Matthew Ayres, 4th generation Group Managing Director at Bennie, will be a guest speaker at the CBI Diversity & Inclusion conference on 30th November to 1st December.
Matthew Ayres, 4th generation Group Managing Director at Bennie, will be a guest speaker at the CBI Diversity & Inclusion conference on 30th November to 1st December.
Speaking for over 190,000 businesses, CBI (Confederation of British Industry) was founded over 50 years ago to ensure that the voice of businesses across all UK regions, nations and around the world is heard. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, CBI have orchestrated a series of digital conferences aimed at tackling the challenges and opportunities that businesses face, resulting from a global health crisis, global economic downturn and the possibilities of social awakening.
Both Bennie and the CBI understand that people are at the heart of building the economy back better, and a recovery agenda requires an open discussion on how to turn the crisis into an opportunity, especially on building back a more equal and fair society, with diverse workforces and inclusive workplaces becoming the norm.
Diversity and curating inclusive working environments is incredibly important to Bennie, and forms an integral part of our core business values. When presented with the opportunity to be involved with this conference, Matthew was keen to showcase how real change starts across business of all sizes, transcends generations and needs to be integrated within our daily work lives from the top down.
Matthew comments “This is an incredibly important topic to me, and vitally important to address within the industries that Bennie’s diverse companies operate within. The construction industry in particular is only recently starting to see positive change across the board with inclusive workplaces and employee diversity. There is clearly still huge work to be done as attitudes struggle to change amongst operators at all levels.
For Pride month 2020, we unveiled our wrapped CAT D6 PRIDE Dozer. Weighing in at circa 20 tonnes, this machine is one of the biggest pieces of construction equipment to support Pride! The machine was a statement to bulldozing old attitudes to build diversity in all work places. We wanted to start a conversation in our business and across our industry at all levels to show that everyone has the right to come to work and be celebrated for who they are. Not just at Bennie, but across construction and all places of work.
All companies have a responsibility to their staff and I believe having a conversation and educating us all on this is important. We were not taught this stuff at school and as a family business we take our relationships with our staff, customers and suppliers very seriously. At the end of the day we are people, coming together to deliver value to our customers. By respecting our differences and learning from each other, we not only evolve as a business, we also develop and grow as people.
I instil this philosophy at Bennie and I hope to encourage as many business leaders to do the same, we have a duty to lead by example and ensure UK businesses are both diverse and inclusive for a stronger future.”
To find out more information on the conference series, or to obtain tickets to attend digitally, please click here: https://www.cbi.org.uk/events/conference-series-diversity-inclusion-2020/
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