Our Wellbeing Champions are committed to helping you look after your physical and mental health and ensuring you feel supported in the workplace. They promote activities throughout the year with our wellbeing calendar and can signpost you to other initiatives such as Mental Health First Aiders, free eye tests and access to various free advice services.

We have an active group of Culture Champions who promote our culture of inclusion and diversity across the business and work with our leadership team on activities such as improving management training, updating our people policies and celebrating national days. This group of highly engaged people are committed to driving initiatives across our business to ensure we see real results in this area.

The working group advises the company on how to enable its vison to celebrate diversity and encourage inclusion, empowering everyone to take ownership, listen to our peoples’ views, ideas, concerns and act on them. We reject any form of discrimination or bias and reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.

We recognise that LGBTQ+ employees require an opportunity to both represent and be represented across our business. We want to develop a culture of true equality, ensuring LGBTQ+ employees are treated with respect and dignity at all times, have access to a non-judgemental support service, and have the opportunity to have a positive influence on ensuring all policies, practises and procedures are of an inclusive nature.

We provide a 'safe space' where likeminded employees can receive support and signposting in the knowledge that all conversations are dealt with in the strictest of confidence if requested.

The Working Families Group is a self-elected committee of colleagues who volunteer their time to provide a support network for parents and parents-to-be. The group also aims to provide and promote wider business benefits associated with improved recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce, by focusing on the interests of these employees.

The group meet monthly and engage with the People Team, People's Councils and the Culture Champions on ideas and future activities. They review topics of interest with employees across the business at least every year to ensure they are vocalising the topics that need the most attention.

Debbie Wood, our Head of Resourcing and Development set up the menopause mentors group. She said: “Menopause is something that impacts everyone, whether directly or indirectly. I wanted to make sure support was available for people in the workplace so established the ‘menopause mentors’ group. The mentors provide support, advice and signposting for everyone, whenever they need it.”

Our aim is to make sure we support people in every way possible to transition through this challenging stage in their lives by talking, sharing experiences and getting tips from each other to make this time a little easier. We provide flexibility and adjustments to support people in every way possible.

We know we need to focus on attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. We are committed to supporting our local community and helping the younger generation of aspiring working adults get started on their career journey. Each year, we support our local schools by sending volunteers to provide career advice, help students prepare for interviews, conduct mock interviews and help with CV preparation.

We encourage girls into STEM subjects and the extensive work of our Early Careers team has increased our socio-economic diversity and female representation in areas such as engineering and construction.

"I applied to Wessex Water and was completely open about the fact I was a wheelchair user. Apparently, I was one of 40 applicants and shortlisted for an interview and we clicked straight away.

"My manager has been amazing, anything I needed was provided for me. My disability doesn't matter, and I just get on with my job like everyone else in the team. My advice for people would be open and honest and tell prospective employers about your disability. If you're not sure about anything, ask questions."

- Ryan Ashman, Junior CAD Technician

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and will guarantee a job interview to any applicant who declares they have a disability in their application form, as long as they meet the minimum requirements for the role.

As part of our many commitments to appeal to the most diverse range of potential employees, we have signed the Armed Forces Covenant.

The covenant focuses on helping members of the armed forces community have the same access to government and commercial services and products as any other citizen including support starting a new career.

By signing the covenant we have made a pledge to guarantee an interview to any applicant meeting the minimum job requirements who has previously served in the forces or is part of the armed forces community.

To help us understand, embrace and increase neurodiversity in Wessex Water, we have partnered with the National Autistic Society and its Autism at Work programme.

The programme allows us to advertise roles on the Society’s network and provide tailored support for candidates with autism, from interview stage right through to their first six months of employment with a specialist job coach. Managers and direct team members of successful candidates will also receive training before their employment starts.

As part of our Disability Confident pledge, any candidate who applies for a role through the Autism at Work programme will be guaranteed a job interview if they meet the minimum requirements for the role.

Keep an eye out on the National Autistic Society’s website for some of our vacancies.

We’re extremely passionate about increasing gender diversity across our business, especially in roles which have historically been exclusive to men, such as engineering, construction and operational roles.

As well as attracting new talent into these roles, we want to make sure we’re doing our best to support our existing female colleagues with their career progression and empowering them to inspire others.

As part of this, we have offered to fully reimburse staff memberships to South West Women in Construction – a network for women in the industry to meet, network, share knowledge and experience and discuss key topical issues.