Frances Treeby shares her reflections on International Women’s Day

What is your professional background, and how has your expertise supported your role within OC&P?

Prior to joining Deloitte, I worked as a Chartered Structural Engineer in both technical design and project management roles, on building and infrastructure projects. In O&CP, I leverage this technical knowledge, and apply my stakeholder management, data analytics and problem-solving skills, to provide insights and guidance to clients to help solve their building and infrastructure challenges.

For example, I’m currently writing business cases for a clients’ capital works pipeline. This involves running engagement sessions to gain project inputs, managing stakeholders, and undertaking qualitative and quantitative analysis, all of which are skills I developed as an engineer. In addition, my knowledge of capital project risks, delivery management, and procurement, have all been valuable to the project.

Deloitte’s theme for this year IWD is to #EmbraceEquity in our communities and workplace, how does this theme resonate with you?

This year’s IWD theme is a fantastic one as it highlights that to achieve equality, we need embrace equity. Firstly, by acknowledging the inequalities that people face and that equal opportunities can be exclusionary, and then actively working to address the imbalance. By providing the right support, opportunities and resources, we can reach an equal outcome.

As a working mother, I'm conscious of being a good role model for my children and breaking the gender stereotypes enforced by society. I believe that everyone has a role to play, both in the workplace and community in challenging stereotypes, calling out discrimination, and drawing attention to bias.

What makes OC&P an inclusive working environment for you?

Since joining Deloitte, I’ve felt that inclusion and diversity are important which is reflected by their inclusion in our firm’s core values. Progress towards equality, is taken seriously and D&I data is used, where volunteered, to understand engagement responses, with feedback taken on board, openly discussed, and addressed.

Personally, I’ve received support with the transition to becoming a working parent via a dedicated programme, I’ve participated in coaching and training programmes for women, and have felt able to have open and honest conversations around mental health with colleagues.

We also implement the Ways of Working Framework on our projects. I use these sessions to communicate my working patterns, preferences, and commitments outside of work at the start of a new engagement, in order to have open and transparent conversations on how I will be managing my client commitments.

What advice would you give to people interested in pursuing a career within Occupiers & Capital Projects?

The Occupiers and Capital projects team works with some of the largest and most influential organizations in the UK, across a broad spectrum of service propositions, and utilizing a wide range of skill sets. Therefore, it’s important to research what part of the team you would like to join and where you might add the most value.

Identify what else you want to know about the work we do, the team, and the workplace culture and reach out to someone in our team, at the grade you are applying for, to have an informal conversation before you start the application process. You’ll be able to find out more on what the day-to-day involves for the role, and get answers to any questions you have, to make sure it will be a good fit for you.