EDF seeking diverse recruits to deal with workforce gap

Diversity and inclusion is a key focus for energy firm EDF, which plans to replenish the ranks of its retiring workforce by “fishing in the widest possible pool” for new recruits, said the firm’s head of strategic resourcing.
Thu, 11 Sep 2014 | By Nicola Sullivan 
Diversity and inclusion is a key focus for energy firm EDF Energy, which plans to replenish the ranks of its retiring workforce by “fishing in the widest possible pool” for new recruits, said the firm’s head of strategic resourcing.  

Speaking at the Roast Restaurant in Borough Market yesterday [8 September] at an event organised by professional services firm EY to showcase the businesses that have adopted its National Equality Standard (NES), EDF Energy’s Fiona Jackson said: “There is going to be what is called a crew change. A lot of people who have worked for us for 30 years are going to retire. Where are we going to find the skill we need not only to run our existing power stations but to build new ones?”

Jackson admitted that most of the people leaving the organisation “are white men”. She added: “Nowadays it is a very different profile and we need to make sure that we are ready to attract a totally different population.”

EDF Energy is currently undergoing NES accreditation, which sets out clear equality, diversity and inclusion criteria against which organisations are assessed. This follows a decision made by the company’s board in 2009 that diversity and inclusion should be a priority for EDF Energy.

• For more on recruitment and diversity, see also ‘SMEs fall behind on equality, diversity and inclusion, claims leading recruiter’.

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