On International Women’s Day, we take the opportunity to reflect on how whilst working in what is still a male-dominated industry, we are fortunate to have many fantastically talented and dedicated women in our team, not least with 50% of our Executive Management Team (EMT) being female.
As a business, we look at motivation and attitude rather than gender and background. This approach does not mean that we do not focus on addressing the imbalance in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the construction industry. However, it is important to acknowledge that as an industry we have taken giant leaps forward on this issue, but there is still more ground to cover.
Sam Mercer, Chief Operating Officer at Plantforce said: “Evidence shows companies with a gender-diverse management team have proven to be more successful than ones without. This is something I can see to be true given my personal experience of working in a female-led business, as this diversity gives us a well-rounded range of views when taking strategic decisions. Personally, I consider myself to be lucky, as I have never known the construction sector any other way”.
Claire Trott, Managing Director at Plantforce said: “International Women’s Day (IWD) gives the opportunity to cast a spotlight on how we can address inequality by ensuring the same opportunities are available to women in our industry as men.
I am pleased to see our team working on this every day, not just IWD. This is being done firstly in our culture, visible in how we operate, recruit, and treat our team. But also, by working collaboratively with others in the industry to have a positive impact outside of our direct reach. This can be seen in our active participation in specific working groups to tackle this issue on major projects such as High Speed 2 (HS2) and Hinkley Point C (HPC), as well as holding an active presence on committees for industry trade associations like the CPA and aid groups like the Plant & Hire Aid Alliance”.
