Diversity and Inclusion in Aviation

Yesterday we attended an event by Avi – ALL – Aviation for All on the topic of D&I. As an industry that has around 20% of women there is still a way to go on balance and diversity.

It was an interesting event which discussed culture, mentoring, biases, language used, education of younger people, #girlsinSTEM and inclusion not just diversity.

The speakers were asked how to ensure it really does become part of the culture and some answers were:

• Role models

• Ensure women are on the board

• Senior management buy-in

• Ensuring mentors gain training

• Ensure psychological safety

• Have gender balanced panels like this one

• Ruth Lopian from the European Commission shared with the group an ‘Educational toolkit to help fight gender stereotypes in secondary school‘

• CEOs and board members gaining training to ensure they are not defaulting to biases in language, behaviours and decision making

We believe that it’s also about developing confidence in those that are in the minority whether they are women, neurodiverse, LGBTI+ or those from ethnic backgrounds or countries that are less represented. To truly ensure this, providing free access to professional coaching would be a helpful approach to building self confidence, resilience in the workplace and to improve communication skills, including role play or third-person perspective scenerios. Equity is also important as it’s about being listened to and feeling that you can contribute as an individual. We wrote about our thoughts on equity last year and believe integrating more of this into HR policies would help integrate DEI fully.

A conversation also started about getting young people involved in STEM. We were part of Boeing’s event over summer with ThinkYoung at Summer of Coding discussing tech and sustainability. As we believe it is encouraging and building confidence in kids at a young age that can help change mindsets. Just as girls now play football from a young age they are also starting to code, get involved with tech and skateboard and more with the help of campaigns and initiatives.

We definitely ensure it’s part of our remit as we have a #femaleCEO and set up FGA to bring more diversity to the sector. We have seen changes already and are happy to be part of this work. #DEI #FGA