Affinity Water puts equality diversity and inclusion first

Affinity Water’s Phil Barnaby a Leakage Engineer, now Chairs the Company’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Committee. The Committee is focused on promoting Race Equality and Diversity throughout the organisation.

Last Thursday (10 March) Phil spoke at the Company’s first One Network event alongside Florence Anichebe, and One Network Sponsor Joe Brownless. The ONE Network is a network for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employees at Affinity Water and is open to all.

Here as part of our continuing EDI coverage Phil tells his own moving story of how he has confronted discrimination and why it is so important to call such behaviour out and work with others to further inclusion goals.

Phil’s story

I have worked for affinity water for the past five years, prior to that, I worked for various different contractors carrying out a variety of different activities, but mainly focusing on non-revenue water, (NRW) location & reduction.

We started the EDI committee in 2018 and like most of us the pandemic hindered a lot of activities that we intended to progress during the periods of lockdown.

EDI is a very visible and burning passion for all of the Committee members. All of us have our individual experiences and motivations for driving our passions. We are emotionally invested in delivering meaningful transformation in the organisation.

However, the overall company ethos is to create a culture for our employees to bring their true self to work.

Working towards cultural change

Many years ago a culture fit would mean an individual that fits into a corporations culture or way of doing things. For the past few years Affinity Water has proactively engaged with its employees to ensure that our culture fits everyone that comes to work at Affinity Water.

However, we still have some way to go. Our sector as a whole needs to provide resilience and resources. Inclusion has always been underrepresented in our industry and as a result we now have a challenge to fill the massive skills gap alongside delivering our increased regulatory environmental commitments.

These commitments affect all of us and will take a united effort to find solutions.

E = D x I

100% equality is Equal to diversity times a relative number of inclusions. If we have diversity without inclusion then we do not obtain 100% equality and the same can be said if there is no diversity in our workforce at all, as this is an indication of non-inclusion.

We have a massive task in ensuring that all our protected characteristics have support and network representation throughout the organisation. The networks have been designed to enhance career paths, create new opportunities internally and allow growth through the development of our people.

They are also the veins to our front lines. That feedback gives us valuable insight and influences change at Affinity Water.

EDI data has proved difficult to obtain, however this seems to be a sector issue and not just isolated to Affinity Water. Many initiatives are taking place across the sector to understand the barriers of collating data but also the importance of data disclosure, and how that data helps us to identify gaps in resource levels processes and procedures. It also allows us to make the best practice decisions that benefit our people and the business.

My journey and the importance of Networks

I have had personal experiences in relation to discrimination. I have been subject to verbal racial slurs. ?

I have been ignored until it has been realised that I am the team leader. I’ve watched others being supported when weakness has been identified and I have not received the same support, rather my weakness is used as a good reason to get rid of me. ?It has always ?seemed as if my successes were whispered and my failures were screamed. ?

This can take an emotional toll on you and affect your mental health that’s why it is important to have support networks. Those networks unfortunately haven not always been there ??during my career. But what I did find, when I was presented with possible discrimination, was to use this as an opportunity to educate. This became my personal quest to change as many people’s minds about my individual protected characteristics as possible.

Courageous conversations with senior leaders externally and internally have now helped develop my knowledge of Equality Diversity and Inclusion. As Chairman I will do my best to ensure we see measured impacts over the next 12 months. We need to show more transparency within our processes and procedures. Reporting on our EDI data performance will help us to achieve this.

Tips for my colleagues

Do educate yourself with diversity of thought. Educate yourself on all nine protected characteristics. Engage more understanding of their particular needs and how we can all support each other.

As a committee our EDI vision is:

• Equality: For there to be a zero pay gap when we look across our company and the protected characteristics?
• Diversity: To represent our communities in terms of the demographics of our employees
• Inclusion: For all employees to feel valued, supported and respected at work

We have four focus areas:

• Increase and retain BAME groups within AW
• Reduce the gender pay gap
• Validate and gather data
• Increase inclusion of all protected characteristics

If there is anything you feel we as a committee should know do get in touch. We will treat what you say in confidence.

For further information go to: https://www.affinitywatercareers.co.uk