Veolia Services Southern Africa (Veolia) joined the world on 8 March in celebrating the occasion of International Women’s Day, and reaffirmed its commitment to promoting a gender-diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace.
“As an organisation, gender diversity and inclusion is a key performance objective in our overall strategic programme. We understand that equal representation is not just a nice to have, but that it plays an important role in achieving our business goals. On this auspicious occasion, I wish to extend my thanks to all our female employees for their role in Veolia’s everyday activities - we honestly cannot do it without every single one of you. For my male colleagues, I challenge you to continue to find ways in which to Embrace Equity and help to elevate female employees and their role across the business.” Stanley Steenkamp, CEO, Veolia Services Southern Africa
Veolia has therefore constructed a few goals aimed at achieving gender equality in the Southern African region, aligning with the Group’s campaign and 2030 Sustainable Development Gender Equality goal, as set by the United Nations. Developing technical skills is a key driver of gender diversity. To this end, Veolia runs a Women in Leadership and Technical Skills Programme to promote career development for female managers. To celebrate the event itself, promotional activities have been arranged across the various offices within the region to showcase our individual team commitments to embracing equity and the promotion of gender diversity.
Veolia, at Group level, set up an action plan dedicated to Gender Equality in 2016 resulting in the internal collaboration network known as “WEDO” which continues to promote actions related to gender balance in jobs (to increase the number of women recruited in operational positions) and the improvement of the feminization rate within managerial and top management. Currently, the WEDO network has successfully attracted more than 3200 employees worldwide, including both male and female employees.
The event was celebrated at both our head office, and across Southern Africa at several of our other offices, through the adoption of the global theme for International Women's Day, that of Embracing Equity.
