Sustainability
Creating an awesome place to work
We’re a team of over 7000 employees based across 120 locations, each play their part to provide clean water and waste water removal to over 4.6 million homes and business across the heart of the UK.
We’re building an inclusive company. We’ve created a culture
that encourages all of our people to think of every single day
as an opportunity to do something better. Our most ambitious
goals depend on forward-thinking ideas, no matter who they
come from.
As employers, we welcome people from all walks of life and
promote diversity and inclusion. 92% of our people took
part in our annual employee survey in 2019 giving us great
feedback on what we’re doing well and where they expect us
to do better.
of our workforce would recommend us to a friend
8.3/10 employee engagement score puts us in the top 5% of global utility companies
Overall Glassdoor ranking
Quest: our employee engagement measure
Each year our team members take part in Quest, our employee engagement survey.
In 2020/21, 90% of employees took part in the survey.
We received our highest ever Quest engagement score of 8.3 out of 10.
Gender equality
In 2020 we were ranked 2nd in the Hampton-Alexander review of FTSE100 women in leadership, with more than a third of our senior leaders being women.
We are one of just eight FTSE100 companies with a female CEO and one of two FTSE 100 companies with more women than men on its Board.
These women represent the next generation of female leaders and show that having strong role models in leadership positions really makes a difference, not just for us but the sector as a whole - inspiring current employees as well as demonstrating an inclusive culture to potential employees.
Each year we produce our gender pay gap report, showing the difference between the average hourly pay for men and women across all ages, roles and levels of the business.
Social mobility
We ranked eighth in the Social Mobility Employer Index in 2020. As founder members of the Social Mobility Pledge, having a diverse workforce in terms of social background is very important to us so.
We’re proud of our commitment to improve social mobility within our workforce. We work hard to ensure no employee or candidate receives any less favourable treatment, directly or indirectly, because of their socio-economic background or social connections.
Diversity of talent brings different ideas and perspectives which improve how we work as a company, and enable us to understand and meet the needs of the communities we serve. We want to recruit and employ the best people possible, regardless of their background.
For the past four years, Severn Trent has partnered with Hereward College to offer nine month internships to students with disabilities and additional educational needs.
Without such opportunities these young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than their contemporaries without disabilities - so offering real work experience can significantly boost their chances of entering paid employment after leaving college.
13 interns have worked across seven of our departments, with four moving into paid employment with Severn Trent.
Tapping into the region's potential
In 2019 we published our Skills Tap report, written in partnership with the Social Mobility Pledge. The report details how we have put apprenticeships at the heart of our long-term business strategy.
In a bid to support people from all backgrounds, we visit schools to talk about our education programmes, graduate and apprenticeship schemes, in areas of low social mobility. We aim to encourage young people from areas where opportunities are less readily available to work for us and in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics industries.
These areas of reduced opportunities are known as social mobility cold spots.
A third of the nation’s social mobility cold spots are in the communities we serve, so we have a great chance to make a real difference and create opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
Diversity and inclusion
All our training, promotion and career development processes are in place for all our employees to access, regardless of their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, race, sexual-orientation, age or disability.
We're passionate about putting customers at the heart of everything we do. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we serve, so creating an inclusive environment is very important to us.
The provision of occupational health programmes is of crucial importance to Severn Trent with the aim of keeping our employees fit, healthy and well, including an employee assistance program.
We are fully committed to supporting applications made by people with disabilities, and make reasonable adjustments to their environment where possible, to create a workplace that suits their needs.
If any employee becomes disabled during their time with us, we will re-train that employee and make reasonable adjustments to their work environment where possible, to keep them in employment with us.
We have set up a working group who will be focusing on the practical steps we can make to ensure we are removing barriers from the recruitment process and career progression.
We aim to embed best practice in our approach to improving Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation as we create a truly diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone can reach their full potential.
Disability
The provision of occupational health programmes, including an employee assistance program, is of crucial importance to us and our desire to keep our employees fit, healthy and well.
Our commitment to attracting talented people, whatever their background or circumstances, means that we support those with a disability or health condition by providing equipment and adjustments to ensure they can reach their full potential.
If any employee becomes disabled during their time with us, we will re-train them and make reasonable adjustments to their work environment, where possible, to keep them in employment with us.
We have signed up to the Government's Disability Confident Scheme and have formed a disability working group with representatives from across the organisation, who come together to highlight opportunities to create an accessible and inclusive environment for our colleagues.
