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 an accredited Real Living Wage employer and regularly check our compliance. External benchmarking of pay and benefits across our industry, region and competitors for skills and experience is regularly undertaken in a planned approach across our diverse workforce.
We launched a companywide EV Salsa (Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice) programme. There were 45+ quotes provided in the first week and to date 11 cars have been ordered by employees. This is a cost effective and tax efficient way of employees being able to lease an electric vehicle and supports our environmental targets and enhances our employee benefits offering.
Our commitment as part of the five-year People Plan to focus on an ‘Engaged & Talented workforce’ continues with positive results and a continued focus to continue to deliver more. To help us meet our business’s future and changing needs, 68 existing colleagues undertook upskilling programmes through our Aspire, Inspire and Lead career development routes, with women accounting for 42 per cent of those on upskilling programmes. In May we launched our new Inspire to Lead programme for future managers. Women made up 58 per cent of the initial 24-strong cohort. In January, 23 colleagues completed phase two of our Leading for Change senior management development programme and 21 colleagues have undertaken our Foundation for Leadership programme. We’ve also developed an Aspiring for Professionals programme for nine graduates who’ve joined us as engineers to ensure they can develop through structured CPD activities, supportive mentoring and peer-to-peer learning. Plans are in the pipeline for a new route for specialists within our business to enhance their technical skillsets.
We continue to outperform our industry on gender diversity, with women making up 42 per cent of our workforce against an industry average of 33 per cent. Women accounted for 42 per cent of our job applicants and 49 per cent of these joined our team. However, we know there is still more to do to address the gender imbalance in our operational roles. That’s why we’ve started a major shift pattern and on-call review to see how we can adapt our working patterns and environment to attract more women into these roles.
Our gender pay gap has improved by one per cent to 21.6 per cent. Although above the national average, we know there is more work to do to make a lasting change in how women are represented at our company. On a positive note, we have seen a two per cent increase in women taking up managerial roles and women also account for 67 per cent of our recent succession planning activity.
Our apprenticeship programme continues to go from strength to strength, offering fresh opportunities for new starters as well as the chance for existing employees to upskill. Last year nearly half of apprenticeship applicants were women. By year end we had 66 apprentices on our programme, representing nearly six per cent of our current headcount and we aim to increase this to 10 per cent by 2025. Over the year 19 apprentices have completed qualifications, gained skills and a career with us. In a first for our company, Thames Water has collaborated with us on an operations apprenticeship programme and we also took part in an industry pilot event for National Apprenticeship Week to showcase the opportunities available. We’ve joined The 5% Club this year in recognition of our investment in future talent which enables colleagues to earn and learn at the same time and we’re aiming for gold employer status when we’re officially audited as part of our membership.
We’re investing in a new HR IT system to future proof our business and improve efficiency, effectiveness, and visibility of workflow/scheduling services. This will connect all business areas through employee services including recruitment, on-boarding, payroll and a self-service portal.