Companies in the energy industry are being urged to register to take part in a new Health Index that will help to benchmark Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practices across the sector, as well as indicate where more support may be needed.
The Health Index is a tool that will act as a baseline for any company working in energy to use and learn from, regardless of where they are on their EDI journey. It is based on a simple structure and proven best practice, with two key statements in 12 categories, placed within four themes: Strategy, People, External and Internal.
The statements are straightforward, such as whether there is an EDI strategy in place, and whether there is access to EDI learning for all employees.
Results will remain anonymised, it takes no more than 15 minutes to fill in and no specialist EDI knowledge is required to participate.
The Index has been created by TIDE, a cross-industry initiative to help companies improve EDI within the energy sector, with kind support from Cognician which has worked with TIDE and others to develop the tool since June 2023.
The benefits of the tool are two fold; companies will be able to anonymously benchmark themselves against others in the sector and identify where to focus their own efforts and learning, and TIDE will use the consolidated data to help the sector establish a baseline on EDI activity that can be measured year on year. It will also use the responses to collate good practice that other organisations can learn from, as well as identifying focus areas for TIDE to provide guidance on.
In order to take part, companies must register before 6 April 2024.
Amelia Heatley, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Electralink and one of the co-leads for TIDE’s insight and data workstream said:
“The more companies that take part, the more this data will be useful. We don’t currently have sight of where the energy sector is as a whole or where companies are doing really well. The Health Index will not only help companies be able to anonymously benchmark themselves against others of similar size, but at an amalgamated level will provide valuable insight to inform where TIDE should focus its efforts to best support energy companies of all sizes improve EDI.”
TIDE is supported by the Energy Institute, Energy Networks Association, Energy UK and Ofgem. In efforts to understand more around the current energy workforce, TIDE has been encouraging participation in the existing Energy and Utility Skills Inclusion Measurement framework which collects data on the diversity characteristics of the energy workforce. Last year, around a third more companies took part than the previous year, and it is hoped that participation will increase further when the Framework opens for submissions in September 2024.
Amelia continued: “It’s important to be clear that the Health Index is not a sophisticated maturity assessment. It’s not an EDI data collection ask, and is not specific to each strand of diversity – it’s inclusion focused. It’s aimed at giving both individual companies and TIDE a baseline of which activities and processes the industry currently undertakes. This, working hand in hand with the Energy and Utility Skills’ Inclusion Measurement Framework, which seeks to measure the diversity of our workforce, should give us both an understanding of the policies, practices and initiatives in place, as well as the results of whether it’s making a difference. Over time, collecting this data will be extremely important in measuring progress and identifying where to focus.”
Additional Information
- The deadline for signing up to the health index is 6th April and the index will launch on 8th April
- To get involved you just need to fill in this simple form on the TIDE EDI hub https://www.energyedihub.uk/health-index/
- Only one person per company should take part
- All responses will remain anonymous, only aggregate data will be published.
The health index allows:
- You to understand where to target your own company learning
- You to benchmark your company against the wider sector- no individual companies will be identified in any reporting
- TIDE to identify gaps in the sector to target our efforts in providing support
- TIDE to track progress as a sector year on year
Energy EDI Data collection
- The Health Index tracks initiatives, processes, policies and people to understand the activities of the sector.
- The Inclusion Measurement Framework (IMF) measures the diversity characteristics of the sector across the employment lifecycle.
- These are complementary tools which will help both individual companies to benchmark themselves, as well as being to build up an industry-wide picture of whether actions are leading to results, and where to focus.
- The IMF will open for 2024 data submissions in September 2024
About the Tackling Inclusion and Diversity in Energy (TIDE) Initiative
TIDE was launched in 2022 as a group of volunteers working across industry to provide tools and resources to improve Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in energy. Its aim is to combine cross-sector EDI insights and evidence, building on experience and expertise to share best practice and support industry-wide changes.
Find out more: www.energyedihub.uk
Follow TIDE on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tackling-inclusion-diversity-energy/