{"id":11559,"date":"2022-03-03T10:39:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T15:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/?p=11559"},"modified":"2022-03-03T11:32:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T16:32:53","slug":"sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves-or-are-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves-or-are-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Sisters are doing it for themselves \u2013 or are we?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In celebration of International Women\u2019s Day<\/span><\/a> on March 8, and this year\u2019s theme, #BreaktheBias, we are featuring stories from our ED&I leaders across the globe from March 1 \u2013 8. Learn more about how AECOM is breaking the bias for our employees and communities, by following our conversations on LinkedIn<\/span><\/a> and Twitter<\/span><\/a>, as well as the AECOM Blog<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m delighted to be celebrating my first International Women\u2019s Day (IWD) at AECOM. Since joining in June 2021, it\u2019s been clear what a special place IWD holds in the AECOM calendar as we celebrate the successes of our amazing women professionals and challenge ourselves to continue our work to to #BreakTheBias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our Europe and India region, we are looking to build on the promise of our previous initiatives like MCircles, our Returners programme and the Women\u2019s Business Council in India. We have seen some real strong progress in our Early Careers programme. Our annual graduate women intake has risen from 25 percent in 2014 to 37 percent in 2021 \u2013 we hit a new milestone in 2019 when it reached 42 percent. In 2021, we also brought in our highest number of women graduates in the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent report by the Institute of Employment Studies<\/a> found that at current rates of progress it will take more than a century for there to be the same number of women as men working in engineering occupations overall in the U.K. However, companies can\u2019t just recruit their way out of gender disparity. Too many of the brilliant women who join the workforce, stall and do not reach senior leadership positions. At AECOM, we have some amazing women in senior roles, but there is still more to do to hit our internal targets that are aligned to our ESG strategy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe and India, we are very proud to see our women involved in career development programmes like CEO Circle and Business Builders Circle, and we will be relentless at building our pipeline.  We are aiming to launch a new programme called Empower to improve our Women in Leadership representation. Whilst these programmes help, they are not the only answer. How can we fix the organisational barriers which aren\u2019t always so evident?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender equality includes men too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highlight for us in Europe and India will be launching our Gender Employee Resource Group for all genders, not just those who identify as women. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n