Fairer Opportunities
Where the potential to thrive is inclusive, within Cadent, our supply chain and our communities
We believe that for us to thrive, everyone needs to thrive.
Being a responsible business with ethical practices is paramount to our ethos, and ultimately our success. We are at heart a local business, rooted in communities, people, and their skills. To help create fairer opportunities in our regions, we hold ourselves, and the organisations we work closely with, up to the highest possible standards in how we recruit, support, and reward our employees.
This helps to ensure that we are fair and honourable employers, paying the real living wage; with equality, diversity and inclusion thoroughly embedded into our organisations. We are committed to making opportunities fairer for people who are disadvantaged by their location, background, economic situation, current skill set or employment history, to create a more diverse workforce that represents the communities we serve. The transition to a greener economy will require new skills across a wide range of disciplines and it’s a real chance for people of all ages to have fulfilling, well-paid careers. We aim to make these job opportunities visible, accessible, inspiring, and achievable to the broadest range of people. This includes working with the most disadvantaged and socially immobile communities in our networks, to proactively help them gain meaningful employment in the energy sector.
Our Fairer Opportunities goals
  • By 2026, we will ensure that Cadent and 100% of our local delivery partners, deliver best practice standards on equality, diversity, inclusion, and fair pay
  • By 2030, we will inspire 100,000 people from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups to gain access to career opportunities in the energy sector
Additional commitments
  • By 2024, we will launch a hydrogen skills academy and develop a hydrogen education programme
  • By 2025, over 30% of our training will be delivered through social learning and digital solution, helping to support a wider range of learning styles and needs
  • By 2026, 50% of our leadership team will be female
  • By 2030, 14% of our workforce will be ethnic minorities
Sustainable Development Goals
We Are contributing towards
 

Creating an environment where everyone can thrive

We have five employee communities that help us to identify and address challenges facing employees from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups. Each community has an established committee, sponsored by a member of the executive leadership team. The role of the communities is to support effective change across the organisation, including:

  • Signing the Social Mobility Pledge, representing a powerful shift towards being a truly purpose-led organisation committed to social mobility. The three key elements of the Pledge are: outreach, access and recruitment.
  • Achieving Disability Confident Level 2 status and continue to work on integrating inclusive practices and environments for people with disabilities.
  • Becoming the first gas distribution network to sign up to the Race at Work Charter, an initiative designed to improve outcomes for Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minority ethnic employees in the UK, making positive progress against the seven key actions.
  • Becoming signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and achieving the Ministry of Defence’s Employer Recognition Scheme Silver Award in October 2021 in recognition of our commitment to supporting members of the armed forces.
  • Signing the Youth Friendly Employer pledge, the BAME Apprentice Alliance Pledge and Employers Domestic Abuse Covenant.
  • Being active members of the women in utilities Network and partners of the Womens Engineering Society.

Women in Cadent

Creating a network of colleagues from across our business, who are all committed to creating equality and supporting women’s professional and personal development.

Embrace

Raising awareness of different faiths and highlighting issues affecting colleagues from an ethnic minority background,helping to develop an inclusive workforce that reflects the communities we serve.

Cadent Military Community

Actively supporting service leaders entering the business, including our current reservists and those that have previously served, ensuring that we continue to be an Armed Forces friendly employer.

Pride at Work

Ensuring current and future generations of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) colleagues feel comfortable, safe, included, and fulfilled at work.

Thrive!

Creating awareness of the spectrum of disabilities and what this means for our employees, providing support and guidance to ensure that we become a leading employer for people with disabilities.

Working together to end homelessness
 

In January 2022 we partnered with Emmaus UK, an adult homelessness charity and social enterprise. The charity supports individuals experiencing homelessness by providing wellbeing support, meaningful work experience and training, and a home for as long as someone may need it. Through partnering with Emmaus UK, we are building on the close alignment with our purpose, values and social impact ambitions to provide more people with warm homes, accelerated access to careers in the energy sector and sustainable futures.

 

We aim to raise over £400,000 for Emmaus UK and we will encourage employees to champion the partnership by enhancing their knowledge of homelessness and providing vital support through fundraising, volunteering, and sharing expertise on energy efficiency, employability skills and tackling climate change.

EDI strategic partners

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Taking the time to change the world for the better


 

We give all of our employees two paid days per financial year to volunteer for the good causes which align to the three themes of our social impact framework of making life easier, fairer and greener.

To ensure volunteering is available and accessible to all, we have partnered with award-winning community support expert organisation, Neighbourly, to create an online and interactive volunteering platform which offers a focussed range of inclusive opportunities across all of our networks. We aim to have donated at least 3,000 volunteering days by 2026.

 
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