Initiatives

Since 2001, Georgia Power's broad-based efforts focused on the formation and implementation of 33 initiatives to begin changing the company's culture.

These best-practice initiatives focused on building higher levels of employee trust in areas such as compensation, hiring and selection, and training and development.

The initiatives also focused on responding to employee recommendations to improve their daily work environment.

Following a McKinsey and Company assessment of Georgia Power's diversity and inclusion initiatives and progress, the company's management council decided to have a more in-depth focus on five specific areas: performance management, job selection, retention, representation, and communication.

In addition to the five focus areas, Georgia Power launched a major initiative to address employee fear of retaliation - a perennial concern reported on employee surveys. This significant barrier to building a trusting and inclusive work environment centered on subtle forms of retaliation more than those types fitting the legal definition. The program, which included company-wide training workshops for leadership, has been recognized in an international competition by Profiles in Diversity Journal.

The company's strategies are maturing and starting to bear fruit. In fact, recent employee work-environment surveys show encouraging trends.

Future initiatives focus on building greater accountability for supervisors and managers to apply skills taught in recent training efforts. While many efforts focused on management, it is the responsibility of every employee to create and sustain a trusting and inclusive work environment.

The ultimate measure of success for Georgia Power's diversity and inclusion initiatives is to sustain a culture of excellence where every employee feels valued, respected and productive. That will help us to continue providing the highest level of service and reliability to our customers at the lowest cost possible.