Alison Knight

Said the following about Stephen Williams:

““NB: Team Award Submission led by Steve Williams

On a journey to create an inclusive culture, Alstom engaged employees to understand barriers to success and introduced four employee networks, Voices of Women (VoW), Voices of Disability (VoD), Voices of Race (VoR) and Voices of LGBT (VoL), to listen to, learn from and nurture 'quiet voices' to deliver positive change by:

-Raising awareness

-Empowering, developing, supporting and educating employees

-Introducing new and challenging existing policies

-Introducing new ways of working

-Identifying and attaining external Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) accreditations

-Attracting untapped diverse talent and the next generation

Aligned to the WR/RIA EDI Charter, the Voices Of, three of the four are led by women:

Set purpose, limitations and provide insights by

-Sharing ‘lived experiences’, best practice, lessons learnt and benefits internally and externally

-Challenging groupthink strategies

-Acting as ED&I ambassadors to promote Voices Of objectives

Are fundamental to Alstom’s ED&I governance

-Defining how Voices Of contribute

-Providing two-way feedback and reverse mentoring

-Acting as ED&I Champion

-Calling out unacceptable behaviours

-Identifying and supporting gaining external accreditations

Choose their Leader, grade and position are not a deciding factor and focus on:

-Communication, empowerment, encouragement and collaboration

-Progressing Voices Of objectives by involving everyone and facilitating viewpoint diversity

-Remaining open minded to alternatives and led by consensus

Define the senior sponsor role – a board member, the sponsor has authority to ‘make things happen’ and empowers Voice Of by

-Championing the networks

-Challenging and supporting activities

-Supporting communications, adding gravitas

-The ‘go-to’ person for advice and guidance, including mentorship and reverse mentoring

Attract membership – open to everyone

-Promoting the importance of ally membership alongside those who identify or are part of the community/careers

-Communicating support available and importance of sharing

-Encouraging, recognising and celebrating the value of contributors, including watchers and listeners

With just 13% of Alstom’s workforce female, VoW is the longest running network and has 180 members:

-Raising awareness of negatives and positives of working women

-Surveying females and producing visual aids, illustrating daily challenges

-Launching Women @ Alstom Spotlight Series – showcasing inspirational female role models

-Successfully campaigning for unisex-sized PPE

-Developing guidance, including equal parenting and Period Care

-Creating and delivering Springboard, a female development programme

-Enabling self-reflection, flexibility, self-management and 'passing the torch' training to circa 150 graduates in the past three years

Testament to VoW, Alstom’s gender pay gap is 9.2%, substantially lower than other rail companies, including Network Rail, and women occupy 20% of management and professional positions.

VoD has 50 members removing social barriers and attracting untapped talent by:

-Developing and delivering disability bias, reasonable adjustment and neurodiverse training

-Supporting Alstom to achieve externally accredited Disability Confident Leader status, providing:

-Disability passport

-Interviews to disabled jobseekers who meet basic role requirements

-Supply chains adopting the same commitments

-Sharing knowledge and expertise via a dedicated SharePoint site, signposting help and support for employees with protected characteristics and /or carer responsibilities

Employees identifying as having a disability has increased from 9.8% in 2020 to 10.8%, demonstrating VoD’s positive impact.

VoR's 36 members are supporting BAME employees and targeting talent by:

-Reviewing and using language that resonates with the BAME community

-Working towards the BITC Race at Work Charter

-Attending STEM events in socially disadvantaged areas

-Developing and delivering training

-Hosting well-attended seminars to educate and raise awareness

As winners of the Engineering & Manufacturing Employer of the Year Award at the Multicultural Apprenticeship Awards for the third year running, and 11.8% of employees identifying as BAME compared to 9% in 2019, Alstom’s VoR has made a tangible and positive impact internally and externally.

Providing an insight into LGBT workplace issues, VoL's 28 members:

-Developed Alstom’s first Transgender Inclusion Policy

-Are reviewing and providing input to revised HR people policies

-Participating in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (SWEI)

In the SWEI top 300 companies, 2.9% of employees felt confident to identify as LGBT in 2021 compared to 0.3% in 2019, reflecting VoL achievements in raising awareness and creating a culture where everyone feels they belong.

Voices Of has had a significant impact, amplifying 'quiet voices', breaking down barriers and changing mindsets, enabling Alstom to make better equality decisions, attract and appeal more to untapped talent.““