Severn Trent: race equality and business strategy
At Business in the Community (BITC), we believe that employers should capture ethnicity data and publicise progress. This is commitment two of our Race at Work Charter.
Severn Trent is one of Britain’s largest water companies, providing fresh, clean drinking water daily to over eight million people. Being a responsible business is an important part of Severn Trent’s ethos, whether that is by making a positive difference in the community or protecting the environment.
Commitment to race equality
Since signing the Race at Work Charter, Severn Trent launched its ‘Wonderfully You’ Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) strategy, to help better deliver for its customers and do right by its communities. The organisation believes that by employing, valuing and investing in a range of local talent from different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, it can build a skilled workforce that is able to understand and empathise with customers and communities.
As a result of its D&I strategy, representation of Black, Asian, Mixed-Race and other ethnically diverse employees has grown steadily, by just under 1% year by year. Severn Trent also has an impressive 90% diversity data disclosure rate. Feedback from employees is monitored via an anonymous engagement survey called Quest and engagement scores have also increased year on year. Severn Trent is now in the top 5% of energy and utility companies globally.
How is Severn Trent developing its D&I strategy?
Severn Trent collaborates with a range of organisations to ensure consistent learning and development. It has recently refreshed its strategy and progress has been reviewed. The new approach is moving away from overarching workforce targets and focuses on three key areas:
Diversity: Specifically, leadership and new hire targets
Inclusion: Specifically, employee engagement and attrition
Social Value: Aiming to put £10.5 million worth of value into communities from its employability initiatives.
The organisation also externally benchmarks by government-backed indices, like FTSE Women Leaders, Parker Review, Disability Confident and the Social Mobility Index.
What advice would you give to other organisations?
“Think about how diversity can help your business to achieve its business plan and strategic objectives.” advises Alison Smith, Diversity and Inclusion Lead. “What is your data telling you? Don’t just look at overarching workforce targets as this can mask where diversity is needed most, look at it by different business areas and key roles. For example, diversity is a challenge in the water industry and for us, but as an organisation with high retention rates and a proven track record for developing internal talent, focusing on overarching minority ethnic diversity targets doesn’t help us to see how we are really doing. That’s why we focused our targets and actions on new hires and leadership, so we can ask ourselves: are our new hires representative of our communities and are we representative where the decision-making happens?”
Make race equality a priority
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