13 March 2024
Inspiring inclusion at MHR for International Women's Day 2024
MHR has been celebrating International Women's Day 2024. Here's what we've been up to, and how we're making things better for the future.
International Women’s Day recognises the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women around the world every year. As well as providing a platform to raise awareness, International Women’s Day also encourages individuals to act, whether through supporting women’s rights initiatives, challenging gender stereotypes or fostering an environment that enables women to thrive in all aspects of life.
We celebrated International Women’s Day with a company breakfast where employees were invited to come together and celebrate the contributions of the women in their lives. Chairman Jessica Mills made a speech highlighting the incredible work women have contributed to MHR over the last 40 years.
The women of MHR
This year’s theme was all about inspiring inclusion. At MHR, we celebrated the women in our workplace by releasing a series of videos about some of the inspirational activities that our female employees get up to outside of work. These included Rachel Dove, a girl guide leader, Danielle Blain, a Samaritans volunteer and Chloe Bryars, a local councillor.
We also showcased some of the exciting hobbies women at MHR do outside of work in a video launched on International Women’s Day, inspiring inclusion in and out of the workplace.
Where do we go from here?
Inspiring inclusion is all about actively working towards a world where women are not just present, but truly included, valued, and empowered. On an individual basis, it is important to understand, value and seek out inclusion of women and girls. On an organisational level, there are many ways to ensure that needs, interests, and aspirations of women are valued.
Inclusion can be inspired through recruiting, retaining, and developing talent, designing, and building infrastructure that meets the needs of women and girls and providing women and girls with access to quality education and training.
The technology industry has often struggled with female representation, and there are a lot of complex reasons for this. However, MHR stands against industry trends. While only 26% of employees within the industry identify as women, at MHR over 40% of our workforce are women.
There’s always more work to be done but creating a diverse and supportive culture where all employees get the same opportunities is a core part of our values.
Beyond International Women’s Day, we’re continuing to work closely with organisations like Women In Tech to drive our way forward in this area.
On top of this, we work closely with schools and universities to encourage more women into STEM and inspire them into leadership positions. We don’t just stop at International Women’s Day. We’re trying to change the face of the entire industry.
