Introduction by Sian Jenkins, Head of Human Resources

Our people are key to this. By attracting and retaining top talent and equipping our diverse teams with the training and the tools they need to meet the current and future needs of all our customers, we can continuously improve our service and make our company a high performing, inclusive place to work.

We are very proud of our growing and comprehensive apprenticeship programme. At any one time, we now have between 60 and 70 apprentices in the business. We’ve also increased the number of apprenticeship standards we offer from five to 20, helping us to secure the next generation of talent through investment in new and emerging talent and home-grown skills. Apprentices currently account for 7 per cent of employees. Women account for more than half of all applicants for our new apprenticeships while 33 per cent go on to be recruited. Our collaboration with Thames Water on a joint operations apprenticeship programme continues to work well.

Our company has 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. The 5% Club recognises companies where at least five per cent of colleagues earn and learn at the same time.

This year 89 current colleagues have undertaken internal upskilling programmes to help us meet our business’s future and changing needs through our Aspire, Inspire and Lead routes. This is a 31 per cent increase compared to 2023/2024. Overall, 42 per cent on upskilling programmes have again been women. Women make up 50 per cent of our Aspire programme participants. We are currently taking nine colleagues through our Preparing for Senior Leadership programme, having identified them for future senior roles through our succession planning activities.

Staff engagement remains high at 91 per cent according to our last pulse survey in November. There were improvements in all areas surveyed. We also improved in specific focus areas – culture and diversity and senior management – performing above the external benchmark on culture and diversity. We continue to build and support a pipeline of diverse, talented colleagues. Our mental wellbeing scores remain high but we continue to support any staff who are struggling or are unwell and use insight from the survey to do this. The results are testament to all the hard work that goes on throughout the company to make our company a great place to work.

The latest gender pay gap report (April 2024 data) shows an improvement in the gender pay gap of 0.5 per cent to 21.1 per cent. This is another small step in the right direction but we know there is more to do. We will continue to focus on the best ways to make a lasting change in how women are represented within our company.

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.

Grief can affect people in different ways and we remain sensitive to the individual needs of colleagues experiencing a loss. Therefore, we have extended the leave available to those suffering a bereavement and also extended the eligibility to include a broader definition of ‘family’, those who’ve suffered a miscarriage and the policy now includes one day’s paid leave for the loss of a pet. 

Our key measures:

• Improving Health, Safety and Wellbeing of our people and communities
• Ensure Fair pay, reward and recognition for all our employees
• We are compliant with health and safety regulations
• Trusted corporate governance (responsible business)
• Transparency of reporting (responsible business)

For previous years reports, click here.