LGBTQ+
We want all of our colleagues to feel supported no matter their circumstance.
In 2017, our LGBTQ+ working group worked together with our Occupational Health teams to develop a deeper understanding of, and support for, issues LGBTQ+ community members may face in the workplace.
This means that if a colleague needs help, we’re ready to fully support them – giving each colleague support tailored to their situation. And that’s just the start!
In 2019 we introduced LGBTQ+ allies’ events, helping team members to learn about what it means to be an ally, and their role in creating an open, welcoming and safe environment for LGBTQ+ colleagues.
As part of National Coming Out Day, some of our colleagues shared their stories about how it feels to be themselves at Severn Trent.
LGBTQ+ support network
We value diverse thinking and an inclusive culture. We know that diverse teams are more innovative, consider a broader range of options, make more informed decisions and drive better outcomes for the business.
There is a well-established LGBTQ+ network here who work with the leadership teams across the organisation to drive an inclusive culture that we're proud of.
Since 2017, the network has worked in partnership with Stonewall to become a diversity champion, updating our policies and procedures to be more inclusive.
We've introduced LGBTQ+ messages to our Twitter and Facebook channels, which has enabled us to show our support to customers and wider communities, sharing photos, videos and posts of our team members attending Pride events all over our region and openly celebrating Pride in our offices.
Employee benefits
We understand everyone’s needs are different, so we have a flexible benefits platform which allows our employees to select which benefits work best for them.
To help our employees with childcare commitments, we offer tax savings on childcare vouchers, flexible working, and the option to buy or sell up to a week of extra annual leave.
All this is underpinned by maternity, paternity, adoption and career break polices which go to above and beyond the statutory requirements.
The mental and physical wellbeing of all of our employees is very important to us so we provide an Employee Assistance Programme –a free and confidential support service designed to give employees unlimited access to information, advice and emotional support –income protection and personal accident cover.
In addition, employees can select a range of healthcare benefits from our Lifestyle platform including, cycle to work schemes, discounted gym membership and our Healthcare Cash Plan which provides a range of health insurance options for employees and their family members, as well as a 24 hour virtual GP service.
With up to two paid volunteering days and charitable giving through payroll, we support our employees in giving something back to our communities too.
Employee rights
We have a strong partnership across three trade union groups; Unison, GMB and Unite, and we come together to discuss the areas that are most important and impactful for the majority of the workforce. An important function of the Company and Business Forum covers collective bargaining between the Company and its recognised Trade Unions.
Any agreements which require substantive changes in pay and other conditions of employment are referred to the Company Forum for approval. This function covers all employees excluding middle and senior managers and all employees of Severn Trent Business Services.
We recognise the right of all employees to Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining. We actively seek to promote positive co-operation between employees, our management team and recognised Trade Unions, ensuring all groups are represented in any major change initiative.
We meet with our Trade Unions on a quarterly basis at the Employee Forum, and see mutual benefit in sharing information with our colleagues and seek their feedback and suggestions.
We believe this fosters a common understanding of business needs and helps to deliver joint solutions with a shared agenda of making our business successful.
As well as enabling time to attend these forums we are also very supportive in providing Company time for Trade Union reps to support individual employees through difficult situations such as disciplinary, grievance, performance and prolonged period of absences. Externally we enable attendance at trade union conferences, membership recruitment activities and dedicated training for new representatives.
Our Employee Forum provides an invaluable opportunity for engagement with the whole workforce to ensure workforce views are taken into account.
To enable workforce matters to be considered at Board level, Non-Executive Directors regularly attend the Company Forum.
In 2019, the Company Forum has supported the expansion of female showers at operational sites, disability passports, dying to work charter and modernised laundry facilities on waste related sites.
Unison complemented our workforce engagement activity at their conference earlier this year. 24% of our employees have told us that they choose to contribute to recognised trade unions (GMB, Unite, Unison) through their salary. Actual membership figures cannot be confirmed as employees can also choose to pay their union membership via direct debit.
Pension
We also ensure we help all employees keep an eye on the future.
We offer a market-leading defined contribution pension scheme and double contributions that our employees make, up to a maximum of 15% of salary, regardless of their level or seniority.
As our people approach retirement we provide education and support to help them plan for the next stage of their lives.
of employees are members of the pension scheme
of employees pay contributions above the minimum of 3%
of employees receive the maximum company contribution
Sharesave
Many of our employees are also shareholders.
