Tales from the trenches and gender equality with Somoud Al Masri

Equality Talks is a podcast sponsored by WORK180. You can find the original version here.

Somoud Al Masri is the Women’s Network Global Co-chair at Jacobs Engineering Company and sits on their Inclusion & Diversity Council. She shared a number of fascinating (and quite frankly, shocking) stories of inequality from earlier in her career, which was the catalyst for the work she does now. She once learned she was earning half her male counterpart at work and was told that was fair as he had a lifestyle to maintain. What??

With amazing insight into improving gender equality, pay equity, the importance of leadership in creating change, and the value of women supporting each other, this conversation is a really fun chat covering many aspects of diversity and inclusion.

In this episode we discuss:

• The global women’s network that Samoud co-chairs.
• The impact of unconscious bias on workplaces and minority groups.
• Jacob’s rule to always have a woman on interview panels.
• The impact of 50% of hires being women across the business (without having targets).
• Samoud’s challenge in improving her English, and her desire to use her voice to make sure others are heard.
• Samoud’s decision to resign when she discovered a male colleague was earning double her salary and they would not rectify it.
• The importance of having a supportive partner when growing a career with a family.
• Men sharing that their wives won’t allow them space to do more caring and parenting duties.
• The Flip the Script approach to relationships at work and allowing others
• The huge shift in gender balance in Jacobs’ leadership team in the last two years.
• The leadership superpower of focus and presence.
• The importance of women supporting and encouraging each other.
• How having power enables you to pull levers and make changes.

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Love this Podcast so much that you can’t wait to listen to another? Check out Episode Ten: Mental health at work with Camille Wilson

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Podcast Transcript Season 2 Episode 9.pdf