Corporate report

The NDA group inclusion strategy 2021 to 2025

Published 27 September 2021

Welcome to the NDA group inclusion strategy

Our mission requires us to solve some of the world’s most complex problems. What we do really matters. Our work to clean up the UK’s nuclear legacy is the largest, most complex environmental restoration project in Europe, spanning decades. Cleaning up the UK’s earliest nuclear sites will require the brightest minds and talented people for decades to come. We need to attract and retain talent to meet current and future skills demands and ensure we remain attractive in the market for many years to come. Across the NDA group, our leaders will create environments that encourage diversity of thought to enhance performance, while ensuring our workplaces are safe, accessible and promote health and wellbeing. We’re committed to building great places to work. At the heart of this is developing a culture of respect and inclusion where diversity is embraced and people are encouraged to be their authentic self. As well as positively influencing our internal working environments and performance, diversity can also enhance the impact we have on the communities in which we operate. Diverse organisations that can represent modern Britain and communities they serve are much more likely to achieve their social value goals. Making a conscious decision to maximise social mobility can really help us to attract different talent, grow a creative and diverse workforce and deliver our mission more successfully.

This strategy builds on the positive foundations we’ve built since setting out our initial Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) strategy in 2018. Since then we have put in place strong groupwide governance through our ED&I Council, we’ve embedded an active and collaborative cross-group ED&I Delivery Group, we’ve progressed our goals through our Beacon Projects and we’ve amplified employee voice through establishing group wide employee networks for gender, race, disability and LGBTQ. Over the next five years we want to build on these foundations to ensure the NDA group is a best in sector inclusive employer.

I strongly believe that diversity of thought results in better business decisions and this in turn creates better outcomes. However, to be able to leverage that thought, we also need an inclusive culture where all employees feel included and able to perform to the best of their ability. Our leaders must be visible champions of our company values and are expected to role model inclusive leadership behaviours, creating a culture and environment where diversity and inclusion is embedded in all aspects of people policies and processes in a way that promotes fairness, equality of opportunity and inclusivity. David Peattie, Chief Executive Officer, NDA group

Foreword

I feel privileged to be leading this agenda as the executive Sponsor for the NDA group on diversity and inclusion (D&I). Our mission is so long-term it spans the next century and beyond. Our 17 sites are at different stages of decommissioning and all have unique challenges. We’re also engaging with communities to establish a permanent disposal solution for higher level wastes, making our environment safer for future generations.

I genuinely believe that we can be a leading employer within our sector and that an inclusive culture sits at the heart of any successful and high performing organisation. As the Chair of the Nuclear Skills Strategy Group, I also believe we have a responsibility to lead a real step change across the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sector and lead the way in driving for more diversity and a better gender balance. Therefore, we have signed up to the Government’s gender targets within the Nuclear Sector Deal to achieve 40% female representation across our businesses by 2030. I’m also committed to ensuring we drive down our gender pay gap by 2025 by increasing our representation of women in senior roles and women at all levels of the organisation. Of course, diversity is about much more than gender and our forward strategy builds on the foundations of the last few years and requires us to make a step change in embracing diversity in all its forms and creating a culture of inclusion for all employees. We want our workplaces to be those where people feel proud to work and where everyone feels respected, included and able to perform at their best.

2021 is a critical year for our inclusion strategy as we move from foundation building to embedding inclusion into the DNA and culture of our organisations. A joined up and consistent approach across the group will enable us to share learning and move forward together at pace.

Corhyn Parr, Executive sponsor diversity and inclusion

Vision statement

We want to create great places to work where people feel respected, included and can perform at their best

Our ambition is to create workplaces where we recognise and celebrate differences, encourage diverse contributions and our employees feel able to be themselves at work. Our culture will be one of respect, openness, collaboration and creativity, living and breathing our values and ethics. We will be recognised as a thought leader in our sector and an employer of choice, not just in our local communities, but across the STEM sector in the UK.

We’ve set ourselves stretching goals to be achieved by 2025, made visible to all our employees and stakeholders, so we’re accountable for changing the way we work while monitoring the progress we make. These goals support our NDA Strategy people objective to attract, retain and develop a high performing, highly skilled, talented and motivated workforce and create a culture in which they can thrive. Performance against our goals will be tracked, measured and reported annually to our D&I Council. We’ll measure how our employees feel through feedback and surveys.

By 2025 we’ll be more diverse and our leaders will role model inclusive behaviours and drive cultural change across our group.

Inclusive culture and leadership

We’re committed to developing a culture of respect and inclusion where diversity is embraced and people are encouraged to be their authentic self and thrive. We know that leaders and managers set the tone and we expect them to actively champion diversity and inclusion and role model inclusive and ethical behaviours in their everyday interactions.