We offer employees the opportunity to participate in our Sharesave scheme.
74% of our employees are active participants in our Sharesave scheme which gives employees an opportunity to save up to £500 per month over three to five years, with the option to buy Severn Trent Plc shares at a discounted rate at the end of the period.
Owning a stake in the company encourages employee engagement and reinforces our strong performance culture. The scheme enables employees to share in our long-term success and aligns participants with external shareholder interests.
Join the team
If you think that all of this makes Severn Trent and awesome place to work, we’d love to hear from you. We’re always on the look-out for new talent, so if you’d like to join the team, check our current job opportunities, apprenticeships and graduate schemes.
New talent
We want to recruit the brightest and best new talent and give our teams the opportunity to develop and thrive within our business.
of graduates we hire from non-Russell Group universities
of apprentices we hire from social mobility cold spots
The New Talent strategy
Our New Talent strategy determines that our intake numbers each year are based on workforce planning activity.
This approach means that we can offer permanent opportunities to those on our New Talent Programmes, as well as ensuring we are investing in the skills we need for the future.
A large organisation like ours always wants new faces and bright ideas. Each year our workforce needs change as we experience retirements, turnover, and future skills requirements.
This means that our intake numbers per year change rather than having a standard intake, so that we can react to business changes and new programmes can be introduced based on skills requirements.
This helps to ensure we can be responsive to new opportunities, and introduce new development and training programmes when necessary.
Graduate and apprenticeship programmes
Our Graduate and Apprentice programmes are structured in a way that individuals gain qualifications and experience relevant to their chosen career.
We run apprenticeship programmes in many areas of our business, including:
- Engineering
- Network maintenance
- Vehicle maintenance
- Technology
- Project management
- Finance
- Group commercial
- Human resources
- Legal
- Operations
- Logistics
- Construction
We run graduate programmes in the following business areas:
- Engineering
- Project management
- Technology
- Finance
- Business leadership
In-work development
We provide learning support for internal candidates who want to complete professional qualifications to support their development, including higher national diplomas, higher national certificates, degrees and masters level programmes.
Employability Programmes
We hold Employability Programmes to support local youngsters with their employability skills, as well as learning about the career opportunities we have at Severn Trent.
These include workshops around CV writing, presentation skills, interview skills and personal brand, as well as activities that gave the individuals a better understanding of their own strengths and how these can link to careers.
This is a great way for us to get people from various backgrounds interested in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics industry, with the aim of bringing fresh ideas and perspectives to an area that has previously lacked diversity.
In early 2020, we opened our offices at weekends providing a unique experience for both young people and parents to find out more about the culture at Severnt Trent. The objective of our open days was to inspire young people, showcasing the breadth of opportunity, and offering personal development.
We held interactive workshops, bringing to life our operational world. This included the use of Virtual Reality, demos from current apprentices, and activities that bring the Severn Trent values to life. Across the two days, 210 people (young people and parents) attended.
During summer 2020, with lockdown restrictions in place, we have worked exclusively with schools in both the East and West Midlands, providing a ‘virtual’ work experience programme to Year 10 students. A total of 39 young people attended the work experience programme, with 51% of attendees being female.
Many who attended the events found them useful:
“Thank you so much for the week of work experience, just a week after we did the course, I got an interview at a restaurant, and straight after the interview the man gave me a trial shift! He said my interview skills were amazing! Now that wouldn't have been possible without the week that you gave us, it was an amazing opportunity and I'm glad I took it. By the way I had the trial shift today, the manager said I did great and all I have to do is a bit of online training and the job is mine, thank you so much!!!”
