Skills and Diversity Award
This brand-new category for Utility Week Awards celebrates the companies that are finding new ways to plug the skills gap, as well as those that can show a measurable plan for increasing diversity in their workforce.
There was a lot of praise from the judges for entries that were able to back up their submission with a clear evidence base and the strongest entries for this category were ones that clearly evidenced exactly what they had been doing to train and develop their staff and make progress on increasing diversity. This included good evidence of the recruiting and retention of female staff.
What set apart the best was their overall approach to tackling the skills and diversity challenge, with a focus on multiple issues such as psychological safety, neurodiversity and gender imbalance receiving particular praise.
The judges were particularly impressed by entries that clearly identified the need to promote skills and diversity as an issue of “organisational culture”, rather than a “quick fix”.
The finalists
Cadent Gas and Skewb Climate - Gamified employee training for beach to meter gas journey
Electricity North West - Include me
LoWEG, Morrison Energy Services, Cadent Gas, CMO - London Women in Engineering Group
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
Wales & West Utilities - Cultural change for a more inclusive and psychologically safe workplace
Skills and Diversity Award
This brand-new category for Utility Week Awards celebrates the companies that are finding new ways to plug the skills gap, as well as those that can show a measurable plan for increasing diversity in their workforce.
There was a lot of praise from the judges for entries that were able to back up their submission with a clear evidence base and the strongest entries for this category were ones that clearly evidenced exactly what they had been doing to train and develop their staff and make progress on increasing diversity. This included good evidence of the recruiting and retention of female staff.
What set apart the best was their overall approach to tackling the skills and diversity challenge, with a focus on multiple issues such as psychological safety, neurodiversity and gender imbalance receiving particular praise.
The judges were impressed with the fact that the top performer clearly identified the need to promote skills and diversity as an issue of “organisational culture”, rather than a “quick fix”. “They’ve realised that this is a sustained programme of work that they’re going to need to undertake,” one noted.
The finalists
Cadent Gas and Skewb Climate - Gamified employee training for beach to meter gas journey
Electricity North West - Include me
LoWEG, Morrison Energy Services, Cadent Gas, CMO - London Women in Engineering Group
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
Wales & West Utilities - Cultural change for a more inclusive and psychologically safe workplace
Cadent Gas and Skewb Climate - Gamified employee training for beach to meter gas journey
Cadent Gas, in collaboration with Skewb Climate, has pioneered innovative employee training through gamification.
The Beach to Meter module teaches through experiential learning, fostering engagement while reducing costs.
This module aligns with Cadent Gas' tech-forward, inclusive ethos, catering to diverse learning styles and neurodiversity.
It offers a self-guided induction, introducing the UK gas industry, job roles, company vision and a Hydrogen future. This Minecraft module streamlines employee training, making it both cost-effective and adaptable to a wide range of learning preferences.
Electricity North West - Include me
Our workforce and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategies give us a robust framework and road map of initiatives to help us to achieve the skills and diversity we need to continue delivering for our customers. Our strategy has four themed pillars: Belonging, Talent, Leadership and Communities. Our multi-award-winning apprenticeship programme is testament to our dedication in this area and our future planning.
Our laser-like focus on health, safety and wellbeing shines through from our surveys and is reflected in how we work each day with zero lost time incidents since August 2022.
LoWEG, Morrison Energy Services, Cadent Gas, CMO - London Women in Engineering Group
The London Women in Engineering Group (LoWEG) was created in November 2022 to fill a gap as there were no London-wide groups open to women working in Highway based roles. The group is open to women working for councils, contractors, utility companies, TfL, the DfT, as well as those in lobby groups and students. We now have over 300 members across the country. We meet regularly, providing a safe, supportive space for our members to grow. We provide women working in the industry a platform to discuss their careers and how they have overcome challenges within the industry.
Utilita Energy - Life with Power
For two decades, Utilita has, and continues to, defy convention - this is down to the efforts of 1,600 amazing people that Utilita is lucky enough to employ. Recognised as a ‘Great Place to Work’ for the last two years, Utilita’s HR programme has proved how far a company can go to create world-class employment opportunities. Utilita’s happy and fulfilled workforce have put the energy supplier at the top of the customer service pile, helping it rise from a -5 Net Promoter Score in 2019 to 55.7 today. In August 2023, Utilita was the highest ranked energy supplier in the UK.
Wales & West Utilities - Cultural change for a more inclusive and psychologically safe workplace
Wales & West Utilities has taken a fresh, innovative approach to learning with an underpinning principle of changing behaviour to make sure we provide a psychologically safe place to work, focused on inclusivity and authenticity to our values. In our industry, physical safety has always been a priority and we are now taking every opportunity to support managers to create a psychologically safe environment for everyone. We are proud that this is delivering real results, generating great conversations and driving a more open culture. This will support our targeted Inclusion & Diversity Action plan to deliver results into the future.