Commitments and Measures

We’re committed to developing a culture of respect and inclusion where diversity is embraced and people are encouraged to be their authentic self and thrive. We know that leaders and managers set the tone and we expect them to actively champion diversity and inclusion and role model inclusive and ethical behaviours in their everyday interactions.

• Leaders will be accountable for driving delivery of their local annual diversity and inclusion improvement plans, which will be reviewed as part of the board quarterly reviews

• Leadership standards and inclusive behaviours will be embedded into our leadership academies and line manager programmes, developing and rolling out an inclusive leadership intervention that builds on capability and knowledge to meet the 2025 goals

• Education and development programmes will be offered to employees to raise awareness, build knowledge, skills and capabilities. This will also ensure adherence to legal obligations and company policies

• In line with our standards for inclusive leadership, every senior leader (CEO minus level 2) will be asked to set their own diversity and inclusion objective and through the annual performance review process will be accountable for delivery of outcomes. All line leaders are accountable for ensuring values and standards are maintained

• Senior leaders will be mentored as part of a reverse mentoring programme to increase their awareness and competency in becoming a more inclusive leader. We’ll actively coach our executive sponsors who lead D&I workstreams and employee networks

• We’ll hold annual events with D&I leads and trade union representatives to learn from internal and external insights and share best practice

Workforce diversity

Attracting and retaining the skills and talent we need over the coming years calls for us to be a modern and inclusive employer. We‘ll seek to improve the diversity of our workforce as part of our journey to become representative of modern Britain, while aspiring to meet our external commitments under the Nuclear Sector Deal to improve gender balance in the sector. Each organisation across the group will develop a plan to deliver the changes required to meet the ambition set out through the stated principles below. We have set stretching group-wide goals for each of these diversity strands:

Representation	Baseline as at 31st March 2021	All roles 2025	Board and Senior Leaders* by end of 2025	Upper Quartile Gender Pay Gap reporting by end of 2025	All Graduates (recruitment) by end of 2025	All Apprentices (recruitment) by end of 2025	D&I Data disclosure by end of 2025
Female representation	28%	32.5%	30%	25%	50%	50%	100%*
Ethnic minority representation	1%3	5%	5%	N/A	15%	10%	85%
Disability representation	4%3	6%	6%	N/A	6%	6%	85%
LGBTQ+ representation	2%3	3%	3%	N/A	3%	3%	85%

1 Gender data taken from the HR system and is 100% disclosed 2 Senior women baseline (upper quartile) is 17% as an average across the NDA group 3 Ethnicity, disability and LGBTQ+ Data is based on anonymised employee responses from ED&I group employee survey *Board Non-Executive Directors, Group Leadership Team, Operating Company Executive teams reporting to CEO and Grade 10/11 reporting to GLT Corporate Centre Functional Directors

Commitments and Measures

• We‘ll continue our progress to achieve gender balance and address under-representation of women in senior roles. All parts of the NDA group will produce an annual workforce diversity plan through to 2030 detailing focused interventions to meet the goals set. We’ll also commit to achieving 30% women at board and senior leader level by 2025. We have signed the Government’s Nuclear Sector Deal committing to workforce representation of 40% women by 2030

• Each operating company will produce a gender pay gap plan that provides detail on how they will reduce their gender pay gap each year

• We will develop and deliver a cross-group development and mentoring programme for women (4 cohorts per year) and employees from ethnically diverse communities that aims to retain and develop diversity within our talent pipeline. These activities will form part of the NDA group’s talent strategy

• Across the NDA group we will achieve Disability Confident Status level 2 by March 2022 and achieve level 3 by March 2023, to understand the needs of our disabled employees and ensure our recruitment processes and workplaces are accessible and inclusive

• Across the NDA group we will sign the Race at Work Charter by December 2021 and produce a race improvement plan by March 2022. We will ensure our ethnicity data is robust and publish our ethnicity pay gap across the NDA group in 2022/23 subject to the Government’s timetable

• We will refresh the NDA group’s early careers strategy in 2021, driving social mobility and inclusion, ensuring we drive equality of opportunity. We’ll do this by widening school engagement and participation, pre-apprenticeship programmes, enhanced recruitment campaigns and assessment methodologies to ensure that we can recruit from a wider section of society and offer better life chances and sustainable careers for those further away from the pool that we recruit from and not traditionally engaged in careers in nuclear. These measures and metrics will be developed and delivered as part of the early careers strategy but will be supported by this inclusion strategy

• We will create and implement a group-wide returners programme for women who have been out of the workplace for 2 years or more.

Embedding inclusion through the employee lifecycle

We’ll continue to drive a group-wide focus on respect and inclusion at work and focus on diversity through positive proactive management of the employee lifecycle, in particular attraction, recruitment, retention and talent development. Inclusion will be embedded into our core people processes and we will refresh our employment policies to ensure they promote equality and fairness and support our ambition to be a leading inclusive employer. We will publish annually a data dashboard detailing our progress on recruitment, talent development and workforce diversity. Our groupwide fairness and meritocracy principles outline our collective commitment to current and future employees, ensuring we’re aligned with leading recruitment and talent development practice.

