Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our ‘embracing diversity’ series. If you missed any of the posts over the past two weeks, here are some of the highlights.
Providing perspective from the property sector, Nicola Gourlay of Chris Stewart Group and Miller Mathieson, chair of the Scottish Property Federation told us what diversity means to them. Clearly, the world of real estate is transforming itself and wants to attract more women – and a wider social demographic – into the profession.
Speaking personally, Nicola sees International Women’s Day as “empowerment day”. For her, the world of work is full of potential and “with hard work, enthusiasm and persistence you can be whatever you want to be; even that thing that you were told as a child you could not be”.
Kate Bassett, Head of Content at Management Today welcomed the Inspiring Women in Business Conference to Edinburgh saying “Diversity starts with inclusion. If you build an inclusive culture and make everyone feel like they belong, you’ll attract diverse employees and the best talent”.
For Julie Grieve of traveltech company Criton, “diversity equals choice” and for Indigo Chairman, Jacqui Low “it’s about opportunity for all without a thought being given to gender, race, religion or any other arbitrarily imposed barrier”.
In more practical terms, Robert Kilgour’s culturally diverse workforce adds “great positivity” within a community that should be proud of what it achieves. Morven Maclean brings diversity to volunteering at CHAS. She said, “When we expand the diversity of volunteers in our organisations, we build human capital, which in turn strengthens communities”. While Fiona McCormick of seescape is encouraged by greater collaboration with those designing streets and train stations to be more aware of the needs of people with sight loss, but there is still some way to go, “From our perspective, diversity awareness is growing, but it has not yet led entirely to diversity inclusion”.
We talked about how the #MeToo campaign has been received by the media and how politicians deal with the issues and themes of diversity. Our podcast for International Women’s Day gave an insight into why this date in the calendar remains important.
Finally, Alexis Rose of Accenture unveiled Accenture’s latest research for International Women’s Day, Getting to Equal 2019 which evidenced how a culture of equality drives innovation and why diversity is a business imperative.
We hope you enjoyed it all.
