Wisdom from the Workshops

Starting Early

Attracting young women into science and engineering careers is key to the business success of water, electricity and gas giant, United Utilities.

At the workshop focusing on working with schools to tackle occupational segregation, project leader Sue Royle described how they had devised Grow Your Future Workforce with partners to head off a “skills melt-down”

“Our problem is we currently have an ageing workforce of predominantly male engineers and technicians, and with fewer undergraduates opting to study science and engineering we are struggling to recruit the number of high calibre young people we need.

“For girls the prospect of a career in engineering can be intimidating: there’s a macho image of men in hard hats working in a harsh environment, whereas the reality is most engineers are highly qualified professionals working with leading edge technology.”

Working with ScottishPower and the North West Regional Development agency, the company has pioneered a structured scheme that gives youngsters regular engineering experience through primary school to high school and then links to apprenticeships or further education.

“The aim is to create the engineers of the future and the two utility companies provide access to engineers and links to the world of work, while the development agency funding supports in-school programmes.”

Measuring & Monitoring

 Robust methods of measurement are at the heart of the Co-operative Group’s diversity strategy.

Amanda Jones is responsible for diversity within the retail group which employs 68,000 staff in retail outlets, the funeral service, travel agents and pharmacy amongst other businesses.She described how the Group wants to build better understanding of how it attracts and engages employee talent, how it operates in diverse customer markets and how it supports the community.

“Diversity is vitally important to us as a business – one statistic puts it into perspective: women make 80 per cent of purchasing decisions.If there was one simple measurement of diversity the job would be easy – but that’s not the case.  It is more complex and calls for a more sophisticated approach,” she said.

The Co-operative Group has developed a measurement model based on three key headlines.  The statistics and research are designed to get under the surface of what makes the company a great place to work and a leading provider of services in the UK, as well as measuring how far it is recognised as a leading business engaged in the community.

“Our measurement model is designed to develop links between business results such as employee turnover and market penetration,” Amanda explained.

For example ‘great place to work’ is measured through diversity increasing, engagement of company leadership and the development of a supportive culture, as well as reductions in employee turnover and absence and increased levels of employee satisfaction as recorded in the staff survey.

“I am particularly pleased that our employee survey reveals that part-time women workers are a distinctly happy group of staff,” said Amanda.

The Co-operative Group underpins its in-house measurement with external benchmarking.  The Group has achieved a high gold rating from Opportunity Now, but aims to reach platinum by the end of 2008 and has reached silver on the Race for Opportunity benchmark – gold is the target for the next benchmark.