Women have been making history, rewriting the rulebooks and pressing for progress for a long time.
“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” ~ Gloria Steinem
In 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured for the first time. Today, IWD continues to be a global movement that gives a unified voice to equality and aids in purposeful actions to redress inequality.
Within our working environment, gender parity is something that Team Condeco strive to promote and achieve. Today, we hosted our own internal IWD celebrations and centred our discussions around pressing for progress in the workplace.
Our CMO, Lynda Lowe opened the discussion up with an overview of her successful career path, navigating her way in a male-dominated world, in the tech world, and balancing that with personal life.
This led to more of our team giving us a glimpse into their journeys. The women we proudly have within Team Condeco are strong, independent and career driven.
From our discussions today, that within a previously more male-dominated tech industry Condeco is in, the continued success and forward thinking progression of the business speaks directly to gender parity.
2018’s theme for IWD, #PressforProgress, raising awareness for gender parity and the positive gains we are having with a collective voice on this movement was also chatted about. Our team discussed how the notion of women that collaborate and lead purposeful action to redress inequality are unified in the quest to #PressforProgress.”; what that means to them; what the consequence of pressing for changes are; what some examples are of “Progress” points already taken in their context; and where they thought we could improve on this “Progress” theme?
Key takeaways from our chat:
-
- Don’t let more male dominated workplaces hold you back.
- Learn to be agile, think on your feet and appraoch each situation with a clear head.
- Through confidence and gaining in courage, and also just being good at your trade will aid in you gaining the respect you deserve.
- Don’t let your courage be seen as a negative.
- Empathy shouldn’t be seen as a weakness.
- We will see progression through raising the next generation of even stronger women.
- In traditional FM spaces, the profession has changed, and a good mix of qualities that women have brought to the table are now recognised.
- Be professional in what you do, and there is no stopping you. While perceptions are a long way from complete change, we have to keep working hard at this.
- Provide opportunties through recuritment, but also develop skills in employees that have untapped potential in areas of the business that they may not have been seen as candidates for prior.
- Challenge stigmas and the bias towards minorities.
Our fantastic team also shared what it meant to them to be inspiring, motivational and encouraging</em>; something that we could share with each, and bring each other up as women – being a part of a supportive community.
We are firm supporters of the IWD values and are proud to be adding our voices to #PressingforProgress in our workplace.
Former United States president Barack Obama sums it up best,
“empowering women isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s the smart thing to do.”
