Celebrating International Women’s Day and Shining a Light on Bouygues E&S’ Women in Digital Technology & Innovation

Each year, communities around the world celebrate International Women’s Day on 8^th March. The day recognises the achievements and challenges faced by women across the globe, as well as raising awareness of the common cause for women’s rights and gender equality. This year’s theme, embrace equity, places the focus on what exactly equity means and why it should be woven into our society’s DNA.

At Bouygues E&S, we’re marking the day with a celebratory event held by our employee-led women's network, WeLink UK, and Equans UK & Ireland’s ‘Women in Equans’, recently acquired by Bouygues SA. Hosted at the Wembley Stadium, we’ll be joined by guest speaker Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. She’ll be sharing her story of personal and professional achievement to become one of the most senior female firefighters in the UK as well as a Research Fellow at Cardiff University. During the event, we will come together to discuss the importance of diversity, equity & inclusion, while celebrating women and their achievements across both organisations.

To raise awareness of the different challenges women face and the progress we have made in recent years, WeLink UK also organised an intergenerational panel discussion for an open and honest conversation. Bouygues E&S female professionals shared their experience on topics such as what it means to be a woman in the construction industry and their vision for the future, with alternative generations sharing their differing experiences of gender within the workplace.

Amelle Mestari, Director of Procurement & Sustainable Development shared with us: "It's fantastic to be able to join our colleagues across Bouygues E&S and Equans today at Wembley Stadium to celebrate International Women's Day. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is at the heart of both of our businesses, and this event is just one of the many ways in which we promote these values. As co-chair of WeLink UK, I am proud that we continue to champion diversity within the workplace by sharing and celebrating our different experiences of women widely and reaffirming our ongoing commitment to progress."

Of course, these events highlight why International Women’s Day holds particular significance for the built environment sector. Historically, women have been underrepresented in the industry, a trend that unfortunately continues today. This disparity can be seen throughout the education system: at secondary school, girls consistently report lower confidence and enjoyment of STEM subjects in comparison to their male counterparts, while at university, only 35% of STEM students are women. In the workplace, this translates to as few as 16.5% of those in engineering occupations being women.

We're working hard to tackle this problem at the root through our educational outreach programme, the Girls Believe Academy, where our representatives visit schools across the country to highlight and challenge stereotypical perceptions of the industry and promote the different roles available to women. The importance of sharing relevant insights on the industry through educational outreach programmes cannot be underestimated: showcasing the exciting and welcoming environment of the built environment sector is fundamental to inspiring girls to explore all the careers available to them within it.

Attracting a diverse future generation of talent is not only important intrinsically, but delivers promising rewards to businesses: gender-balanced teams consistently outperform than non-diverse teams. This is clearly seen in the success of Bouygues E&S’ Digital and Innovation Department, a female-majority team that embodies the mission of International Women’s Day to elevate and advance gender parity in technology and celebrate the women forging innovation. The team’s success in showcasing digital innovation to support our clients digital transformation journey while championing women in the technology and innovation field only demonstrates the value and dynamism that diversity brings to business.