08/03/2024
Plan Equality: where do we stand?
A year ago, Soletanche Bachy committed to the Equality plan to increase the proportion of women in our company, offer them good working conditions and promote their success. One year on, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, let’s take stock of the actions implemented in our subsidiaries.
A little reminder: what is Plan Equality?
Since the launch of the Equality by Soletanche Bachy Plan, our subsidiaries in all our geographical areas have been mobilised to create their own action plans tailored to their specific challenges. Whatever the starting point, it is a collective commitment to progress.
Here is a brief overview of some of the actions already implemented, for each of the 4 pillars of the plan:
Pillar 1 – Generate vocations
- United States: Nicholson Construction has appointed a woman to its management team: Marie Roscoe, Project Director, is now part of the management committee to guide Nicholson’s key strategic decisions
- Romania: SBR has launched a campaign in partnership with several universities: women engineers talk to students about their profession and carry out construction site visits.
- Poland: Soletanche Polska is part of the Female2Female (F2F) mentoring programme, a global NGO foundation which supports female engineers kick-start their careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). Through this programme, Soletanche Polska is setting up mentorships with female executives from the company to support female students or young professionals, as well as networking events and skill-building
Pillar 2 – Guarantee equity
- Spain: Rodio Kronsa has developed an Equality Plan, which includes all the measures taken by the company to achieve real and effective equality within the company.
- Mexico: Cimesa has set up an Equality Committee to monitor the development and implementation of equal employment and non-discrimination practices within the company.
- Turkey: Zetas has launched a systematic audit of salaries and opportunities and reviewed its processes to ensure gender equality at every stage of the career.
Pillar 3 – Shape our work environment
- United States: Nicholson Construction‘s management team completed an in-depth 2 ½ day training programme focused on gender diversity and eliminating sexism in the workplace. The aim of the training was to help understand how our internal biases and perspective as a dominant male culture shape our actions and decisions and impact on our female colleagues.
- Spain: Rodio Kronsa has drawn up a protocol against sexist behaviour and sexual harassment to combat inappropriate behaviour, both within the company and with partners and subcontractors.
- Chile: Soletanche Bachy Chile‘s management team signed a commitment with the Ministry for Women’s Affairs to progress towards obtaining “Norma 3262”, a Chilean certification that helps organisations identify gaps, barriers and inequalities between men and women, in order to implement actions to remedy them. As part of this process, Soletanche Bachy Chile carried out an organisational diagnosis of gender equality, conducted surveys and set up working groups and awareness-raising campaigns.
- Hong Kong: Bachy Soletanche Group Limited conducted a survey of its female employees and an equal number of men to gain a better understanding of perceptions and expectations.
Pillar 4 – Unlock potential
- Australia: To support its female employees, Brady Marine & Civil has created a “Women@Brady” network. This network was created to enable women to meet, connect, collaborate and support each other. Big ideas were shared, such as further developing the network and changing its name to D&I@Brady and its membership to include male champions of change.
- Mexico: Cimesa has set up a mentoring system for every woman who joins the company (7 to date).
Numerous initiatives like these have already been launched throughout our subsidiaries, and many others are currently being rolled out for 2024.
