At Balfour Beatty, lots of my colleagues have risen to the challenge and because of this passion and enthusiasm I’m so pleased that we have a wide variety of employee-led activities aimed at encouraging conversations on key topics including LGBT+, Multi-Culturalism, Gender Equality and Ability throughout the week.
We all know that COVID-19 has presented a number of challenges to us all, but it’s the resolve of each of us as individuals, coupled with how we’ve helped one another, that has allowed us to weather the storm. As we move towards a “new normal”, it’s so important that we don’t lose this feeling.
We must continue to ask and consider how we’ve helped each other to be more inclusive, day in and day out. Don’t you think that opening the discussion to share our stories and actions is what helps create an environment that allows everyone to show up as their whole, best selves?
With this in mind, we’ll be sharing stories from across Balfour Beatty throughout National Inclusion Week. Each story will explore a different element, from what it’s like to hold down a busy job whilst caring for a disabled child to highlighting the good work our ‘Inspiring Women’ working group have been doing behind the scenes.
An LGBT+ panel will also be answering questions from employees across the UK and we’ll be resharing our most attended webinar at Balfour Beatty, our “Let’s Talk About Race” presentation.
I’m also excited that we’re launching our Include Everyone e-learning module to all of our employees; and everyone will be actively encouraged to complete this because we want to better equip them with the awareness and knowledge about how to continue to improve Diversity and Inclusion within the business.
I’m proud of the strides that we’ve made at Balfour Beatty over the last few years, but there is still more work to do. It’s through initiatives such our Reverse Mentoring and Returners Programme, that we can achieve a significant step-change in our business and the industry as a whole.
And so, with National Inclusion Week providing an opportunity to reflect on what inclusion means to us, personally, we’ve asked colleagues from across a variety of projects and locations at Balfour Beatty to share their answers in this short, fun video, so do take a minute to take a look.
