Powergen has an equal opportunities policy for its UK employees. We also have guidance to help managers and employees deal with other issues such as work-life balance and training and development.

Our employees can readily access copies of our policies and guidance from our intranet.

Equal opportunities

In September 2003, HR staff from across Powergen's business met to assess the impact of new anti-discrimination legislation, which came into force in December 2002, on the company's existing policies.

The meeting was an excellent chance for different areas of the company to share experiences of managing diversity in Powergen - and to focus on how the company should respond.

The group's findings will be incorporated when the policy is next reviewed. We are also looking at ways in which we can improve the quality of our employee data.

Workplace profile - gender

The gender split reflects the nature of each business area. Our Distribution and Generation businesses have a large number of engineering roles, which are predominantly carried out by men. In the Retail business, however, the availability of flexible working practices means women represent a higher proportion of the workforce.

Women in management positions

Workplace profile - ethnic origin

New employees are invited to indicate their ethnic origin at the point of recruitment, but this is voluntary, and many employees choose not to do so. Therefore this is not an accurate reflection of our true ethnic profile. We plan to improve this data collection as part of a larger diversity project.

Workplace profile - age

In recent years the average age of Powergen employees has reduced. This is primarily because the Retail business - the largest employer within Powergen - is particularly attractive to younger applicants.

Workplace profile - average age

Family-friendly policies

In April 2003, the Government introduced new legislation to extend statutory maternity provisions and to introduce paid leave for fathers and adoptive parents. We looked at how this legislation would affect our existing arrangements for supporting families and revised our policies accordingly.

We decided to make our provisions for adoptive parents better than the statutory ones by matching the company benefits for women on maternity leave. Adoptive parents are now eligible for extended leave and enhanced pay.

The new provisions were published on our intranet and employees were told about the changes in our daily electronic news bulletin, egen.

See also

On our website
Powergen equal opportunities policy