Young Innovators Council (YIC) is the voice of young people at Northern Gas Networks. It’s aim is to provide young people’s perspectives and help ensure young people’s thoughts and opinions are put at the heart of our decision making through meaningful and relevant engagement with our future customers.
We wanted to use this YIC session to gather the YIC’s perspective on what an inclusive employer looks like, and how NGN can better reflect the diversity of the communities it serves. It was important for us to understand what actions NGN should take to make underrepresented groups feel welcomes and supported, and how NGN should measure success in DEI.
Parents and Carers
You said that long hours may be a blocker to parents and carers due to child care and time constraints.
We will look into the possibility of offering childcare provisions or subsidies. When writing our inclusion and belonging strategy, we will also consider if there is a need for 12 hour shifts and look to understand if we could offer shorter ones.
Young People
You said that NGN need to have a comprehensive school engagement plan, which challenges the stereotypes of gender/age etc and also outlines what roles exist within the industry.
We are now considering ways to create longer lasting relationships with schools, and will be looking to offer site visits/interactive tasks etc as well as informative assemblies.
Existing Colleagues
You said that conducting regular colleague surveys is essential, and that leading from the top is essential.
We will look into existing colleague surveys to ensure that we are capturing colleague views effectively. We have also created an internal podcast (pipe up) where senior colleagues and guests from diverse backgrounds will have the opportunity to highlight their experiences.