OVO Believe network is there to promote, recognise and celebrate all faiths, religions and beliefs, whether a belief is religious, philosophical or ideological, it will influence how someone lives their life or perceives the world around them, and we know it is so important to their feeling of belonging at work.
As we see many organisations pulled back on religious support and recognition, OVO Believe are doing more now than ever to ensure that OVO people feel supported and we build a faith friendly workplace.

The OVO Believe network has worked hard to raise awareness of how we do this leading to OVO being named the number one faith friendly workplace in the UK in 2023 and third in 2024
We run monthly learning sessions/human libraries on a different faith, religion or belief and celebrate al the key religious events so our people feel respected and support and know they work in a faith friendly workplace.
We have a partnership with the Faith and Belief forum to ensure we get the support we need for our people at OVO and they recognise and celebrate key dates through educational resource packs – such as supporting our people during Ramadan – and celebrations such as Diwali or Easter to name a few.

OVO Believe have really pushed the boundaries in the energy industry. We listened to our people and implemented solutions to problems stopping us being inclusive. Two examples of this are that our people in metering were unable to be provided with a hijab or turban due to the fire and spark risks associated with their role. We quickly identified that there were no providers of religious headwear which looked good or met our safety requirement. We worked with ‘Fashion Delivered’ to source material from Spain which has an electric arc protective value of 11 cal/cm2 (ELIM). Then the network worked on how they should look – with members taking to cutting and sewing the fabric. OVO are now the first people in the UK to launch such headwear that is fashionable, lightweight and comfortable – both the hijab and turbans.

Our engineers are required to wear steel toe capped boots when in customers homes to ensure they are protected however this was an issue where religions required that no outdoor shoes were worn inside – the solution provided by the network was simple; give the engineers a spare pair of boots which are ‘indoor’ boots – so now all OVO engineers carry a spare pair of boots.

The network have worked hard to create an elearning module for all our people to complete on understanding why religion IS something that we DO talk about in the workplace which has been very educational for so many people.
They ensured that all our hubs have a multi faith room and that we have a code for people to use when they need to come off the phones to observe their prayer time.

OVO Believe have arranged for Hidayah to come to do talk for us during Pride to ensure our Muslim LGBTQ+ community know there is support and also arranged a session by the Asian Women’s Resource Centre to help us support victims of domestic abuse at work

They also played a huge part in supporting the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation at the first UK Faith at work conference at 10 Downing Street.

Some other initiatives includes a monthly newsletter with faith relevant information, OVO Cards to celebrate different religious events, we have a safe space for our multifaith network to connect and share, all our hubs have multifaith rooms, we have a Prayer code reason on our telephony systems to ensure our people get uninterrupted times away from the phones to pray. We speak at conferences and host roundtable events to help either organisations learn from our work to help them to become faith friendly. We create packs to ensure our people leaders feel equipped to support people during Ramadan and we have 10% of our time as leads to dedicate to driving network activity and engagement. Due to feedback from our members, we changed the OVO bank holidays to flex days so people who are not Christian do not need to take days such as Good Friday off but can use the time for events that are important to them. We also have Moments that Matter leave where our people can use 5 days leave over a 4 year period for significant events such as Eid, Diwali etc
OVO Believe are leading the way when it comes to faith, religion and belief in the workplace and our society