Inclusion week: Stephen's story

Collaboration is a core part of what we do at AWE Nuclear Security Technologies. It takes a team of people with different backgrounds and experiences to keep the nation safe.

It's vital that every one of our employees is supported and feels included across our business. Different perspectives help us improve in every aspect of what we do and challenge our status quo.

We saw this in action when one of our employees, Stephen, joined his current team earlier this year. Hear his story:

All my family are hearing, but my wife uses British Sign Language (BSL) with me at home. I can’t use hearing aids anymore, and I found meetings difficult because there was no BSL support. After raising this I was pleased that AWE provided a BSL interpreter.

When two of his teammates, Karen and Lynn, heard that Stephen was joining their team, they decided to learn British Sign Language to help him feel more welcome.

“We are a small team and I’d like to think that we are more of a ‘family’ who look after each other and make new team members feel welcome," says Lynn. "When Karen and I heard that Stephen was joining us we decided to learn a few basics of BSL to make it easier to communicate with him.

Stephen has a wicked sense of humour, and there has been much laughter since he joined us.

Karen added: "while still very basic, we can communicate with Stephen and include him in lunchtime conversations. We do more visual speech with him and some sign language, and even if we make a mistake, he laughs and shows us what the sign should be.