In a time of rising anti-DEI rhetoric, enei CEO Sandi Wassmer shares a powerful firsthand account of transforming a struggling organisation into a thriving, inclusive workplace. Through values-driven leadership and a culture of psychological safety, she proves that a happy, harmonious team isn’t just good for people—it’s good for business.
Over the past couple of years, we have seen the rise of misplaced anti-woke, anti-DEI and, in my opinion, anti-human rhetoric, which has now come to a disturbing crescendo. While some UK organisations, particularly those with US parent companies, are struggling to figure out the way forward, it’s encouraging to see many organisations doubling down on their DEI efforts.
There are plenty of reports out there demonstrating the business case for DEI, but what I’m here to tell you is what I’ve learned from experience.
When I joined enei back in 2020, the organisation was struggling. The financial situation was poor, with inadequate governance and an unwieldy infrastructure. Although people were deeply committed to the cause, there was a lack of psychological safety, with instances of blame, gossip, significant staff turnover, and high levels of sickness absence. I spent many evenings in those early days wondering how on earth I was going to put this right.
What I know about running the mechanics of an organisation were pretty straightforward, so I set about sorting those fundamental things out. However, the thing that felt most insurmountable was the culture, and I did a lot of soul-searching about what sort of culture it was that I wanted to lead. From here, things got a lot clearer, and there were two things driving the decisions I made about how to build a truly inclusive culture.
The first thing was around leadership because I’d never been led by someone I felt truly motivated, inspired, mobilised, and galvanised by, and I just wanted to do my best to try to be that sort of leader, the sort of leader I always wanted to be led by. And, secondly, it was around the culture itself, as I’d never had the good fortune to work in a culture where I felt safe, where I felt a sense of belonging, and where I could be my imperfect, fallible self, so I equally wanted to build the kind of culture I wanted to be part of.
It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my career, and the most rewarding. I want to shout from the rooftops how proud I am of our organisation and all of the wonderful people within it. I now lead a team of people who are happy, collaborate beautifully together, and are wildly productive. The incredibly high quality of the work they produce, along with an unwavering commitment to our work, fills me with ardour and excitement every single day.
Our culture exemplifies inclusion, where people feel psychologically safe, are able to respectfully share their views, ask questions, raise concerns, take risks, and make mistakes and learn from them, without fear of judgement, retribution, or recrimination. We live into our values every day and hold each other to account if anyone behaves outside of these values. We have a strong sense of community and know that the success of our organisation relies on every single person within it having the tools and resources they need to thrive and flourish. This fosters the creativity, collaboration, and innovation necessary for us to learn, grow, evolve, and continue to up all the high standards we have set for ourselves and deliver consistently fantastic services for our customers.
We now enjoy strong employee retention, exceptionally high levels of employee engagement, and equally low levels of sickness absence. At the end of the day, what I’ve learned is quite simple—a happy and harmonious workforce is a high-performing and productive workforce, which is good for business.
This blog was written by enei CEO Sandi Wassmer. It was posted on 11 March 2025.
