Comensura celebrates International Women’s Day as we work together to Inspire Inclusion

This year’s International Women’s Day Comensura team members and their Impellam Group colleagues met both virtually and at The Gherkin in London to discuss the difficulties women and other minority groups may face at work, and how we can help create more equitable and diverse workplaces and opportunities for all. 

Impellam's IM Womxn Business Resource Group hosted a London event with guest speaker Lauren Neal, author of best-selling book 'Valued at Work'. Lauren shared the stage with our Managing Director Hoa Ngo, Hayley Klaff, Director of Projects – STEM and Laura Browne, Client Services Manager for Guidant Global. 

They discussed the question, ‘why do we need to inspire inclusion?’ 

Lauren shared her experience of dealing with bias and sexism in STEM settings while leading engineering projects in the energy sector, and said inclusion is about making sure that everyone feels valued by recognising their input and participation in the work environment:  “If we don’t have an ability to have everybody take part and be valued for taking part, we’re going to miss everything.” 

Hoa Ngo believes that fostering inclusion should be a daily practice that we can each embody in how we communicate with our team and express appreciation for others. She stated that there have been male colleagues who have been supportive and encouraging to her throughout her career and urged more men to support their female colleagues and ‘open the door.’ 

This was a viewpoint shared by Hayley Klaff: “Everyone has a part to play in this. It’s important that people feel they’ve got an opportunity to contribute, and their voices will be heard – this is why we ensure that we’ve got an inclusive environment [at Impellam].” 

The panel also discussed the issues with companies that only meet the minimum requirements for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion hiring targets, rather than considering the reasons why they should hire women and people from other underrepresented groups. 

Gender inclusivity is a subject close to the hearts of the Comensura team, both male and female. This year we asked some of our colleagues to share their thoughts on why gender inclusion is important for them and how they contribute to inspiring a more inclusive culture at work. Click here to read their thoughts and stories in this article.