UN ITED UTI LITI ES
Harnessing people power within and without SPOTLIGHT ON LOUISE BEARDMORE AND UNITED UTILITIES
LOUISE BEARDMORE, CUSTOMER SERVICES AND PEOPLE DIRECTOR AT UNITED UTILITIES, TALKS TO JUSTINE GREENING ABOUT HER APPROACH TO SOCIAL MOBILITY.
JG
// Unusually, your role spans HR and customer services. I guess it’s about happy people on the inside equalling happy people on the outside?
LB
// People often say it’s a strange combination but my retort is that it’s all about people. One thing is about service to customers and one is about service to employees. But actually, it’s brilliant employees that deliver fantastic service for our customers. So they go together really, really well. My role helps to make sure that our people are connected to the customers and the communities that we’re privileged to serve. JG//
Interestingly, affordability and helping customers to manage bills is a key part of your social mobility drive.
LB// Over 50 per cent of our customers don’t have £300 worth of savings to pay for an unexpected bill. Also, if we look at the customer base here in the North West, 30 per cent of people earn less than £21,000 a year, and aren’t on any form of benefit. So really it’s about understanding the financial challenges
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that customers have and offering targeted and tailored services to them.
JG//
And Covid-19 has made the scale of challenge you’re facing as a region even tougher – where do you go with some of your social mobility programmes now?
LB// I think one of the big challenges we’re going to have is working out at what point we’re going to see secure, meaningful employment actually return and I’m mindful that many organisations, because of the challenges financially, will stop things like apprenticeships and work placement programmes. We’re actively trying to do quite the opposite, and make sure those programmes continue. We’re also using digital classrooms and having lots of online careers forums to make sure that the notion of careers stays alive. We’ve got to work doubly hard to make sure that we’re reaching those people who would perhaps think United Utilities is something that isn’t obtainable in terms of securing their future. JG//
Being a FTSE100 company, you also have the ability to shape the broader business environment in these difficult times.
LB// United Utilities, as one of the biggest organisations here in the North West, needs to play that leading role in terms of having some of these difficult conversations. It’s really easy to make decisions which are potentially short sighted about stopping training and development and I don’t want to be in a situation where a whole generation gets forgotten because of short term decisions. So how do we come together as leaders here in the North West to make sure that we’re all doing the right things to respond to COVID but also to make sure that we’ve got future capability, because now more than ever, we’re going to need innovative, passionate, capable people? And we’re going to need to unlock talent for the new world that we’re entering into.
