 per cent to 21.1 per cent. Although a positive step in the right direction, we recognise there is still more that we need to do to make a lasting change in how women are represented at our company. We have seen a 31 per cent rise in the number of colleagues undertaking internal upskilling programmes to help us meet our business’s future and changing needs through our Aspire, Inspire and Lead routes. Overall, 42 per cent of those on upskilling programmes have been women. Women also make up 50 per cent of our Aspire programme participants.
We are still outperforming our industry on gender diversity, employing 40 per cent of women against an industry average of 33 per cent. Of those applying for our vacancies, 39 per cent were women, with 39 per cent of these going on to join the company.
We run regular company-wide pulse surveys with colleagues to measure participation, engagement and gather valued feedback from colleagues. Our latest survey (June 2024) showed that engagement is high among colleagues at 91 per cent, with an increasing number of colleagues stating that our senior leaders proactively engage with employees and work to understand their needs. The same survey showed a six per cent increase in numbers who say the communications they receive from senior leaders help them to feel connected with the company. These positive increases have been driven in part by the development of our Leading for Change development programme, the introduction of regular roadshow events with our CEO, and visible leadership tours around the business. We are also improving engagement through use of our employee intranet which enables us to share important business updates to everyone within the company while also allowing everyone to exchange news, event information and key communications. Our staff council representatives ensure colleagues are directly engaged within our company, encouraging and valuing open conversations and exploring ideas. This helps us to continually improve the way we do things to make our company a purpose-led place to work and to deliver the best service for our customers.
We have a growing and comprehensive apprenticeship programme, with between 60 and 70 apprentices in the business at any one time. We’ve also increased the number of apprenticeship standards we offer from five to 20, reflecting our commitment to invest in new and emerging talent and home-grown skills. Women make up more than half of all applicants for our new apprenticeships. Apprentices currently account for seven per cent of employees. We have been awarded Gold membership of The 5% Club for 2024/2025 after an official audit. We believe we are the first water-only company to have achieved this accolade in recognition of the number of colleagues earning and learning at the same time within our company.
Our new HR IT system went live on schedule in March to future proof our business with a more user-friendly, intuitive system that will connect all business areas and provide colleagues with a better experience. The system includes employee services such as recruitment, onboarding, payroll and a self-serve portal.