Diversity amongst graduates
Graduates | Total Hired |
Female |
BAME |
Non Russell |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | 14 | 7 (50%) | 4 (28%) | 10 (72%) |
2019 | 20 | 7 (35%) | 5 (25%) | 15 (71%) |
2018 | 42 | 16 (38%) | 12 (29% | |
2017 | 35 | 14 (40%) | 12 (34%) | |
2016 | 38 | 15 (39%) | 7 (18%) |
Diversity amongst undergraduates
Total Hired |
Female |
BAME |
|
---|---|---|---|
Undergraduates 12 month - 2020 | 12 | 2 (16%) | 4 (33%) |
Undergraduates - 2019 | 4 | 1 (25%) | 0 (0%) |
Undergraduates 12 month - 2019 |
12 | 4 (33%) | 3 (25%) |
Undergraduates Summer - 2018 |
6 | 6 (100%) | 1 (20%) |
Undergraduates 12 month - 2018 |
17 | 4 (23%) | 6 (35%) |
Undergraduates Summer - 2017 | 7 | 3 (43%) | 2 (29%) |
Undergraduates 12 month - 2017 | 14 | 5 (36%) | 2 (14%) |
Diversity amongst apprentices
Total Hired |
Female |
BAME |
Social Mobility cold spot area |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Apprentices - 2020 | 44 | 5 (11%) | 4 (9%) | 23 (54%) |
Apprentices - 2019 | 28 | 8 (29%) | 3 (11%) | 8 (28%) |
Apprentices - 2018 |
28 | 9 (32%) | 5 (17%) | |
Apprentices - 2017 |
68* | 10 (15%) | 10 (15%) | |
Apprentices - 2016 |
78 | 7 (9%) | 6 (8%) | |
Apprentices - 2015 |
28 | 0 (0%) | 4 (14%) | |
Apprentices - 2014 |
17 | 1 (6%) | 0 (0%) | |
Apprentices - 2013 | 17 | 3 (18%) | 0 (0%) |
Investing in skills and knowledge
At Severn Trent our people are our most valuable asset. To achieve our strategy we need to ensure they have the right knowledge, skills and behaviours.
We place a high priority on developing our people to be brilliant at what they do, today and in the future.
guaranteed investment in Technical Academy
on average each employee received 1.02 training days
total number of training days in the year 2020 to 2021
Developing the most technical skilled workforce in the industry
Our ambition is to have the most technically skilled workforce in the industry, and we have recently announced plans to invest £10m in a new Technical Training Academy in Coventry.
“Investing in training is good for our business because it helps us to be more technically competent…it’s also good for our colleagues, because it gives them a platform for growth, promotion and more rewarding careers –and it’s good for local communities and industry too because it improves the skills base across the Midlands.”
Chief Executive’s Review, Severn Trent Plc, 2018, Annual Report and Accounts
How we deliver training
The Severn Trent Academy are responsible for enterprise wide learning and development and have overall accountability for the employee learning experience.
The academy is made up of an Advisory Board who meet annually, an Operating Committee who meet monthly, and five key Learning Streams:
- Operations: Developing technical competence in our teams who treat, recycle, distribute and manage water and wastewater, as well as having a focus on health, safety and wellbeing.
- Leadership and Management: Developing inspiring leaders who build engaged teams, nurture talent, and drive performance.
- Professional Development and Business Skills: Helping our colleagues to grow their careers and gain the business skills they need for today and in the future.
- Engineering: Engineering excellence in capital planning, design, delivery and adoption of new assets.
- Customer: Helping colleagues put the customer experience at the heart of everything they do.
Everyone learns in different ways, and that's why the Academy goes beyond classroom learning, using the latest technology to develop immersive learning experiences, including creating virtual reality learning solutions to address real business issues:
- Coaching skills for Customer Contact managers to improve customer experience
- Operating and optimising waste activated sludge plants to improve technical competence
- Safe lifting to improve Lost Time Incident rates around musculoskeletal issues
2016/17 |
2017/18 |
2018/19 |
2019/20 | 2020/21 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
*Average number of training days per employer | 3.18 | 3.04 | 2.78 | 2.08 | 1.02 |
Total number of training days |
14935 | 15287 | 14867 | 14299 | 7152 |
Maintaining competence
Learning and development is supported by Skilled by Choice,our award-winning approach to evaluation.
Skilled By Choice has five steps:
- Define the skill requirements for the role
- Evaluate current levels of competency
- Identify development needs
- Design and deliver learning interventions to address development needs
- Re-evaluate competency every three years.
Naturally, changes in legislation, technology and processes occur over time. All employees in operational roles are required to undertake an online evaluation, enabling us to identify specific skills gaps and tailor learning
Inspiring great performance
Our performance management approach, Inspiring Great Performance, is critical to ensuring employee competency, by driving continuous performance improvement and encouraging personal growth and development.
We believe great people are the key to our success. To help us to be the best we all need to:
- Understand our role in delivering what we need today, tomorrow and in the long term
- Feel recognised for what we do
- Continuously improve our performance
Inspiring Great Performance enables this through every-day feedback conversations, regular one to one meetings between individuals and line managers and quarterly performance reviews. These reviews include coaching, feedback and development planning.
