Mikhaila Brentnall

Said the following about Women In Business Group:

“TSP Projects are committed to developing a highly skilled and diverse workforce for todays teams and the future years to come. The achievement of this is integral to our continued success. To support our aim we have a wide range of initiatives to enable us to build a sustainable and enduring legacy with recruitment of talent into our business, retention and development of our employees being at the forefront.

Spearheaded by the CEO’s desire to increase the female ratio in the business and indeed the engineering industry as a whole, TSP Projects created a team to action a plan aimed at both increasing the number of women in the business and creating a positive working environment in which to retain females.

Born just 2 years ago the Women in Business Group has already seen a significant positive impact on the organisation. Developed from within the business, the ten-strong team are a collection of individuals who are passionate about increasing the opportunities for females within the engineering industry and delivering equal opportunities at the company.

Getting to work straight away the team quickly developed a plan in conjunction with The WISE Campaign’s 10 steps* with the main objectives of increasing and retaining the number of females throughout the business at all levels of seniority, from apprentices and graduates, right to the top Director levels. The plan, which was implemented with immediate effect, included effective branding, support and growth and attracting talent.

These objectives insist that all communications from recruitment to engagement events, through to staff newsletters and school fairs actively encourage females to succeed in the sector.

A number of high-level events are attended and exhibited at to increase the exposure of the company to females in the industry and those thinking about joining the industry. Furthermore, all school fairs actively target young females as they are thinking about their careers with the belief that if girls can see engineering as a career option and aspiration, then they are more likely to explore engineering as an option.

Investing in children at a young age fundamentally underpins the high number of school visits that the teams at TSP Projects attend, educating students about the industry as a career choice and exhibiting at STEM careers. Primary and secondary schools are targeted as the team are aware that girls ‘drop off’ STEM subjects at different points throughout primary and secondary, as well as those students from under privileged backgrounds. The team are passionate about giving aspirations to all children, especially females who otherwise would not think about engineering as a career choice.

As a result, the company has seen an increase in the number of female apprentices joining the business with 80 apprentices and graduates overall currently training and working at the business. In fact, an impressive 22% of its employees are apprentices or graduates.

The team also work with local charities and community groups supporting females in the local area. From work wear initiatives encouraging females from a lower economic background into work to project based initiatives encouraging talent, the team are active in the community encouraging individuals to pursue careers in STEM subjects and supporting inspirational and aspirational workplace events.

Once employed at the company the team knew that retaining females in a supportive environment was just as important as recruitment. As such, the team proactively changed policies to make flexible working more easily accessible for all with working from home, reduced hours and shorter weeks common place to allow for a positive work-life balance. A family-friendly policy was also introduced to enable staff to support a work / life balance. This is adopted for both males and females throughout the business.

Whilst in work a mentoring programme had recently been developed which actively supports employees in the business to progress their careers, with opportunities for career progression.

To inspire females in the organisation the Women in Business group arranged for inspirational women and role models at the top of their careers to come into the business and talk about their career journeys and give top tips on being a successful female in a male dominated world. Two key speakers included an influential MP and a key senior director in a construction company on the CIB Board.

To date the team have seen significant improvements with more senior women in the business being either recruited or promoted and retention levels of females going up. In fact, the number of females overall throughout the business has risen by 3% in just a year, with the number of female Project Managers up by 4% since last year.

The Women in Business Group are dedicated to continuous improvement. Whilst much success has been achieved in the last year the team are now aiming even higher and at a recent review meeting the team have set themselves even more challenging targets to push the company to the next level. It seems the sky really is the limit and with so much completed in just 2 years, the future for females in the industry and at TSP Projects looks very exciting indeed.

* The WISE Campaign encourages women and girls to value and pursue science, technology, engineering and maths-related courses in school or college and move on into related careers and progress. The Ten Steps is an initiative led by industry and designed specifically for science, technology and engineering employers to provide a framework to help firms improve the recruitment, retention and progression of women.“