Commitments and Measures

• Advertise all our vacancies in line with our agreed policies and processes and advertise opportunities and vacancies as flexible (location, working hours, etc), where possible

• Encourage applications from a range of talent pools to ensure our workforce is made up of diverse skills, knowledge, experience and abilities

• Identify a variety of media sources and advertisement platforms to provide access to the most diverse pool of talent possible and our vacancies will use inclusive language, diverse imagery and will be accessible

• Ensure our managers have the necessary training, tools and skills to deliver our recruitment and selection processes so that they are free from bias and encourage best practice in accordance with the fairness and meritocracy principles

• Make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants where appropriate to ensure our recruitment processes are accessible

• Expect all recruitment agencies to promote diversity and present diverse applicant pools. All agencies will be expected to provide diversity data from initial pool through to hire

Respect, dignity and employee voice

We’ll actively seek feedback on our culture through engagement and wellbeing surveys, employee listening forums, employee networks, trade union representatives and D&I champions. Employee experiences and insights will help to shape our strategy, policies and interventions. We’ll benchmark progress in the group-wide employee engagement survey against previous diversity and inclusion surveys with a goal of improving in areas such as inclusive leadership, respect and dignity at work, fairness and meritocracy. The new NDA group Employee Engagement Survey will be launched across the group in October 2021 and the results will establish the baseline and improvement measures. The following is a sample of questions that will provide feedback on diversity and inclusion and providing great place to work. The survey covers a range of areas and will also seek feedback on organisational culture, leadership, employee engagement, health and well-being.

NDA Employee Engagement Survey 2021 - D&I Questions

• I’m satisfied with [Company]’s efforts to support diversity and inclusion (for example, in terms of gender ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status)
• A diverse workforce is a clear priority at [Company] (for example, in terms of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status)
• Senior leaders at [Company] show that employee wellbeing is important to them.
• My manager cares about my opinions
• My manager provides me with the support I need to complete my work.
• My manager cares about me as a person
• My manager communicates openly and honestly with me
• I’m confident I won’t be discriminated against at [Company] (which could include bullying and harassment)
• If I experienced serious misconduct at work, I’m confident [Company Name] would take action to rectify the situation
• I believe [Company] would respond appropriately to instances of discrimination
• At work, my opinions seem to be valued
• I see how my work contributes to positive outcomes for customers or people I provide services to
• People from all backgrounds are treated fairly at [Company Name]
• Recruitment processes at [Company] attract and select a diverse workforce (for example, in terms of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status)
• I’m given enough freedom to decide how to do my work
• I’m satisfied with the amount of flexibility I have in my work schedule

Commitments and Measures

• Recognise and value the important role of our trade union partners and we will continue building relationships and working collaboratively with them and our broader stakeholder community, to embed diversity and inclusion in everything we do
• Implement a group-wide employee engagement survey in 2021 that benchmarks our progress against our previous group diversity and inclusion surveys, measuring our progress and improvements through survey results
• Monitor, track and report at a group level, employee grievances related to bullying, harassment and discrimination, ensuring investigations and appropriate actions are taken in line with our zero-tolerance approach to poor behaviours. We’ll also encourage all employees to speak up if they see or hear any inappropriate behaviours
• Strengthen employee voice and grow membership of our NDA group employee networks by 20% year on year to enhance their influence and reach
• Develop the maturity of our employee networks leveraging the benefits for employees and the organisation, as well as providing support and development for network leaders

Flexibility, agility and smarter working

The wellbeing of our workforce remains a priority for us. We’ll operate on the principles of mutual trust and confidence, with business and operational needs being the primary criteria to determine the expected location of work or blended/flexible working arrangements. We recognise that some face-to-face interactions help us to connect with each other. This will be managed locally so that group organisational and individual needs are balanced with role expectations and expectations of the organisation, recognising there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Commitments and Measures

• Embed and bring to life our group wide ‘WE TRUST’ flexibility and agility agreed principles, ensuring we build a culture of trust and empowerment, to deliver high performance and outcomes

• Encourage a blended and flexible working culture that will empower employees and enable the NDA group to leverage the advantages of a more agile way of working through a mix of flexible hours and hybrid working if operational needs allow

• Minimise travel wherever possible. If employees can be productive remotely there is not an expectation for employees to automatically go to an office to work. This will also help to reduce our carbon footprint

• Positively consider flexible working for roles advertised and expect roles advertised to include ‘happy to talk flexible working’. We’ll track and monitor formal flexible working applications and acceptances and refusals

• Expand the flexible working principles to allow flexible working requests from someone’s first day of employment, enabling the conversation at the point of recruitment