International Women’s Day is here once again, and I wanted to follow up on the blog post I wrote about women in business, which you can read here.
It was this time last year, we embarked upon our equality journey and set up our ‘Foundation’ group, and so much has happened since then. The work of the group ties in nicely with the IWD 2020 theme, #EachForEqual, which addresses collective individualism, acknowledging that we are all individuals who can have an impact on society, but when we come together, we can create change.
This notion of people coming together to create change is evident in our women’s groups over the past year. Initially set up as networking and peer to peer support, we brought our women together to address problems and find solutions, as a collective. Groups used active learning to help members address their individual challenges, as well as skill development on topics such as presentations and resilience training.
One Foundation member said: “The resilience session that we had was one of the most interesting, as we're able to see what our strengths and weaknesses are, which happened to be accurate for most of us in the room. I reflected on my current role and it helped me to see where improvements could be made as well as identifying my strengths, which was empowering.”
As a business, we have partnered with ‘Girls Out Loud,’ a programme dedicated to raising the aspirations of teenage girls in the UK. Three of our group members have joined up through the programme, pairing up with local schools to become ‘big sisters’ to young girls who may be struggling at school or home. You can read more about this here.
We have seen many changes this year in our women’s groups, and the feedback has been amazing with women saying they feel they have increased confidence, made friends and that this has created a more positive working environment for them. Foundation has also opened a wider narrative within the business to discuss underrepresented people within the workplace.
We as a business are committed to enforcing a gender-equal workplace and challenging gender stereotypes and bias. We encourage you to do the same.
Until next time,
Nicola
For more information about International Women's Day please see here.