Illustration by Dan Page
More than 20 years ago, attorney Don Howerton worked for a large company in Oklahoma before heading to the West Coast and joining Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
He made the change because his former employer didn’t have protections in place for people in the LGBTQ+ community.
“There was absolutely no support for gay employees,” explained the senior director of commercial procurement. “Zero protections whatsoever from the company or the state. I was explicitly denied a bonus one year for being gay.”
The work environment was quite different at PG&E.
According to Dionne Adams, director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the utility, PG&E has been leading DEIB for more than two decades. “At PG&E, we’re committed to fostering a culture where DEIB are fundamental to our work. This includes helping ensure that our co-workers always feel safe on the job, that their voices and ideas are heard, and that everyone experiences a sense of belonging and can bring their whole selves to work at PG&E,” she said.
“It’s one of the reasons why I’ve chosen PG&E as my work home for all of these years,” added Howerton. “It means we’re heard, seen and appreciated. It means I can be myself every day. And it means all the energy I’d otherwise be pouring into self-protection can instead be poured into being of service to the company and others.”
Utilities have long focused on physical safety. As a part of DE&I measures, they’re focusing on psychological safety, too, said Missy Henriksen, executive director of the Center for Energy Workforce Development, “because people can’t perform their best for a company or an organization if they don’t feel safe in all different ways.”
As DE&I has become a fabric of the culture at many utilities, these companies and their employees say that a supportive workplace provides a safe space for workers who tend to stay, improves team engagement, and attracts loyal customers and suppliers.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. In 2021, Xcel Energy developed an Inclusion Index to actively measure its workforce sentiment toward key elements of its culture. “We wanted to proactively identify opportunities that would lead us to a more inclusive work environment for all employees,” said Esther Ledesma Pumarol, human resources director–diversity, equity, inclusion and corporate giving.
The index is an aggregate of six indicators and is part of Xcel’s internal employee survey every year. Data is separated to allow the company to not only identify specific opportunities within employee groups by function or location, but to measure progress collectively as an organization. “These six questions cover perceptions of work culture and how well the company encourages authenticity, belonging, empowerment, recognition and the ability to speak up,” said Pumarol.
The feedback the utility has received from employees via the index has been extremely valuable in helping identify new opportunities for inclusion. For example, it has led to the creation of two business resource groups: the Young Professionals Network and the Employee Connection Network. In addition, the utility has given employees new tools to recognize their co-workers, helping leaders and managers enhance recognition practices for their teams.
The Inclusion Index indicators have also been crucial in creating action plans over the last year to introduce improvements in talent processes, strengthen community partnerships, and solidify the utility’s focus on building a culture of inclusion and belonging for all.
Because the index gives the company key elements to build an inclusive culture, Pumarol said that Xcel takes the outcomes of the questions—and any additional comments—quite seriously. “By focusing on opportunities and strategies that boost belonging, recognition, speaking up, authenticity and empowerment guided by the outcomes of the survey on these elements, we seek to build a culture where our employees feel they belong and are empowered to thrive,” she said.
As time passes and the company has more data, it plans to use the index to establish additional initiatives and programs, enabling it to sustain a workplace culture that values diversity and its contribution toward delivering value to customers, employees and communities.
“We have a commitment to deliver affordable, reliable and clean energy to our customers, and for that we believe our workforce—the people behind driving the initiatives to help us achieve and sustain these goals—are one of our most critical assets,” said Pumarol. “Therefore, developing and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture is a key priority for our team.”
Making DE&I programs and initiatives accessible to everyone in the company is crucial—and that includes frontline workers. That’s where employee resource groups come into play.
“ERGs have given people a voice and a sense of community within organizations to be connected with people who are like-minded or passionate about similar issues,” said Cornell Johnson, director of DE&I for the CEWD. “The barriers to ERGs, though, can be access. It’s not always easy or feasible to pull people down off the line or out of the dirt to join a call for an hour. Sometimes those employees are unionized and hourly.”
The question for utilities then becomes, “How do we include them?”
“One thing we’ve seen that has been phenomenal in being mindful of these frontline employees is bringing those meetings to the field,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen some organizations take their ERG meetings to the manufacturing plants or to the field itself to bring them to these employees. That’s a huge step forward in inclusion for those individuals.”
At PG&E, Adams said that its ERGs have existed for 50 years. Today, they consist of 12 ERGs and three engineering network groups. PG&E ensures that every employee learns about these groups during first-day orientation. All 15 groups provide an overview of what they do and sign employees up for membership right there and then, so that employees can gain access to activities and resources, engage in DE&I work, and participate in professional development and cultural programming events.
Each year, the groups also host more than 150 events, which are in-person or hybrid to foster inclusion and belonging.
