Earlier this year, Amey entered into a partnership with Women in Defence UK, which aims to make Defence a better working environment for all, and to celebrate and recognise the achievements of women in the sector. The vision is to build a better Defence sector in which all people can work, learn and thrive, a key part of this includes creating wide-ranging development offerings for women.
We know we have many talented and successful women working within Amey’s Defence contracts who inspire others with their drive to improve, their desire to collaborate and a genuine passion for serving our Armed Forces and their families, and so we’re keen to support and develop them by creating the right environment in which they can thrive.
As part of our Women in Defence UK partnership, we’ve been given the opportunity to take part in their 2020 mentoring programme, designed to improve gender balance, diversity and inclusion within UK Defence organisations. The programme is delivered by mentoring experts at Moving Ahead, in partnership with Women in Defence UK, and it is a nine-month programme starting in September 2020.
In line with the MOD’s commitment to improving diversity and inclusion within Defence, this mentoring scheme will see nine of Amey’s high performing women partnered with mentors (male or female) from other organisations in the same sector. Similarly, nine of our employees have been selected to mentor women from other Defence businesses.
What makes this programme unique is that the public sector will mentor the private sector, and the private sector will mentor the public sector, meaning that the Armed Forces and Civil Service at all levels in in both the private and public sector, will be able to gain invaluable external feedback and perspectives from people with quite different experiences and backgrounds but with an in-depth knowledge of the sector.