Today the world celebrates International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021 and it’s theme; #ChoosetoChallenge.
The IWD campaign focuses on the idea that a challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge.
We hear from Executive Director, Chris Burke about why Waldeck supports #ChoosetoChallenge and how a diverse workforce drives a better working world:
“International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the achievements of women across all industries and in all environments, as well as calling out inequality and increasing visibility.
“Gender equality, and celebration across all diversities is essential for economies and communities to thrive, as well as businesses. In the Construction and Engineering industries it is clear that stereotypes are being challenged and a diverse representation of women is more evident, which is something we work hard to champion as a business.
“At Waldeck, equality has always been important when considering aspects of the business such as recruitment, training and career progression, in order to create an inclusive, empowering environment for all. Our latest staff survey results showed that 98% of staff believe that Waldeck values diversity in the workplace, which is a figure we are incredibly proud of.”
Becky Hicks, from our HR Team adds:
“Within STEM industries in particular there is a preconception that it is a ‘man’s world’ and the statistics support this with only 12.37% of all engineers in the UK being women. This is why education is so important to ensure that young women feel inspired to use their creativity and knowledge to build a career within STEM.
“With an above average 18% of our workforce being women, equality and diversity are an everyday learning activity at Waldeck and days like International Women’s Day only reinforce our commitment to this, raising awareness both internally and externally.
“Waldeck, as part of the wider Morson Group have already taken huge steps to influence positive behaviour, with compulsory Equality & Diversity training for all employees and carrying out awareness events throughout the year.
“That said, there is still a continuing need worldwide for more progressive mind-sets and inclusive behaviours, which we hope to be able to continue to support through our internal programmes such as apprenticeship schemes, graduate training, professional development reviews, flexible working and other internal initiatives.”
Find out more about International Women’s Day here.