Who are Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc?
We are a FTSE100 multi-national engineering group with headquarters in Cheltenham, UK, and a direct sales presence in 67 countries. Through our world-leading Businesses and their specialist steam, heat and pump technologies, our purpose is to create sustainable value for all our stakeholders as we engineer a more efficient, safer and sustainable world. One where people and planet can thrive.
Our Group is made up of three engineering Businesses: Steam Specialties (Spirax Sarco and Gestra), Electric Thermal Solutions Business (Chromalox, Vulcanic, Thermocoax and Durex Industries) and Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions. Together, our teams serve over 100,000 customers in 151 countries.
We provide the thermal energy and pumping solutions that our customers need to manufacture many of the goods that you use every day; anything from food and beverages to medicines, paper, textiles, or car tyres.
Our Steam Specialties Business provides products and services for the control and management of industrial and commercial steam systems; our Electric Thermal Solutions Business electrical process heating and temperature management solutions; while Watson-Marlow has been providing pumps and associated fluid path technologies to customers for over 60 years.
Sustainability plays a big role here, both in terms of our own operations and the benefits that our products bring to customers. It’s a major focus for us globally through our ‘One Planet: Engineering with Purpose Sustainability Strategy.
Across our Group, we’re also passionate about creating a truly inclusive and equitable working culture,where everyone who is part of our Group can be themselves and achieve their full potential. For us, that means supportive teams and strong relationships where everyone’s contribution is valued and where we all look out for and support each other. It also means supporting the communities we are part of – through initiatives like our Group Education Fund for inclusive and equitable access to education and the three paid volunteering days that all our colleagues can use every year.
We think that all of this is essential if we are to succeed in creating the more efficient, safer and sustainable world that we all aspire to have and which everyone benefits from.
What projects / schemes / initiatives to support women’s recruitment, retention and progression in STEM are Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc involved in?
Gender equity is a key focus for us, within our Business and working more widely across our sector and beyond.
As part of this, our Chief Financial Officer, Nimesh Patel, was appointed Co-Chair of the FTSE Women Leaders Review in 2022. The Review seeks to increase the representation of women in senior leadership roles in the FTSE350. Our Group Chief Executive, Nicholas Anderson, is also an Ambassador for the 25×25 campaign which is focused on achieving 25 female CEOs in the FTSE100 by 2025, and then 25% in the FTSE350. Across our Group, our thriving Women’s Network has more than 500 members. It connects and supports colleagues on gender equity, career and personal development and women’s wellbeing. Our Women’s Executive Mentoring scheme is also helping support career development across our Group.
To help progress our journey and continue to build on our progress, we’ve also set a number of gender and ethnicity diversity goals. You can find out more about these on our website. (http://www.spiraxsarcoengineering.com/everyoneisincluded)
Our commitment to inclusion at Spirax-Sarco Engineering and why we joined WISE.
We joined WISE in 2022 to help us continue to progress our inclusion journey, to learn from others and to play our part in making a positive difference to the world around us. Collaboration with like-minded organisations, such as WISE, means we can make a bigger difference, and it opens our minds to things we might not have considered before.
In 2022, we also launched our Group-wide Inclusion Plan, ‘Everyone is Included’. Our plan includes ten Group Inclusion Commitments. They’re our way to make a positive difference to the lives of all our colleagues around the world, and our Commitments include:
- Gender-neutral parental leave: Ensuring the best start for new families by giving every colleague who becomes a parent a minimum of 16 weeks paid parental leave – wherever they are, whoever they are and however they become a parent.
- Caregiver support: Helping every colleague who is a caregiver to support their loved ones or take time for self-care with a minimum of 15 days of paid ‘caregivers leave’ every year.
- Pregnancy loss support: Supporting every colleague who experiences pregnancy loss of any kind with a minimum of 10 days of paid additional leave and paid time off for related appointments – whoever they are and however that loss is experienced.
- Introducing ‘safe leave’: Standing up for colleagues who experience domestic violence or abuse with a minimum of 10 days of paid ‘safe leave’ to get the support they need at the time they need it – and a zero-tolerance approach for abusers that also seeks to identify support to help them change their behaviour.
In addition, we worked with our Women’s Network and an external expert to create a set of menopause-friendly workplace principles and guidance on positive menstrual health at work. We support the Women’s Empowerment Principles, UN LGBTI Standards of Conduct for Business and are members of the Business Disability Forum, Stonewall and the Women’s Engineering Society too.
You can find out more at www.SpiraxSarcoEngineering.com/EveryoneIsIncluded or drop us an email at together@uk.spiraxsarcoengineering.com. We’d love to hear from you and hope you’ll want to be part of our journey too.
“Inclusion is a team effort. By living our Values and being our authentic selves, we can all make our difference for each other – together and every day. This is a journey that will develop and grow in the years ahead. We’ll add to it over time. We’ll celebrate our successes and we’ll learn from things that don’t quite go to plan. We’ll share our experience and make progress along the way. We’ll become even more inclusive together.”
Nick Anderson, Group Chief Executive, Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc
