Encouraging more females into STEM careers
One of the country’s largest independent safety and risk consultancies is working hard to buck the trend of low female entrants into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) industries with a commitment that means the business now boasts – what it believes is – one of the highest ratio of female to male STEM graduates in the industry.
CRA was founded in 2000 and specialises in managing risk across safety critical industries including nuclear, oil and gas, defence, power, process and transport. For CEO Jasbir Sidhu, the business prides itself on the fact that its first course of action, from start-up, was to look at how it could actively encourage more women to choose safety and risk management as a career.
This has been combined with actively promoting the uptake of STEM subjects to undergraduates through university partnerships and internships with Imperial College London and Manchester University, with other partnerships currently in development. The provision of resources and training that has enabled staff to quickly and effectively progress through the business and the implementation of changes in the workplace providing greater flexibility for all staff have also contributed to the number of STEM employees joining the business.
And the push across all these areas seems to have paid off with 20% of the business headcount filled with female STEM employees.
