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International Women in Engineering Day 2020 takes place on Tuesday 23rd June and is an international awareness day to support, inspire, celebrate and raise the profile of women in engineering. It is an opportunity to draw attention to the careers in engineering for young people and to celebrate the achievements of women engineers.

The theme this year is #ShapeTheWorld, inspired by UNESCO’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The UK National Commission for UNESCO is also this year’s INWED partner.

Celebrating women in engineering at JCA

To celebrate the International Women in Engineering Day, we asked a few of our female colleagues working in different roles about their experiences of working in engineering/maintenance industry.

Kirsty Eyles, JCA Lead Water Technician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital:

“Being the only female JCA engineer at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital presents a great challenge and opportunity to break into a field underrepresented by women. Engineering is fun, challenging, innovative and fast-moving. It is about seeing a problem and being creative about solving it, then working together as a team to get the job done. It is about trying it out, and then pushing your idea that bit further…

I would encourage women who dare to take up a challenge and win, to risk entering a men dominated career field. In my experience, women often think they cannot do certain technical tasks when faced with something they have never done before, while men assume they can. When I look around me, I see women engineers in many fields: mechanical, electrical, structural, materials, software… Anything is possible.”

Tina McGennity, H&S Manager:

“I work on a number of construction and maintenance sites. Construction has always been considered ‘a male dominated’ environment but working at JCA, who employ two female Health & Safety managers, I am treated with respect and equality by everyone within the company, our contractors and clients.

In 2018 I won the SHP Biggest Impact Award for Health and Safety. This proves that women can excel in the industry and you can achieve your goals through hard work, dedication and commitment.”

Anna Stillman, Commercial Manager and Company Secretary:

“Dealing with commercial and contractual issues, I’m not on the front line of engineering and maintenance but, having worked in this sector for many years, I can honestly say that I don’t think about being a woman in a male dominated sector.

My perception is that the work I do is more important to my colleagues, customers and others I deal with than my gender.”

Andrea Baxter, Administration Manager:

“I’ve been working as business support to the engineering sector from around 2011.  Yes, the engineering industry is a male dominated sector, but there have always been a few women interspersed, like diamonds in the sand. They can be rare, but it has always been good to see them, passionate about what they do and excelling at their jobs.

To see more women slowly moving into the engineering sector is really exciting – It has always said to me that you can be anything you want to be.”

Pippa Dimsdale, Contracts Manager, MSD division:

“As a woman rising through the ranks in a “male dominated industry”, I have been pleasantly surprised by how accepting my male peers have been and how they have aided me to achieve success. I don’t feel like being a woman has hindered me in anyway, if anything, it encouraged me to work harder and show the industry that woman can offer so much with the right training and knowledge.

I would encourage any young females considering a role in the industry to take the jump as the rewards of working in a fast-paced, ever developing industry far outweigh any challenges!”

To find out more about International Women in Engineering Day 2020, visit their website: http://www.inwed.org.uk/ 

The everywoman network have provided a list of free to access resources to support International Women in Engineering Day include a selection of articles, webinars and other assets and you can access it here.

To get involved on Twitter, search hashtags #INWED20 and #ShapeTheWorld

Want to know more about what it’s like to work for JCA? Read our employees’ testimonials here and find out more about what JCA stands for here.

World FM Day, initiated by Global FM, is an international celebration of the importance of the FM profession. Its aim is to raise the profile of facilities management around the world and those involved in shaping and influencing the health, safety, productivity and well-being of people utilising the built environment. It highlights how facilities management plays an integral role in enabling positive customer, client and employee experience in all sectors, whether that’s residential, leisure, entertainment, retail, healthcare or any other. It also facilitates global knowledge sharing to promote the FM profession, and allows facilities management professionals to reflect on their achievements over the past year and celebrate each other’s successes.

As a leading M&E maintenance provider, we fully understand the importance of facilities management professionals and the role they play in often complex environments, ensuring that end users receive world class service. We are proud to be part of this by providing seamless and client-tailored M&E maintenance services.

We take time to understand each of our client’s unique requirements and tailor maintenance packages to suit each business’s individual needs. Our aim is to create strong relationships with the client’s FM teams based on mutual trust and understanding, as well as to provide first class customer experience.

