With the entry deadline for the 2025 UK Social Mobility Awards on the horizon (June 27th), we sat down with National Grid’s Chief People Officer Will Serle to discuss the importance of a diverse workforce, and why your organisation should enter the awards.
National Grid is one of the UK’s largest energy distribution networks, connecting millions of people and businesses every day, and have been headline partners for the UK Social Mobility Awards for the past two years.
National Grid have committed to advancing social mobility as part of their pledge to support their communities. National Grid’s flagship Grid for Good programme aims to support 45,000 less-advantaged young people by 2030 through training and employment opportunities.
Organisation and individuals have until June 27th at 5pm to enter the 2025 UK Social Mobility Awards – see the categories and all entry requirements.
This year’s theme for Social Mobility Day focused on Social Mobility being ‘good for business’. How have National Grid benefitted from that diversity of thought within its own workforce?
In the energy sector, we are facing an unprecedented challenge of facilitating the net-zero transition. We are going to need to recruit a diverse range to highly skilled and capable individuals to join our workforce to help us deliver this. This means that recruiting from the widest pool possible is not just a nice to have, it is essential. If we are to be the best industry we can be, and if we accept that talent is equally spread across diversity characteristics, then it goes to follow that attracting the best talent includes attracting all types of talent.
We know that we are competing with a range of employers in the labour market for capable and skilled individuals. However, in our recruitment data, we are seeing some benefits from being associated with diversity as an employer and having a demonstrably inclusive environment. Candidates feel they will be supported in their belonging once they join the organisation. This plays out once people join via our employee survey data, which demonstrates an increasingly inclusive environment, with an engaged workforce. And this is important to the bottom line of our business as we know that both diversity of thought and having an inclusive culture means that we will have a more effective organisation to deliver for our customers.
We’ve also worked hard in recent times to ensure that social mobility is strategically embedded within our organisation. We’ve recently introduced a brand-new Social Mobility Board, tasked with ensuring business decisions – including those made at board-level – consider the outcomes for those from less advantaged backgrounds. Our Social Mobility Employee Network Group ‘Inspire’ has also grown in strength and numbers, working alongside the board to drive real, tangible change.
How important is National Grid’s partnership with the UK Social Mobility Awards, and why are the awards so important for highlighting and advancing social mobility in the UK?
At National Grid, we are committed to supporting social mobility, so the UK Social Mobility Awards partnership is really important for us to be associated with. We believe there is a strong alignment between our social mobility aspirations as an organisation, and the good job opportunities that are available within the clean energy and the supply chain.
With a large workforce such as ours, across a range of geographies and with a variety of skills required, there is a lot of opportunity to train folks up into careers that provide stable, long-term careers. So it’s in ours, and society’s interests that we can work alongside and help raise funds for organisations like Making The Leap doing important work in this space, and raise the profile of social mobility initiatives as a whole.
Why should organisations enter the UK Social Mobility Awards?
Within the UK, if you’re working in the Social Mobility space to drive change and want to be recognised, the SOMOs are it! They are a great way of demonstrating and recognising externally the great work organisations are doing in this space to customers, stakeholders, current and prospective employees. So, I would recommend to anyone thinking about making a submission that it’s a great opportunity to showcase your work.
Equally, the awards are a great way to learn about what other organisations are doing in terms of best practice. Supporting by becoming a sponsor or even just joining the awards event is a great way of understanding the range of fantastic work going on and making key connections in this space.
