In addition our work in helping young women to broaden their career aspirations has been recognised through an Opportunity Now Award for 'Inspiring the Workforce of the Future'. The company's focus on attracting women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related careers through its schools roadshows and mentoring programmes was commended by the judges. We joined seven other UK organisations receiving including awards for their work in progressing women in the workplace. These included AstraZenecca, the Home Office, KPMG and PwC, who
Established in 1995 by Business in The Community, together with various company leaders, the Awards signify the commitment and progress made by organisations to create diverse and representative workforces at all levels of business.
Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton Investment Management, founder of the 30% Club and the new Chair of Opportunity Now women at work campaign from Business in the Community, said: “The appetite for accelerating change towards a better gender balance at all levels of a company has never been greater. Achieving this is proving much harder, however. Change needs to be driven by business leaders and embedded into everyday practices, rather than being solely the presence of HR teams or viewed as an add-on that aims to ‘fix’ the women. I believe that more collaboration on best practice is needed and the Opportunity Now Awards can enable this to happen. I know from experience how robust the Awards process is and congratulate all the winners on their success.”
Receiving the award from journalist and broadcaster Alice Arnold, BAE Systems' Head of Diversity and Inclusion Donna Halkyard said: '‘It’s a real honour to be recognised for the work we’ve done so far in encouraging women to fulfil their potential in an engineering workplace. BAE Systems is a company traditionally dominated by men but with 14% of our engineering graduate intake being female last year we are starting to see some real change to the gender in-balance.’
Accepting the award with Donna was Charlotte Tingley, a former apprentice and winner of the 2012 Institute of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Women’s Engineering Society Prize and Richard Hamer, Education Director and Head of Early Careers Programme.