“These networks help create an environment where every co-worker can feel welcome and contribute to delivering our overall business success,” said Adams. “They assist in welcoming and mentoring new and existing co-workers, provide professional and career workshops, host social networking events, help recruit our future workforce, and offer community support through volunteerism, scholarships, customer education and an environment for collaboration.”
In 2020, Southern Company Gas reorganized its companywide vision for DE&I by introducing a comprehensive strategy called Fueling Equity. “Our dedication to DE&I has a longstanding history, but the events of 2020 highlighted the necessity for a more defined framework to guide our DE&I initiatives,” said Joseph Lee, DE&I manager.
The utility firmly believes that people with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives are critical to its future success and innovation. “At the end of the day, diverse teams solve problems faster and achieve better outcomes,” said Lee.
Southern Company Gas has identified actionable and measurable steps under Fueling Equity to advance DE&I across five critical areas of business called “The Five that Drive.” They are workplace culture, talent development, talent acquisition, community engagement and supplier inclusion.
Its dedicated DE&I office with three full-time employees “regularly provides trainings, resources and programming to strengthen our workplace culture,” said Lee. “One of those resources includes online DE&I toolboxes for all leaders, which are updated every quarter with critical DE&I topics, for example, ‘LGBTQ+ Inclusion in the Workplace.’” Southern Company Gas’ frontline leaders regularly use these toolboxes to conduct employeeled discussions with their individual team members, and they have been well-received, added Lee.
The company also has 10 ERGs spread over 20 chapters in three states, including an LGBTQ+ ERG called SPECTRUM. These ERGs are dedicated to supporting all five pillars of Fueling Equity. In 2023, they organized more than 247 events aimed at the personal and professional growth of their members. “In 2023, we saw a 54% surge in ERG memberships from the previous year, which is a testament to the great work that our ERGs are accomplishing in engaging our employees,” said Lee. “Additionally, our ERGs have played a pivotal role in community engagement, in supporting the communities we serve by organizing events that generated more than $40,000 for various community services and contributing more than 800 volunteer hours. They also partnered with the company’s charitable foundation to award $100,000 to 20 local charitable organizations across our regions.”
In addition, the company has formalized an executive leadership DE&I advisory council called LEAD Council, which includes senior leaders from essential functions to ensure that DE&I is embedded throughout the organization. The LEAD Council regularly conducts workshops and forums companywide on key DE&I topics In 2023, one of those workshops was on the topic of disability inclusion, which inspired a group of employees to form a new Disability ERG for the company.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Southern Company Gas revised its company values to incorporate “Intentional Inclusion,” which clarifies the far-reaching impact and benefits of DE&I. It says: “We are One Team, working to foster a culture of belonging and ensuring our diverse team feels valued. Investing in an equitable culture benefits employees, customers, communities and shareholders.”
Utilities have to work nimbly to maintain reliability and offer solutions 24/7. Problem-solving is where the value of multiple viewpoints can be seen most readily, and a culture that prioritizes diversity gets a company those viewpoints. CEWD’s Johnson gave the example of drafting a sports team.
“You’re not going to have a team that has 12 players who all play the same position, and I think this is no different,” he said. “When you have multiple viewpoints, multiple perspectives, different people with different strengths and skill sets, that’s when you really start to thrive and hit your strength. True diversity is having everyone represented—even in leadership. We’re starting to see that more and more.”
One day, Johnson said, he’d love to see pipefitters or other workers out in the field—“someone who can really speak to what’s happening in real-time on the front line”—have a seat on the board of a gas company. “I think we’re getting closer to it.”
Xcel’s Pumarol agreed. “We recognize that our most successful ideas and outcomes result from collaboration between people with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives. By viewing our opportunities and challenges through multiple lenses, we are better able to leverage our strengths and achieve our strategic priorities. This is critical as we work together to solve for the big opportunities that confront the future of our industry, which require new ways of thinking as well as innovative ideas.”
For PG&E’s Adams, the benefits also include increased adaptability, better program identification, and improved customer understanding, employee engagement and satisfaction. Diverse representation also strengthens the company’s reputation and relationships with stockholders.
By emphasizing DE&I programs, resources and training in their company culture, utilities say they are seeing improvements, ensuring future success, and retaining happy employees, customers and suppliers.
“Our goal of creating and fostering an environment where employees, external partners, suppliers, community members and customers feel included—and that reflects the variety of backgrounds, experiences and ideas that we all bring to the table—is a key element to achieve our industry goals,” said Pumarol. “As our communities and customers continue to evolve, I believe it’s critical for our industry to align ourselves to understand the needs, expectations and values of our communities so we can continue to develop relevant solutions, serve properly toward the evolving needs and be ready to support the energy transition in the upcoming decade.”