All employees are actively encouraged to create Personal Development Plans to develop their knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to perform at their best.
Employees with performance management completed by internal deadline
Career transitions
We now offer a pre-retirement course that helps our employees plan for a life outside Severn Trent.
The course covers a range of topics including how to adapt to a different lifestyle, financial planning, Severn Trent pensions, state entitlements, planning your estate and a personal action plan.
Health, safety and wellbeing
We believe passionately that no-one should be hurt or become unwell by what we do, whether that’s colleagues, customers or contractors.
Lost Time Incidents per 100,000 hours worked
70% of managers trained in mental health
employee or contractor fatalities
Aiming for Goal Zero
Health, Safety and Wellbeing is embedded within everything we do and is critical to the success of our business. Our vision is that no one gets hurt or is made unwell by what we do, so we have set a goal of reaching zero lost time incidents.
Protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone we work with, including the communities in which we work, is one of our core responsibilities.
We are committed to achieving an environment and culture which is incident free and we will continue to raise the standard of health, safety and wellbeing in order to achieve our vision.
That’s why we’re committed to investing in the wellbeing of our colleagues to help them provide the best service they can, and making sure that no-one –that that’s our colleagues, supply chain partners, customers and the communities we work within –is hurt or made unwell by our work.
To incentivise best practice, 8% of our company-wide bonus is linked to health and safety performance, ensuring every member of staff has an investment in making sure we do things the right way.
Recent performance
In 2018/19 we saw our highest LTI rate for several years. We responded by refreshing our Goal Zero strategy to focus on the hazards that cause us the most harm. We are focused on reducing harm in the areas that hurt us the most. Our analysis shows that the areas to improve are:
- Driving
- Manual handling
- Slips, trips and falls
- Mental health
Each year, we dedicate a quarter to each of these four key areas to drive deep focus and tangible improvements.
We’re reviewing our existing management system against ISO 45001 to make sure we meet best practice and industry standards.
We're providing useful data and insight to teams to drive accountability and performance improvements, and we're utilising new technology to drive insight and new ideas to drive further improvements.
Progress against these areas is considered at the Employee Forum, Executive Committee and Board.
Benchmarking against the best in the industry
We constantly review our existing management system against ISO 45001, to make sure our processes and training are to the highest standards.
Using data and technology to improve safety
We use new technology and analyse useful data to gain insights into team safety, drive accountability and improve knowledge and performance.
Health and safety
As one of the risks that affects a huge section of our employees, driving is a particular focus of our health and safety training and awareness.
Our employees drive 1.5 million miles in our fleet vehicles each month, and there were 383 driving-related incidents in 2018. By analysing three years of data, we found three key areas to focus on: parking, roundabouts and junctions, and rear-end collisions.
In the first quarter of 2019/20, we went out around the Company, delivering roadshows, running parking challenges and mileage competitions, speaking to employees all over the business to help raise awareness of safe driving techniques.
As a result, driving accidents decreased by 25% in the nine months following the ‘driving focus’ quarter (compared to the nine months before it) and lost time due to driving accidents decreased by 63% – meaning that our efforts led to a decrease in both the number and severity of driving accidents.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing and mental health is a really big focus for us.
over 400 employees are now trained in mental health first aid, including 70% of our line managers.
Our mental health first aiders are always available to listen to colleagues, and point them in the direction of specialist services to help them. They are easily recognisable by their yellow lanyards.
Health and safety in our supply chain
We work with many contractors across a variety of activities. Our core activities are in major construction and asset repair and maintenance.
Many of our higher risk activities are in these areas and we work in collaboration with our contractors to jointly understand and improve health, safety and wellbeing.
Many of our highest-risk activities are in major construction and asset repair and maintenance – the areas in which we often work with contractors. We collaborate at director level across our supply chain to improve health, safety and wellbeing, and have achieved an LTI rate in our supply chain of 0.21 per 100,000 hours worked in 2020/21.
We hold monthly health, safety and wellbeing meetings with our core suppliers and agree clear targets for the year ahead. Each quarter all leaders, from team and site managers through to area managers, attend health, safety and wellbeing sessions to drive significant physical and behavioural improvements.
Over our current reporting period (2015 onwards) there have been zero contractor fatalities.
Our LTI performance