During March and April our Diversity and Inclusion focus at Anglian Water was on Gender, to coincide with International Women’s Day. Anglian Water – like the rest of the water industry, and much of the utility industry – is male dominated, so our efforts are focused on making sure that people of all genders feel included as well as focusing on women in the workplace.
At Anglian Water each Inclusion area – Gender, Race, Age, Religion and Belief, Sexuality and Gender Identity, Health and Ability and Social Mobility – is sponsored by two members of our management board, with Dr Robin Price and Jason Tucker as our sponsors for gender. Throughout Robin shared a blog about the importance of gender equality and why it’s important to him, and Jason took part in a gender podcast, including a discussion on the importance of allyship.
As well as sharing the pieces from our management board sponsors, we also really value hearing about the lived experience of our people. Louise Oliver, Process Improvement Manager, shared a blog sharing her experiences, and the difficulties she’s faced, while learning to navigate parenthood and work as a woman. Lydia Dareheath, Public Policy Advisor, wrote about how much work there still is for us to reach true gender equality.
At Anglian Water we recognise that the balance of work and family life is important, which is why we offer shared parental leave. Shared parental leave is designed to give parents more choice in how they care for their child by allowing them to take leave flexibly in the first year of their child’s life. We shared case studies from Claire Harrison, Head of Business Process Management, and Jack Gallagher, Leakage Targeting Support Manager, who both took shared parental leave with their partners to highlight the value that it provided to their families.
Throughout the 2 months we held a series of virtual drop-in sessions on the Gender Pay Gap, Recruitment and Gender and on Career Development, these were all with internal speakers and attendance was open to anyone in the business.
For international women’s day we were delighted to collaborate with The Women’s Network, to hear from leaders across the water industry in a joint virtual event. We had keynote speakers from various water companies including Anglian Water’s Head of Reward, Sally Purbrick. As part of this collaboration AWS were also represented in a cross-industry video for international women’s day.
Although our Inclusion focus has now moved on from gender, we continue to work on how we can make Anglian Water a more inclusive place for all.

Vicki Bannerman, Inclusion Lead, Anglian Water.