Unhelpful thoughts
Sometimes men are helpful and supportive, but ‘old habits die hard’. When male unconscious bias, a form of discrimination and stereotyping, rears its head, it potentially unfairly influences decisions.
“Men tend to look for people like them, which is not a conscious thing, it's just that what looks good to them is something in their mould,” says Butlin, who says that unconscious bias training, designed to challenge prejudices, can provide an important filter to balance out their thinking.
Unconscious bias training is one of a number of initiatives being introduced by organisations to help improve the situation for mid-career women.
The Energy Leaders’ Coalition, comprising 15 of the UK’s largest energy employers, including Orsted, Scottish Power, SSE, and So Energy, plus CEOs from Ofgem and the North Sea Transition Authority, made a decision to focus on mid-career barriers for women as a priority in 2023.
Examples of actions already taken in this area by companies in the coalition, identified in a 2023 report, include targeted, female-focused development programmes for women at various seniorities, with a focus on those in middle management who are ready for director and board roles. Some companies conducted a review of female representation against gender targets, which in one case led to the planned introduction in 2024 of a leadership programme for female middle managers.
Furthermore, one pilot process identified several female employees who appeared to have been overlooked for progression through more traditional routes, including in middle management.
National Grid is also spearheading more equitable approaches and providing mid-career development support through several programmes. Its Springboard/Spring Forward skills-based training courses, organised by the Women in National Grid Employee Resource Group, cover a range of career development topics. The National Grid STEM returners accelerate programme helps women return to work after a break, and its Mutual Mentoring programme pairs senior leaders with women of colour, at all levels, giving mentors the opportunity to understand the mentee’s experiences, and also giving the mentee the ability to tap into the experience and network of the mentor.
Furthermore, Strategies for Success is a year-long course built specifically for women progressing into leadership, which targets key attributes proven to have the biggest impact when trying to reach that level and provides a safe space for women to explore personal focus areas for development. According to National Grid, over half of surveyed attendees were promoted after participation in the course.
Positive moves from large companies are a welcome development, but the sector as a whole comprises many smaller organisations lacking the resources and financial clout to implement diversity and inclusion policies; these must also raise standards.
“We tend to see the big companies get all the kudos, they can market their activities and shout about it. But often, it's the smaller businesses which need help in changing,” says Butlin.
And even where policies and commitments on diversity and inclusion do exist, implementation across the sector is patchy with approaches often not implemented well or consistently.
POWERful Women warned in its report that commitments are not being cascaded effectively to all levels within organisations and policies designed to support people’s careers are often not being used by many women, either because they are reluctant to use them, or because policies do not deliver what they are meant to. Critically, it found that efforts were often not being backed-up by an inclusive and supportive company culture, which further stifled uptake, highlighting the wider challenges for women at all levels.
“Women are under-represented at all career stages within energy, which really matters given the challenges of net zero and the need to attract the best talent we can to our industry,” says Jackson. “We are also facing an energy trilemma of climate change, energy security and energy affordability, which means we need a workforce that much better reflects and understands our customers.”
Without true diversity of thought and perspectives on these challenges, it’s doubtful the industry will be able to deliver the robust solutions so urgently required.
The inaugural Women in Utilities Awards 2024, brought to you by the Women’s Utilities Network (WUN) in association with Utility Week, is a tribute to the remarkable achievements of women in the utilities sector and the organisations and individuals that champion them.
Utility Week portfolio director Ellen Bennett said: “With the gender gap still painfully evident in the boardrooms, offices and sites of utilities, there has never been a more important time to recognise and celebrate the many achievements of women who have made their career in utilities – not least to encourage new entrants and women in the early days of their careers.”
Equal parental leave policy makes an impact
In January last year, electric utility company E.on introduced equal parental leave to allow both parents, regardless of their gender, to apply for matched paid leave.
The policies are fully inclusive of all types of family, whether they comprise a mother and a father, two dads, two mums, or an extended family with parental responsibility. Leave can be booked flexibly throughout the first year of becoming a parent, with the option to take time at the start or later on, and to get support as a partner returns to work.
In November 2023, according to the latest Energy Leaders’ Coalition report, over 130 new dads at E.on had taken advantage of equal parental leave. Fathers fed back how much they appreciate ‘the flexibility of doing the school runs and supporting more household tasks, something that the constraints of the office prevented in the past’.
Working mums at E.on said they were pleased the company ‘is doing more to enable them to be in work’ and to ‘continue striving for a career that may previously have been stunted’.