Utilities moving in the wrong direction on diversity

The number of women working in the energy and utilities sector declined between 2021 and 2022, new industry figures have revealed.

Energy & Utility Skills’ (EUS) third Inclusion Measurement Framework reports on progress in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) across the sector in 2022.

It found that women made up 26% of the industry’s workforce, a decline of 2% and well below the 48% representation of women across the whole UK workforce.

Furthermore, marginally more women are leaving (28%) than are joining the sector (27%).

The water industry leads the way in terms of female representation, with women making up more than 28% of its workforce, while the gas industry has the lowest at 19.6%. In the power sector it is also below the industry average at 23.5%.

In terms of women in leadership roles, the latest report found “there has been no meaningful change”.

It added: “Indeed, there was a notable drop from 2020 to 2021 from 29% to 27% – this could in part be caused by the move from sex to gender identity, with more organisations capturing gender through self-reporting.

“This could indicate further areas of work to destigmatise gender equality initiatives and raise awareness of the importance of gender identity as well as male/female sex characteristics.”

As well as gender, the report highlights how the sector is attracting ethnic minorities, as well as different age groups and those with disabilities.

It found a “significant underrepresentation of all ethnic minority backgrounds across all reported areas”, with ethnic minorities making up just 7.5% of the workforce – well below the UK average of 13%.

The gas and water industries have broadly similar ethnic minority representation of 8% which, EUS explained, may indicate better recruitment and retention of ethnic minorities than in power (5.2%) supply chain (4.2%) and the waste management and recycling industry which is significantly lower at 1.2%.

“While recognising ethnic minority representation will differ in individual organisations dependent on the local population they operate in, the energy and utilities workforce is spread across the UK and the workforce should therefore be more reflective of that of UK workforce as a whole,” it added.

While the age profile of the sector is roughly in line with the UK labour force, the report found a “significant underrepresentation” of disabled people working across utilities.

Across the entire UK workforce 17% are disabled compared to just 1.7% working in utilities.

EUS said there was a large amount of undeclared data, which it said could indicate that organisations are not capturing this data consistently or that employees are reluctant to declare a disability.

“This could be an indication of the stigma around disability with workers feeling unsafe to disclose, even anonymously,” it warned.

Worryingly, the report highlights that women, ethnic minorities and disabled employees are overrepresented when it comes to bullying and harassment data.

It added: “The overrepresentation of women and non-binary in the bullying and harassment data is an area of concern. Whilst it is impossible for us to understand what specific issues occurred to constitute bullying and harassment, it could indicate issues of discrimination.

“We also see an overrepresentation of ethnic minorities within bullying and harassment. Whilst this is only slightly higher than the industry overall, it still indicates that ethnic minority staff are more likely to experience bullying or harassment.

“Organisations with high ethnic minority representation in this area should investigate to understand why this is.”

To address the key issues identified in the report, EUS makes five recommendations:

• Review current recruitment practices
• Targeted development programmes
• Build trust in data gathering to reduce undeclared and “prefer not to say”
• Leaders must own accountability for EDI and culture improvements
• Investigate disproportionate representation of particular groups in leavers

Commenting on the report Louise Parry, director of people and organisational development at EUS, said: “Using this data, our sector can continue to measure and track progress towards a diverse workforce that is reflective of the customers and communities it serves and identify areas for particular focus.

“This report demonstrates the impact of EDI efforts but there is more to do. By increasing levels of participation in the Inclusion Measurement Framework, the data will become increasingly valuable both in tracking progress and identifying the key areas that can drive sustainable change in the diversity of the sector’s workforce.”

Registration is now open for the 2023 Inclusion Measurement Framework. The data submission window will be open from 11 September to 13 October 2023. You can find out more here.

It comes as statistics released earlier this year showed that the gender pay gap has seen a year-on-year increase across the utilities sector, with only electricity distribution network operators (DNOs) reporting a collective decline.

According to the latest statistics, which show a snapshot of the sector as of 5 April 2022, the average gender pay gaps within water companies, DNOs and gas networks are all above the median gender pay gap national average of 9.4%.

DNOs were the only sector which saw a year-on-year decrease in the gender pay gap overall, decreasing 1.12pps to 16.53%. This however is still well above the national average.

Utility Week has previously written an analysis about gender diversity in the power sector, you can read it here.