Opus celebrates International Women’s Day

Opus International Consultants (Opus) is celebrating International Women’s Day on Sunday March 8 this year with a variety of events and initiatives at its offices across the globe.

"It’s important to improve gender imbalance, especially at management levels, that’s why we are celebrating International Women’s Day and why we developed a Women in Leadership programme to promote this as a priority," says Opus Chief Executive, Dr David Prentice.

Events include motivational and leadership presentations; the sale of purple ribbons to raise funds for several organisations, including the Women in Engineering Society; and celebrating the successes and achievements of women at Opus.

Opus launched the Women in Leadership initiative in 2014. The network provides mentoring and supports aspiring leaders, especially women in senior roles, to develop organisational leadership and to promote gender equality.

"The greater diversity you have in leadership the more likely your organisation can be more successful across a number of indicators like equity, EBIT and share price growth."

The Women in Leadership scheme has already influenced the way Opus works, including: changing HR policies; developing training programmes; increasing support for part-time workers, and improving return-to-work conditions after maternity. It has also led to an education scheme that targets schools to encourage more women to enter the engineering profession.

"These early successes are promising and show that we are seriously committed to a path that increases women’s participation and leadership at Opus," adds Dr Prentice.

Opus employs over 3,000 people across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the last 10 years the ratio of permanent female employees has grown from 24% to 33% in line with global industry trends.