International Women's Day: Inspiring inclusion for Women in Construction
The construction industry has traditionally been male-dominated, with women making up only 9% of the construction industry's workforce in Europe. This is largely due to a lack of diversity policies and historical gender bias in the industry. To welcome more women into construction, we need to develop inclusive policies such as equal pay and maternity leave.
It's unfortunate that women in the construction industry face limited career growth opportunities and a gender pay gap of 23.8%, which is higher than the UK average. In addition, only 13.5% of board seats in the UK construction industry are held by women. Establishing better working conditions for women is necessary in many fields, but this industry needs to be more receptive to mothers and include parental leave like many others have.
At Mykor we make sure to include these policies to guarantee that our employees have a healthy work life balance, we support leave on family matters - for male and female employees and we promote an environment of equal growth opportunity for all.
The theme of this year's International Women's Day campaign is 'Inspire Inclusion'. We are thrilled to celebrate the women in our team and share some inspiring data about women in construction. Our company was founded by two incredible women, Olivia Page and Valentina Dipietro, who have first-and experience of the challenges faced by women in this field. “Despite facing numerous barriers as a female-led company, we are proud of what we have achieved with Mykor”, says our co-founders.
We are proud to say that our team is currently made by 60% women and they are thriving from commercial, production, human resources to biotech research. Diversity is a value that we follow closely and we couldn't be more proud of putting a strong team with a diverse background. Read our Equality and Diversity Policy.
To Inspire Inclusion, we would also like to give a shout out to many women out there advocating for diversity. Keep up with the work Girls Under Construction, Mulheres em Construção, Chick With Bricks.
To all the women out there, no matter what industry you are in: Happy International Women's Day!
Sources:
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-women-construction-industry/