Today is International Women’s Day, where we celebrate the women who work in the FM industry.
Acorn is committed to ensuring gender parity and is creating a more diverse workplace to make our business attractive to the widest group of people. Our workplace is currently made up of 29% of female employees. In a male-dominated engineering industry we are working extremely hard to grow this percentage on a daily basis.
Acorn now has three female senior leaders sitting on the management team and two female operations managers and we speak to our operations managers about being women in the FM industry.
Michelle Lewis, Key Account Manager has been with Acorn for over six months.
Michelle commented “I have been working in the FM industry for over 16 years, starting out my career as a Facilities Co-Ordinator. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I was put through fast track management courses whereas a lot of my male counterparts went direct into a management role. I found it beneficial starting at the bottom as I know the industry inside out and all of the processes from cradle to grave.
Working in a male-oriented industry gives you a completely different outlook on things and I like the mix of people. It is good to ‘break the mould’ and not succumb to stereotypes and prove to people that I can do the job just as well as anyone else, but I will always strive to be better and continuously improve.
I love the industry. I love the variety of work and two days are never the same. I like networking with companies and keeping in touch with the FM industry and what new innovations are coming out. I like being a service provider and to assist clients with their longer term goals.”
Danielle Ruan is an Operational Support Manager who recently came back to Acorn after a short break. She has been in the FM industry for 11 years.
Danielle says “I take pride in working in facilities management that the work we do keeps a work space operating smoothly and the people in those buildings happy and in a productive work environment.
I have worked in various roles / departments within facilities management organisations and like to see the challenges of each role that plays a part in the overall operations. I believe everyone needs to work together to come up with a way of working that works best for each organisation & or department. Listening and understanding others is key.”