World FM Day is a fantastic opportunity to discuss and share experiences and knowledge across the industry, to raise the awareness, promote the FM profession and celebrate the successes of the industry. This year’s theme is ‘Celebrating our environment’ which acknowledges our industry’s respect for the environment and our continuing focus on sustainability.

At JCA, we ensure sustainability is embedded in everything we do. We develop programmes to ensure our business, employees and supply chain are sustainably competent and are committed to ensure we meet and exceed legal and ethical requirements. Out teams are driven to continually improve sustainable performance through control / improvement programmes.

We believe in incorporating energy efficient technology into all our projects and can help decide what options will make a building sustainable, both environmentally and economically.

To find out more about JCA’s services, head over to Our services.

To get involved in the World FM Celebrations, join the conversation on Twitter and share your sustainable ideas using hashtag #WorldFMDay2020

The current COVID-19 pandemic situation is having an unprecedented effect on our work and personal lives. The government initiated social distancing and national lockdown are aimed to protect our physical health, however it is also essential to consider mental health and wellbeing in the current climate.

JCA values the health and wellbeing of all our employees and recognises that balancing everyday life together with the requirements of work and home can create pressure for everyone. We aim to establish a positive health and wellbeing culture that includes awareness, understanding, effective processes and positive behaviour by employees at all levels.

Wellbeing at the core

We fully recognise that mental and physical health and wellbeing are equally important and that work can have a potential impact on both. Therefore, we have an employee wellbeing policy that sets out and manages our obligations to maintain the mental health and wellbeing of our staff. It covers JCA’s commitment to employee health, the responsibilities of managers and others for maintaining psychological health, health promotion initiatives, communicating and training on health issues, the range of support available for the maintenance of mental health, and organisational commitment to handling individual issues.

Trained to help

We take a “we’re in this together” approach – everyone has their part to play in ensuring that support can be accessed as needed, with dedicated support roles available. We have mental aid first aiders who are trained in mental health awareness and can support mental ill health and offer sign posted support.

Talking about mental health at work can be daunting: people may worry about how they will be treated and how their colleagues will react. We therefore invited JCA employees across the business to volunteer to become Health and Wellbeing Champions. Our Champions help implement and support JCA’s wellbeing and mental health programme through raising awareness of wellbeing, promoting healthy lifestyles and positive mental health. Every Champion attended an internationally recognised training course ‘Mental Health Champions’, accredited by Mental Health First Aid (MHFA).

Health and Wellbeing Champions can support workplace culture and make a difference to the lives of work colleagues, working with the organisation to make mental health a normal topic of conversation, dispelling myths and providing another avenue for people to seek support.

A number of our senior managers and line managers have also attended ‘Line Manager Mental Health Awareness Training’ run by Mind, with further sessions to be arranged later this year.  This training aims to provide line managers with a better understanding of mental health difficulties and the confidence to  manage mental health in the workplace, which promotes wellbeing and understanding across the teams and reduces perceived stigma when discussing mental health issues.

External programmes

As part of our commitment to health and wellbeing of our staff, we have implemented an Employee Assistance Programme, delivered by an independent external organisation, which provides confidential support and guidance relating to personal issues via telephone and online advice, support and counselling services. The services include help with home and work life, physical and emotional health, wellbeing resources, self-help programmes, webinars and other.

RoSPA Health at Work

Our teams work hard on continually developing and implementing processes and procedures for the JCA Health and Wellbeing programme by creating innovative and exciting activities for all staff, balanced and educational training and providing continued support to all staff members who may feel they need it.

Our efforts do not go unnoticed. In 2019, we were awarded a major award – the RoSPA Health at Work Award. This major trophy is presented to businesses demonstrating the best management of Health at Work and a true and obvious commitment to the welfare of all the staff.  The submission for this extremely prestigious award consisted of JCA having to evidence a number of health and safety areas, including ‘Wellness at work’ (particularly mental health), attendance management and staff rehabilitation.

Mind UK

This year, we sealed our commitment to raising awareness on mental health and wellbeing by choosing the wonderful Mind UK as our national charity for 2020. Mind UK provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. The organisation campaigns to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of the issues that those with mental illnesses deal with.

Support your colleagues

Ensure that you communicate with your colleagues or teams often and if you are a line manager, provide updates regularly to your teams. If your company does not run its own wellbeing programmes, Mind UK has published guidance on coronavirus and wellbeing which you may find useful.