Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has hosted the first meeting of its new Internal Inclusive Service Panel, which has been set up to provide colleagues with the opportunity to inform and influence the company's future decision making.
Mirroring the company's External Inclusive Service Panel, SSEN's internal panel is chaired by Richard Shakespeare, a leading expert in Diversity and Inclusion, and includes colleagues drawn from across a number of business areas, with everyone sharing a passion for inclusivity and helping SSEN's customers.
By getting round the table and engaging with its newly formed employee panel, SSEN is looking to shape its business to ensure that it not only supports customers with additional service requirements, but that it also continues to develop its commitment to providinga truly inclusive culture across the organisation.
Commenting after the first meeting, panel chair, Richard Shakespeare, said:
"From my visits to SSEN's depots and offices across the country, it's clear that there is already a real passion for inclusivity in the business, and the introduction of this Internal Inclusive Service Panel will only serve to harness this passion and ensure that staff are able to feed into decisions that will shape the future of their workplace."
Alistair McKay works in Perth's Customer Contact Centre, and was impressed with the thinking behind the new panel: "The panel is there to open up new ideas for inclusion and diversity, not just for customers but for staff too. By getting staff from different job roles around the table, you're getting different aspects of the business, and these new ideas and experiences can collectively help us to develop new processes and ways of working."
Charlee Mills, from SSEN's West London depot echoed Alistair's thoughts, and thinks the diverse nature of her colleagues can only be a good thing: "We've got people from Customer Service, Health and Safety and our Legal team, so we can look at this from all angles, and I think this will give us more ideas as to how we can adapt to help our customers."
The Internal Inclusive Service Panel will meet at least three times a year, with the next session due to take place in July.