Now in its eighth year, International Women in Engineering Day, on 23 June, is the only day in the calendar that celebrates women in engineering and allied professions.

Elizabeth Donnelly, Chief Executive Officer, Women’s Engineering Society, said: “In one of the most challenging years that any of us has experienced, INWED will be a positive worldwide celebration of the incredible work done by female engineers in keeping us safe and secure – not just in response to the pandemic itself but also behind the scenes every day of our lives. Our theme #Engineering Heroes will give these amazing women their much-deserved turn in the spotlight.”

As a multi-national contractor, the strength of our teams is not just in its breadth but also its diversity. We believe in equal opportunities for all employees and we are higher than the industry average in relation to gender diversity and female employee participation. Every year we celebrate the fantastic female engineers working in Jones Engineering and this year is no different. However, we feel it’s important considering the INWED Theme and the unprecedented challenges faced over the last year, that we devote some time to the often-unsung Engineering Heroes working “behind the scenes”.

When the lockdown began in 2020 our IT team, sprang into action working tirelessly to ensure that our teams could work remotely from home. IT Team Leader Tanja Ferris, working under IT Manager Paul Norton has been responsible for global IT support for the last 7 years. She and her team had some tough work ahead of them but they put in the long hours because they knew their efforts were critical to ensure minimal disruption to operations. This enabled many of our Engineers to continue preconstruction works on projects and to continue coordinating services remotely on current projects.

At the same time the Marketing Department, under the leadership of Marketing Co-Ordinator Julieanne O’Neill and EHS Manager Declan Grady, established a dedicated company COVID-19 website to provide information and guidance to employees as the company adapted to new working conditions.  This included a compulsory training module to be completed by all employees returning to work following the first lockdown.

COVID-19 impacted open sites in a number of ways including increased PPE distribution, the introduction of COVID-19 Compliance Officers and a move to shift work on larger plants. Some of our sites also adopted mandatory testing. Michelle Mostyn, EHS Officer has been part of our team for the last 12 years working on many projects including St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin Airport and Point Village. She, along with the rest of the EHS Team, were outstanding in rising to the challenge of creating and implementing new safety procedures across our sites and offices globally.

While all of this was taking place our dedicated HR Team under HR Manager Sandra Guilfoyle ensured that our inhouse and external training continued remotely via MS Teams and Zoom. Working quickly to adapt to the new conditions they made sure our Engineers continued to receive coaching in their applications for chartered status. As the first contractor in Ireland to have its graduate training programmes recognised by Engineers Ireland as a route to Chartered status this was a priority for us throughout the uncertainty of the pandemic. Under Sandra’s leadership our core values of recruiting, nurturing and developing the best people have been and will remain a cornerstone of our Group’s development.

Our #EngineeringHeroes work in every department. They are the accountants ensuring payment is made and received promptly, they are the BIM team pioneering innovation and coordinating programming and costings. They are there every day working hard to support our projects, you will find them in the geo-surveying teams, the admin teams and the safety teams, from marketing to quantity surveying. Today we celebrate you. Thank you for the incredible work you do every day. You are our #EngineeringHeroes

If you would like to find out more about International Women in Engineering Day and the Women’s Engineering Society follow the link here: https://www.inwed.org.uk/about/

#INWED21