At Solar & Storage Live London, 29-30 April, the Xtra team interviewed Georgina Worrall – Head of the POWERful Women initiative.
In preparation for her panel session at the show Georgina explained her thoughts to Xtra on the industry’s struggle to acquire and retain talent, providing examples for companies to follow the initiative’s lead.
Georgina Worrall, Head of POWERful Women
I think there are opportunities for companies to also go and engage with the communities that they’re looking to recruit from and understand what is important to them.
Xtra: What is contributing to the difficulty in acquiring & retaining talent in the industry?
Georgina: If we start with attracting talent: In a recent Arena report, they estimated that the renewable sector is going to need around 29 million new jobs by 2050. So there’s a real need to attract diverse talent. I think there are a lot of things that companies can do to attract that talent.
To give you a couple of examples, make sure that in the [job] adverts they are using language that really encourages inclusivity. Whether that is highlighting that there’s flexible working, using language that everyone can understand is open to all diverse communities that they serve.
I think there are opportunities for companies to also go and engage with the communities that they’re looking to recruit from and understand what is important to them.
Companies also need to be putting on their website what their company values and ethos’ are, because now a lot of people want to make sure that they’re working for a company that aligns with their values.
In terms of retaining talent, last year POWERful Women published a report on the women we are losing. It looked at the reasons why women are leaving the energy sector.
Although that report looked at gender diversity, what came out of that report is representative of all sectors. The three things that came out were that people want to feel listened to, they want to feel valued, and they want to feel like they’re making an impact.
There are several things that companies can do in those areas. Some examples include [the fact that] lots of companies have flexible working policies in place, but actually if you look at the take-up level of those they’re quite low.
What is holding people back from taking up those flexible working policies? A lot of the people that we speak to within our network say it’s because they don’t see their line managers or senior leaders taking those policies. Therefore, they are uncomfortable taking them because it might be seen that they are not as conscious of their careers and don’t have aspirations similar to what they had before.
There’s also a role for leaders as well. If they want to embed diversity and inclusion within their company and have an inclusive company culture, then they need to be driving it from the top.
One thing that leaders could do, is potentially look at reverse mentoring. A lot of leaders within our network have done reverse mentoring and found it interesting to get the viewpoint and understanding of the younger people in their organisations. Of understanding what’s important to them, and where their interests lie.
Those are examples of retaining talent.
Xtra: What conversations are you excited to have at Solar & Storage Live London?
Georgina: I’m going to be slightly biased and say that I’m looking forward to my panel session on attracting and retaining talent in the sector! I think there’s a broad scope of panellists on my session, so we’ll be able to speak about that.
There’s also the Women in Energy networking event this evening at 4:30pm: an opportunity to network, talk, engage with people and find out what they’re interested in in terms of diversity and inclusion. It’s a really good opportunity.
Xtra: Why is it important to be at Solar & Storage Live London and why are events like this so important?
Georgina: Solar is an emerging sector; it’s still growing. There’s an opportunity here for exhibitors to show off their products and services and show what they have to offer the sector. [The show is] an opportunity for people to network, meet colleagues, interact with new people, and germinate ideas that can come about at events like this.
Why they’re so important is because, to have that diversity of thought, we need a wide range of people from within the sector coming together and speaking with each other.
Missed out on Solar & Storage Live London, or want to come back for more? Don’t miss the Birmingham edition from 24-26 September.
