Women Can Fill Manufacturing’s Skills Gap – Lafarge CCEO

• Women Can Fill Manufacturing’s Skills Gap

The Country Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Africa, Mr. Michel Puchercos, says women currently represent the largest number of untapped talent in the manufacturing sector.

Puchercos, who spoke in commemoration of this year’s International Women’s Day, said there was a need to promote women in the sector.

He said, “We believe that women represent manufacturing’s largest pool of untapped talent and the dearth of women in manufacturing has been made more prominent recently, due to the potential skills shortage facing the industry.

“Women have become leading industry players in different sectors, which were for long the preserve of men, including manufacturing. The industry needs to send out the right message that women can, and do succeed in manufacturing careers.”

He said celebrating women was in line with LafargeHolcim’s global objective of advancing and encouraging diversity.

He explained, “In LafargeHolcim, the diversity target in terms of gender is 30 per cent by 2030 at management level. Lafarge Africa at the leadership team level is currently at 36 per cent. At Lafarge Africa, we are committed to gender parity. A key component of our diversity programme is the talent pipeline.

“We groom our people through the system. This way, they turn out to be well-rounded employees with full understanding of the values and culture of the organisation as they move into the management cadre. We have mentoring programmes where we support the women as well. Even in the plants, we have women holding key positions despite the challenges posed by the locations. Realising the peculiarity of our industry, we are doing a lot to encourage women in manufacturing.”