How policies shape our organisation – and society

Employee Relations (ER) policy might not be at the forefront of everyone’s minds on a day-to-day basis but it’s fundamental to ensuring a supportive, inclusive and forward-thinking workplace.

To find out more about this relatively hidden area of our business, we spoke to Charlee Williams, who in her role as ER Policy Specialist at E.ON considers, implements and improves our policies and procedures relating to colleague support and wellbeing.

Tell us a bit about what your role involves.

I’m responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining effective ER policies, guidance and toolkits for all E.ON UK colleagues. This means I create and update a progressive set of policies aligned to employment law and legislation, industry best practice and our own strategy and business requirements.

When something new is created or changes are made to current processes, I collaborate with the wider HR team, senior leaders, people partners and trade unions to ensure effective communication and implementation of ER policies across the organisation.

What role does ER policy play across E.ON?

Policy massively shapes our business. Policies and guides are a really important starting point for setting a clear ambition and structure for the organisation, which is a challenge when you have around 10,000 colleagues. Progressive, clear and practical policies enable a consistently good experience for our colleagues, help managers, set expectations and help colleagues through moments that matter.

Our ambition is to be an employer of choice, and policy is right at the heart of this. We can only attract and retain the best talent if we have the right policies in place to support them. Our policies help us in creating a culture where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging and ensure all our colleagues are treated fairly and consistently.

As well as driving positive change, policies help to support our colleagues through difficult times – such as our domestic abuse policy and special leave policy which covers bereavements such as pregnancy loss.

What do you find most rewarding about your role?

My role as Policy Specialist started when I returned from maternity leave a few years ago. When I had a baby, she become my world. To leave her and come back to work was tough, so I really needed to do something that felt meaningful to me.

I realised my passion was in managing and creating policy, getting my head into the detail and making changes. Working in a hybrid way now means I can do this. I can work free from distraction at home then come together with colleagues in a collaborative office space to brainstorm or share updates. All of this is rewarding to me. I get excited about making change and receiving the odd thank you is always appreciated.

I have friends and family who talk to me about my job and are interested in the detail about what we offer, why we did it and how we did it. I talk about it so easily with people and with a smile on my face. I feel proud to work for a company which listens to me, lets me get creative and prioritises its employees.

What is the main challenge of your role?

The main challenge rolls over from the previous question in that making change can be hard. I am one person with one opinion, and it takes an army to work through the detail and feasibility.

I work closely with our Diversity & Inclusion team, the wider ER team, our colleague-led inclusion networks, business leads and Trade Union representatives to workshop a lot of my thoughts, as well as theirs. As much as I enjoy the collaboration, it just means things aren’t as quick to turn around as I would like but I’ve learnt to appreciate that.

For example, creating and implementing our Equal Parent Leave policy took nearly 18 months, the same with my latest piece of work on Parenting Journeys, where we’re looking to improve our policies and guides to ensure we provide best-in-class support for all parents. It can be difficult for a person like me who wants to get jobs done quickly to bide their time and make sure the detail is correct.

Where do you get inspiration to update E.ON’s policies?

Inspiration comes from multiples sources. My main inspiration comes from our colleagues. I’m co-chair of the Working Families network and have close contacts with other networks. Through this, I get plenty of opportunities to listen to what colleagues want. I will look at where the gaps are and make sure colleagues feel listened to and valued.

External benchmarking and horizon scanning are crucial. I need to have an industry awareness and ensure I stay informed about emerging trends, research, and best practices in ER. This means I regularly scan the external market to make sure policies drive innovations and ensure any information reflects our internal processes.

I’m also signed up to various employment law updates and keep an eye on when the government propose changes. Sometimes legislation may dictate a change but where a change or update is enforced, to be market leading I would always be thinking about how we not only make the change but do it better.

For example, from April 2025 legislation will change for neonatal care leave with the Government offering 12 weeks statutory pay for anyone who’s baby has been in neonatal care within 28 days of birth. At E.ON, we’ve offered four weeks paid neonatal leave for over two years. But with the upcoming change in legislation, I’m already looking at how we can further improve our neonatal leave to ensure we continue leading in the support we offer. 

How is E.ON leading the way for other organisations?

Our award wins for various policies and incentives can act as inspiration for other organisations starting out on their inclusion journey about the possibilities and different ways they could improve the support they offer their employees.

I’m always happy to share best practice. I’m part of an external networking group where I regularly respond to queries and share best practice. Working in HR for nearly 15 years now means people are my passion. If I can help other companies improve their policies and practices for their people, that can only be a good thing in my opinion.

I also created a case study with the Working Dads Employer Awards earlier this year to showcase to other companies what we do and what differences it makes to our colleagues lives. The case study was shared across numerous platforms promoting all the great work we do to support working dads. As part of this, I attended networking and case study launch events where I was able to speak and promote our policies with other companies who are just starting out on their inclusion journey.

Not only was I able to share what we’re doing at E.ON but I also received great feedback from other organisations. Different people from different organisations stated that they were sharing our case study wider within their own organisation to inspire action and change, and that it served as a reminder of the importance policies supporting both the business and the colleague.

In fact, Sarah Forbes, co-founder of the Working Dads Employer Awards recently shared some lovely feedback with me about the work E.ON is doing to support working families:

“Having E.ON as a case study for the Working Dads Employer Awards has been incredibly useful in inspiring other organisations in how they can better support working dads with flexible working. Not only was their case study informative and evidenced based with helpful data to demonstrate the benefits an organisation can experience when having more fathers using flexible working, but it highlighted how this is of benefit for gender equality in the workplace. With excellent examples of how working dads benefited from the use of flexible working, this also brings home the true impact the use of the policy can have for families. We are delighted that E.ON shared their experience and know that they have truly been a benefit in helping create positive change in a number of organisations moving forward.”

To find out more about careers at E.ON, visit our careers website.