Why embracing equity matters more than ever

National Grid's Cordi O’Hara writes for Utility Week in celebration of International Women’s Day. She discusses the difference between equity and equality – and how the latter can only be reached by achieving the former.

Let’s be clear: creating an equal future is about far more than delivering activities and awareness raising campaigns across one day. It must be a considered and consistent effort across the whole year; with meaningful action sitting behind positive intentions. Nevertheless, International Women’s Day provides the sector with an important opportunity to reflect on progress to date and to acknowledge what more needs to be done.

The theme for international women’s day this year is #EmbraceEquity. It’s a good reminder that equity and equality are not the same – and that only by working to achieving the first can you reach the second.

Equality is everyone having the same support, but perhaps not always reaching an equal outcome because we don’t all have the same starting points. Equity is levelling the playing field, recognising individual circumstances, and then allocating support so that everyone has an equal chance at success.

There’s a picture that is often used to explain this: if a 5ft person and a 6ft person want to look over a 7ft fence, giving them each a 1ft step is only going to help one of them. We have to tailor experiences to make sure we’re giving everyone a fair and equal shot at reaching their goal.

This is not about offering women more support because they are less capable, or because they don’t have the skillset they need to succeed. This is about recognising that the structures that exist in society often disadvantage women – and then about looking at the changes we can make to these structures so that women are not at a disadvantage, and what extra scaffolding we can put in place for support.

Embracing equity is incredibly pertinent in the utilities sector; we know that we need a diverse and equal workforce to take us to net zero. It’s important that we’re all clear that repeating the same ideas in the same way won’t deliver the best outcome for the environment, the communities we serve, or our own businesses. A more diverse workforce will enable us to find better solutions, new innovations and help increase the pace at which we can deliver a clean, fair and affordable energy future.

There are already incredible women contributing at all levels right across National Grid and the wider sector. And I’m very proud to work for an organisation that has no material pay gap in the UK. But this doesn’t mean that there’s not more to be done.

We’ve set ourselves stretching targets within our Responsible Business Charter. By 2025, we’re targeting 50% combined diversity in our Senior Leadership Group and 50% combined diversity in our new talent programme.

There are no downsides to putting equity at the heart of our approach to diversity and inclusion. It’s really very simple: if the utilities sector becomes a pioneer for a more equitable approach, then we will retain and hire the best female talent – it’s a goal we should be racing to reach.

The writer is currently president of National Grid Ventures but on 1 April will replace Phil Swift as president of National Grid Electricity Distribution.