Reaffirming our commitment to diversity and inclusion this National Inclusion Week

This week is National Inclusion Week and this year’s theme is ‘Impact Matters’ which centres around understanding, identifying and measuring impact of our activities and taking actions that make for genuine, sustainable change.

It’s also a time to reflect on our collective commitment to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and respected. By coming together, we can share ideas, learn from each other, and reinforce our dedication to creating a culture of belonging that drives innovation, collaboration, and positive change.

We’re proud of what we stand for as an organisation and what we’re achieving together. Here’s just a small snapshot of the achievements we’re celebrating this week and why impact matters.

Celebrating our accreditations

We work hard to make E.ON a truly inclusive place to work and we’re proud that these efforts have been recognised. We’ve been ranked in the top 10 most inclusive employers list, having featured in the Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers list every year since 2017 and currently placed eighth in the list.

We’re committed to supporting working families through measures such as our equal parent leave policy which offers the same paid leave to dads, LGBT+ parents, guardians, adoptive parents and kinship carers who are legally responsible for a child, regardless of relationship. The policy is already having a big impact with over 200 new dads taking up the benefit and spending time with and supporting their new and growing families. Plus, we’ve recently been recognised as a ‘Fertility Friendly Employer’ by Fertility Matters at Work.

We’re committed to becoming a menopause friendly employer and we’re a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer. We’re also a signatory of the Race at Work Charter, the Armed Forces Covenant and the Care Leavers Covenant and a member of Neurodiversity in Business.

Colleague-led inclusion networks

At E.ON, we have nine incredible colleague-led inclusion networks, acting as supportive communities promoting allyship, equality, diversity and inclusion across E.ON. And over 1,700 of our colleagues are members of these networks.

Everyone is welcome in our inclusion networks which provide support for racial inclusion, gender equality, working families, LGBT+, disability and carers, menopause, religion and belief, neurodiversity and fertility journeys.  

I’m so proud that two of our networks have recently been shortlisted for an award at this year’s European Diversity Awards: our LGBT+ and Friends network for Outstanding LGBTQIA Employee Network of the Year and embRace for Outstanding Ethnic Diversity Network of the Year.

Joining forces to support our colleagues who are carers

Now that our inclusion networks are established, some of them are delivering even greater value and support for colleagues by working together on different initiatives.

Our adaptABILITY network aims to support colleagues through improving accessibility, allyship, awareness and assistance creating a culture of respect, understanding and empowerment for all. . The network also helps support our colleagues who are also carers for their loved ones with disabilities or chronic conditions through initiatives such as Café for Carers which provides a space for carers to come togetherand share.

adaptABILITY spotted an opportunity to create more meaningful and valuable sessions for these colleagues by teaming up with our Working Families network. While adaptABILITY helps with understanding conditions, symptoms, medication, coping strategies, and holistic therapies, Working Families can support with the emotional side of things and balancing care with work. By running these events together, our colleagues get relevant support across all bases as well as establishing greater empathy and deeper understanding across the two networks.

Working together to support our colleagues who menstruate

We’re continually looking for ways to improve and following feedback from colleagues across the organisation, we identified a lack of support for people who menstruate and a lack of understanding around the difficulties faced by our colleagues who have conditions such as PCOS, endometriosis and PMDD.

To address this, we’re bringing together members of our gender equality, fertility, menopause and disability networks to listen to these collective experiences. The goal is to understand what support is missing and figure out how we can better support our colleagues, so those difficult ‘period periods’ are just a bit easier to manage.

Proudly supporting National Inclusion Week

National Inclusion Week is an opportunity to celebrate our shared values and engage in meaningful conversations about how we can continue to contribute positively to society.

Throughout the week we’re hosting a variety of engagement events, both online and in-person, for all colleagues to participate in, including Breakfast Clubs, Listening Circles and Cafés. I’m so excited to see colleagues from all around the business come together to celebrate, share experiences, network and learn.

At E.ON, diversity and inclusion is at the centre of everything we do and we’re continually looking for ways to improve our support for colleagues and build on our commitment.

To find out more about our commitment to diversity and inclusion, visit eonenergy.com/inclusion