As a company, we have always been supportive of women in business and our work culture aligns well with many of the aims of the charter. For example, we offer part-time and flexible working hours for all roles in the business and we have a gender-balanced senior leadership team and board. It felt really natural for us to become a signatory to promote the initiative to other businesses and also to push ourselves to do even better.
One of our main challenges has always been to recruit women into developer roles. As part of joining the charter, we're committed to attracting more women to apply for developer roles by changing our recruitment strategy and processes. We’ve been looking at which universities and courses we’re recruiting from and at our options for recruitment outside of our normal graduate model e.g. coding boot camps. We also took inspiration from the charter goals and have committed to offering more support to our female developers.
The other main area we have focussed on is to make sure our women in lower-skilled roles can progress through the organisation. We have reviewed and improved our progression paths and are currently supporting one member of staff through an apprenticeship and another through a year-long bookkeeping course.
Aside from the specific goals we’ve committed to, it’s great to be in a group with like-minded businesses that recognise the value of women in business. It’s simple to become a signatory and I’d encourage all Bristol businesses to take a look!
https://www.bristolwomeninbusinesscharter.org/
