The TRAD Group are keenly aware of how important their people are to the success of the business. They believe in teamwork, mutual support and encouraging all their staff to continually develop their skills and extend their careers, and become the best they can be.
The TRAD Group is also well-known for its stance on encouraging women to pursue careers in the construction sector. With more than 50% of their office staff women, many in Senior positions it’s a principle close to their hearts. To highlight the commitment TRAD are founding sponsors of the ‘Inspire Me’ campaign hosted by Construction news.
Women are under-represented across construction generally, and in scaffolding in particular. While the nature of the work may be largely to blame, there are many positions at TRAD where women have made major contributions to their success, for example in areas such as surveying and estimating.
The TRAD Group are keen to build on this success and encourage more women to purse professional and managerial careers, with the chance to move into senior leadership positions.
UK legislation, of course, sets minimum standards for companies to support workplace diversity and equality. At TRAD, they want to go beyond these minimum standards and set the bar much higher. The aim is to establish a fully inclusive environment that contributes to their employees’ well-being and success.
One of TRAD’s key objectives is to create mentoring and training schemes to give women the chance to become operational heads within supervision and contracts management, with the chance to eventually become board directors.
As an example, one of their employees, Stephanie, is currently being trained, coached and mentored to become a member of TRAD’s contracts team which manages more than 300 scaffolders on site. They are also supporting Stephanie through university day release as she earns academic qualifications, which will further help her professional career.
Des Moore, TRAD Group CEO and President of the NASC (National Access & Scaffolding Confederation), is committed to increasing diversity across the industry, and in particular to inspiring more women to pursue careers in construction – especially in management and leadership roles.
TRAD hope the rest of the industry will follow the initiative shown by the NASC by supporting, encouraging and promoting the development of the ‘Inspire Me’ campaign objectives. At TRAD, they have found that encouraging women to pursue careers in our sector is not only the right thing to do in terms of equality of opportunity, it gives them a significant competitive advantage. How? By enabling them to draw on the different skills, ideas and perspectives that women bring to their business.