I’m currently reading our next book club read - How Women Rise. It’s a great read and talks about how focusing on things that lie within your control can help improve your situation and clear your path to success whereas focusing on external factors that aren’t in your control can be an exercise in frustration. On that note, we can’t change the pandemic but at Women in Transport we have taken some positive steps in 2020 to support our members and to ensure the future of our network.
Read moreResilience and looking after yourself in challenging times
As we emerge from our second lockdown and face restrictions into the spring, Susan Heaton Wright's generous offer to support our Women in Transport community with a workshop on resilience and looking after ourselves in challenging times, was very timely and very welcome.
Read moreWomen in Transport Book Club: Becoming by Michelle Obama
Women in Transport volunteer, Carmen Oleksinski, reviews the third session of the virtual book club. Hosted via Zoom in October, members came together to discuss their thoughts about ‘Becoming’ by Michelle Obama.
Read moreWomen in Transport's Neil Pepper MBE wins Best Male Mentor WICE Awards 2020
Congratulations to Neil Pepper MBE who has just won The European Women In Construction & Engineering (WICE) Awards for Best Male Mentor 2020. We are also thrilled that Victoria Sutherland, a Women in Transport members from Mott MacDonald was awarded Best Woman Rail Engineer 2020.
Read moreShaping Zero: Towards net zero carbon for infrastructure
On 3 November, Rachel Skinner, one of the founder members of Women in Transport and our Patron, became the 156th President of the Institution of Civil Engineers and marked the start of her year with ICE's first ever fully-virtual Inaugural Address. Rachel spoke passionately about just one issue: Net-Zero Carbon and the need for civil engineers to act together, urgently, to help reduce carbon emissions and therefore address climate change.
Read moreSupport HS2 through innovation in construction and design
High Speed Two Ltd (HS2), in collaboration with Innovate UK, is investing £300,000 in a Small Business Research Initiative competition to deliver innovation that will drive project efficiencies and process optimisations during the design and construction phase of the new railway.
Read moreWomen in Transport signs ‘Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Charter’ to support diversity across the sector
Women in Transport is delighted to be a signatory of the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Charter’ which has just been launched jointly by The Railway Industry Association (RIA) and Women in Rail (WR) to champion equality, diversity and inclusion in the UK railway industry. The joint charter is a commitment to work together to build a more balanced higher performing sector and has been backed by over 100 organisations.
Read moreAn audience with Rowan Joachim - Head of Engineering at London Overground
One of the primary objectives of Women in Transport is to shine a light on the wonderful range of career opportunities in the transport sector. Another is to inspire our members with role models who have succeeded in some of these careers and overcome the inevitable challenges along the way. So we were delighted when Rowan Joachim, Head of Engineering at London Overground, generously offered to speak to our members online about some key moments in her 20 year career in the transport industry.
Read moreBullying in the Workplace
Since we launched the chat sessions back in April, we have covered a wide range of topics including the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the progress of ED & I, the role of male allies, how women can help each other advance their careers and whether remote working is the way forward. On 21 October members got together online to talk about Bullying in the workplace and how we can call it out.
Read morePersonal Pronouns in the Workplace: A Beginners Guide
Wednesday 21 October 2020 is International Pronouns Day. It seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity. Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people.
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The need to put people first when implementing change was the key talking point when transformation and human factors experts at Highways England, WSP, Turner & Townsend and Women in Transport came together at a webinar hosted by WSP, on Tuesday 22nd September 2020.
Read moreAlien in the room
With women significantly underrepresented in the transport workforce, there are often situations where we are the ‘alien in the room’. Even if this hasn’t been your personal experience, I hope that reading Charlie’s latest blog will provide some insight into how it feels to be the minority in a room and offers a moment of reflection on how we can all be more inclusive.
Read moreThe most dangerous word is 'just'
Safe & the City is launching a new campaign to drive reporting of sexual harassment and raise funds for tools that will make it easier for charities and other organisations to act on reports.
The campaign - The Most Dangerous Word is ‘Just’ - centres on the fact that millions of incidents of harassment are minimised, not reported, as we tell ourselves, and others reinforce it, that it was ‘just’ a comment or ‘just’ a joke.
Read moreApplications are open for Advance 2021
Women in Transport is delighted to announce the launch of the fourth year of Advance - a mentoring programme designed exclusively to support the professional development of our members. Advance offers structured mentoring for women working in transport. Launched in 2017, the programme has supported 160 mentees and mentors to date. Advance 2021 has been made possible with the generous support of TXM Recruit, Xanta Rail and Network for Skills.
Read moreA fantastic opportunity to broaden my network and get some fresh perspectives
Applications for Advance 2021, the mentoring programme designed for women in transport, launch on 1 October 2020. In this blog, Women in Transport member, Charlie Barnes, shares her experience of being an Advance 2020 mentee and the benefits of getting a fresh perspective on challenges that you’re facing to advance your professional development.
Read moreMaking working at home work better
We've probably all become very familiar with working from home but are we working at our best? Are we being productive and efficient? Are we enjoying our day or are our stress levels going through the roof?
To find out how we can make working from home work better, we were delighted to get some guidance, in a fun interactive webinar led by Iain Smith, Women in Transport board member and founder of Network for Skills. Christine Hurley reports on the webinar.
Read moreWomen in Transport Book Club: Finding Inspiration in The Handmaid’s Tale
Women in Transport volunteer, Carmen Oleksinski, reviews the second session of the virtual book club. Hosted via Zoom in July, members came together to discuss their thoughts about ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood.
Read moreVital to retain and attract diverse talent post-Covid, say industry leaders
Retaining existing talent and attracting a diverse range of people to avoid future skills shortages were key points discussed at the latest Infrastructure Intelligence Covid Recovery webinar, at which our President, Katie Hulland, was a panel member.
A major focus on both retaining existing talent and attracting a diverse and creative range of new people into the industry to avoid future skills shortages emerged as the key talking points at the latest Infrastructure Intelligence webinar on Friday 31 July 2020. “Post-Covid: the skills challenge for construction”.
Read moreMaking a Virtual Impact
When working remotely became the new normal for many of us, one of the immediate changes was that team meetings and client calls became online experiences. While we may have got to grips with the technology involved in meeting via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, getting our message across effectively online can still present many challenges.
Susan Heaton-Wright, a communications and speaking coach, who specialises in helping people to make an impact in both virtual and real life conversations, recently ran a highly interactive virtual masterclass for our members which was jam-packed with hints and tips on making an impact in online.
Read moreManaging a psychologically fit team remotely
Working from home definitely has its advantages, such as giving up our daily commute and spending more time with our families. But it's not all good news as working alone can result in loss of focus and, combined with isolation and feelings of uncertainty about the current situation, can adversely affect our productivity and mental wellbeing.
The role of the manager of a remote team in these difficult times is unprecedented, so we invited Mark Sharratt, a leadership development consultant, to run an online session for our members providing guidance in managing a productive and psychologically fit team.
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