Building a successful business, people first

I recently caught up with the Associate Editor of the CBI, Joe Marshall to talk about the initiatives that are making a difference for diversity. Below is Joe's summary from our chat:

For Philip Hoare, President of global engineering firm Atkins, the business boils down to providing the right people, with the right expertise, to its clients.

And, he adds, that doesn't just apply to its engineers. "A whole range of different disciplines come through our organisation and form part of the teams that help our clients solve their problems."

So, for Atkins, getting those people trained as early on in their careers as possible is vital. Last year alone it took 400 graduates from 12,000 applicants into the business, as well as 200 apprentices - and it's set to repeat those numbers this year.

"They go through a pretty structured programme with us," says Hoare. "Both at graduate and apprentice level."

But at the heart of the programme lies the importance of diversity. "Fundamental to that is diversity of thought," he says. "People from different backgrounds and different experiences bring different things to the mix."

"This year we're at about 36% female intake in our graduates. We're really trying to buck the trend in terms of what we're doing from both a diversity and an early career perspective."

Reverse Mentoring

Another of Atkins' most successful initiatives for D&I are the reverse mentoring programmes running throughout the organisation that buddy senior members up with younger colleagues. The idea is to close the knowledge gap for all involved and establish a less hierarchical environment within the business.

"These are people, early in careers in the business, teamed with myself and members of my board, and other senior leaders. It's brilliant because for me I get an insight into what somebody thinks about our organisation, what she hears and sees about, what's going on in the company, what she sees as challenges, what she doesn't see as a challenge."

It's an effective method of breaking down some of the barriers within a business while creating a learning experience for all involved and applying the top-down approach to D&I.

"It's all about giving that person access to senior leadership. And developing a career isn't just about what you learn on the job," adds Hoare.

Focussing on the grassroots

Atkins is also heavily invested in STEM, with a STEM Ambassadors Programme rolled out to engage with local school across the country.

"We've got over 600 STEM Ambassadors in our business and we give all of our staff two volunteer days a year, so they can take some time out to get involved in building skills for the future.

"I recently did a STEM talk in a school, which was incredibly enjoyable. I had kids making bridges and structures out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Some of these six-year-olds were really gifted as it, so how do you help harness that? One of the teachers told me that when they do a topic on bridges, they tend to concentrate on the history and people like Brunel, not what actually makes a bridge stand up. So, there's definitely more we can do."

Valuing returners

But it isn't just the younger end of the scale that Atkins' skills agenda targets, it also has a STEM Returners programme which is encouraging people later in their careers to return to the engineering sector.

"We want people who may have left our business and gone into a different sector or taken a career break for whatever reason to come back into engineering. We want to make it as easy as possible for them to come back into that space. It's really improtant that we bring different people with different backgrounds back into the business," says Hoare.

The workplace environment

This people-first approach has extended to Atkins' new European HQ offices at Nova North in Victoria, which, with an innovative use of space, has working areas that encourage collaboration between teams.

The whole office is open plan, with quiet rooms and communal spaces available for staff to break out from their regular work areas or hot desk.

"We're on a journey around agile working," says Hoare. "We're dedicated to getting the most out of our work spaces and we're agile in about 70% of our offices but this, for us, was one step beyond that.

"You can see lots of different spaces for people to work together from quiet zones to kitchen table areas where people are much more closely packed together. When I first saw that, I thought, oh, that's not going to work, people are never going to use those sorts of work areas. But in the mornings, they're the first things that fill up."

Fostering such collaboration and close working among its staff is helping Atkins to provide a healthy working environment which encourages inclusion. "We think it's great," adds Hoare. "But more importantly, our people do too."

This interview was first published by Joe in the Ideas Forum section of the CBI website.