More than 300 Women Join Networking Sessions

[Commitments and Society] Published 20-06-2023

Feedback from the sessions included remarks such as “inspirational” and “I feel privileged to be part of this”

Gunnebo launches second year of Women in Leadership initiative

“It’s great to hear about other women’s experiences.”

“I didn’t know there are so many women at Gunnebo.”

“Networking in this way will make the voice of women stronger in Gunnebo, and in society.”

These were some of the reactions from the first networking sessions for Gunnebo’s Women in Leadership initiative. As many as 330 women employees from across the globe have online joined networking sessions in June.

The sessions mark the start of the second Women in Leadership programme, which invites all women at Gunnebo to take part.

Women in Leadership is part of Gunnebo’s broader sustainability agenda, which includes an increased focus on inclusion and diversity, and a target to achieve 30% of the under-represented gender – that’s overwhelmingly women – at management level.

The sessions were led by Emilie Sandqvist, a professional coach and senior HR specialist, with 20 years’ experience at Volvo.

“This is an important initiative and a very special thing for Gunnebo to do,” Emilie says. “The main aim is to start getting women to network with each other, and to develop them professionally. There is a sense of enthusiasm and curiosity, and a desire to get the network working.”

The theme of the first workshops was “psychological safety”, which was recently identified as an essential aspect of successful teamwork in research at Google. The concept of psychological safety emerged from research into medical errors in the 1990s, and has since been widely applied in business. The workshop sessions discussed an example where psychological safety in the team saved 155 lives: the safe landing of an airliner on the Hudson river, New York City, in 2009, after it hit a flock of birds.

Each participant left the sessions with an agreed action to carry out, and a “buddy” to support them in doing so. A second set of workshop sessions, on the theme of powerful feedback, begins in July.

Feedback from the sessions included remarks such as “inspirational”, “I feel privileged to be part of this”, “important”, “great to hear about other women’s experiences”.

Read more about Gunnebo careers and Gunnebo’s Sustainability Approach