Welsh Water celebrates National Inclusion Week 2022

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Strategy supports the company’s vision and is guided by its values. It sets out our proposals to promote a culture where diversity of our customers and employees is positively valued.

National Inclusion Week is a week dedicated to celebrating inclusion and taking action to create inclusive workplaces.

At Welsh Water, National Inclusion week was led from the top with our Chief Executive, Peter Perry, delivering a company call for all colleagues, with the focus on the importance of National Inclusion Week.

He said, “We must have a 21st century outlook on everything we do to create an inclusive culture. It is about being an ally and helping colleagues feel comfortable and supported so they can be themselves when they come to work.”

He urged everyone to act today to make inclusion an everyday reality encouraging colleagues to take the opportunity to attend a series of workshops delivered during inclusion week covering Allyship, Inclusive Language and how we can better support each other.

The inclusive language session this week was attended by colleagues from all over the organisation, and two of our non-exec directors.

Jo Kenrick, Non-Exec Director said, “It’s great to see the work that is taking place at Welsh Water; it was an informative session with lots of learning. I was encouraged to see first-hand the sessions being delivered and will keep doing what I can from a board perspective to support the journey Welsh Water are on.”

Equally Yours is another initiative that provides training in a safe environment using a fun, interactive and challenging boardgame. We promote this at inclusion week and training sessions take place throughout the year ensuring that we provide opportunities for all our staff to participate.

At Welsh Water we have a variety of employee-led networks including: 

• Embrace (Race network)
• Christians at Welsh Water 
• ABLE (Chronic Illness and Long Term Health Condition network)
• LGBT+ Allies Network 
• Women’s Network 

These groups are open for all to attend and are safe spaces for colleagues to share experiences, identify barriers, and challenges and share best practice. Some Network groups have been nominated this year for external rewards in recognition of the work we do.

We are fully supported and actively encouraged to participate in inclusive initiatives and network groups, not only by our CEO, Peter Perry, but from our board and executive teams.

In the last year to further support our work on EDI, Stephne Puddy was appointed as the lead for inclusion. The role is helping us drive forward our action plan and shared vision. Stephne said, “I was delighted when my role changed to be the Inclusivity Lead for Welsh Water. We have been making great strides in making Welsh Water a better place, but we know we have more to do. National Inclusion Weeks provides us with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate what we have achieved so far and highlight the areas we can focus on moving forward, and knowing we work in an organisation where we have the support of all the executive team means so much.”