Within our engineering business we typically recruit around 56 apprentices each year. For our 2010 campaign we specifically wanted to increase the number of females within our apprentice scheme to improve representation within the scheme and across engineering in E.ON and the industry as a whole.

Before beginning our recruitment advertising, we worked closely to ensure our advertising would be well received by our female audience. We targeted our attraction campaign to female audiences, using media including Glamour Magazine, Facebook and female website networks.

As a result of the UKRC checkpoint and the targeted approach to our media, we attracted 22 candidates to our female only open day events and received 76 additional female applications compared to 2009.

To support the open days and the assessment and selection events we trained colleagues to ensure everyone in the recruitment process was treated fairly and on merit.

The main objective of the campaign was to increase our female apprentice intake; however we also wanted to change their perceptions of E.ON as an employer, so even if they didn’t apply for the apprentice scheme they may consider applying or referring a family member/friend to apply to us in the future.

We’re committed to recruiting new employees on an ongoing basis and increasing the skills of our existing employees to ensure we have the resources we need to maintain and upgrade our network. As a result, we have in place a number of industry-leading recruitment and training programmes:

Technical Development Programme

We introduced this programme during 2010; it takes just over three years to complete and is split into two stages. Stage one is spent at one of our regional centres gaining on-the-job experience while undertaking training and studying towards a foundation degree. Stage two involves shadowing a specific role to allow the trainee to become an expert in that role. This again runs alongside completion of the foundation degree. We recruited 11 people onto the scheme in 2010.

Power Academy Programme

The Power Academy brings together leading engineering universities and major power sector organisations to develop an engineering scholarship fund that provides scholars with support and finance throughout their university course. We’ve had an ongoing partnership with the Power Academy (http://www.iet.org/poweracademy/) in collaboration with the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) since 2004. On completion of a dregree, candidates have the opportunity to join the E.ON Graduate Programme. We took on seven new recruits in 2010.

Apprenticeship Programme

Our apprentice programme has been running every year since 2002 and training lasts up to four years. In 2010 we recruited 52 people to train as electrical and mechanical apprentices.

At the end of the apprenticeship, all participants receive an advanced apprenticeship certificate and will then move into our core business to operate either as an overhead linesperson, cable Jointer or electrical fitter.

Adult Mate Recruitment

In 2010 we recruited a number of adults who are not electrically qualified, but who wish to retrain and work on our electricity network. Participants are given the opportunity to obtain relevant training and to work alongside our skilled craftspeople in a supporting capacity as a ‘mate’. Candidates who wish to develop further may be given the chance to retrain as a craftsperson once they’ve gained a significant amount of experience on our electricity network.

Engineering Development Opportunity (EDO) Programme

We’re committed to increasing the skills of a number of our existing employees to train them as fully qualified and project managers. The programme lasts for a minimum of 18 months with the participant’s training consisting of a combination of academic and on-the-job learning. In 2010 we recruited 12 people onto the programme, which will be renamed the Technical Apprenticeship Programme.

Foundation Degree Programme

To overcome the lack of academic roles for engineering employees, we’ve been working with Aston University to develop a new Foundation Degree programme in electrical power engineering. The programme was launched in 2007 and four colleagues joined the programme in 2010, studying alongside the 11 new starters on our technical development programme. There’s still some work to do to fill all the missing academic programmes in the engineering pathway, but this has given us an excellent start.

Following a review of employee health information, an initiative aimed at increasing the physical activity of our workforce, called The Active Steps Challenge was launched. It had a number of key objectives including:

• improving the health of our colleagues
• increasing people’s activity levels across the organisation
• Making sure all our colleagues knew what our Occupational Health team could help them with

Colleagues were encouraged to get into teams of up to six and each participant was given a pedometer. Teams competed in the challenge and earned additional bonus steps by taking part in health and safety based activities.

We set up an interactive web site, where teams could monitor their progress on a ‘monopoly’ style game board and see messages of encouragement from senior management. Even our board members competed as a team against their colleagues!

Participants could monitor different health benefits by using our electronic health kiosks and sign up for activities, seminars and workshops aimed at supporting long term behavioural change and inclusion.

The challenge has been completed across 13 sites, by over 375 teams and small health-themed prizes were awarded to the teams who had walked the most or made the most improvement. Some of the high points were:

l Over 15,000 assessments were carried out at our health kiosks

l We’ve seen improvements in body mass index (BMI), weight, and blood pressure readings throughout the challenge

l So far, our colleagues have taken over 320 million steps – that’s the equivalent of walking to the moon!

l We’ve been encouraging everyone to keep going once the 12 weeks are over and are providing ongoing support to help them