The Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter (WIAAC) has launched a Resource Hub on its website to help organisations achieve a greater gender balance across the industry.

According to the charter, the resource hub currently contains more than 100 articles, tools and other resources, which have been organised into 11 categories:

1. Inspiring the Next Generation
2. Preparing for Take-Off
3. Creating Opportunities
4. Fair Recruitment
5. Fairly Rewarded
6. Creating a Great Place to Work
7. Developing Talent
8. Career Planning for Success
9. Promotion
10. Flying High as Part of the Leadership Team
11. The Whole Journey

The contents of the Resource Hub have been provided by a “wide variety” of people and organisations throughout the aviation and aerospace industries, including the Royal Aeronautical Society, Abstract, ACAS East Midlands and Women on Boards UK, the last of whom has recently become a supporting organisation of the Charter.

Co-chairs of the charter, Sumati Sharma and Jacqueline Sutton, said: “This Resource Hub is a natural next step for the Charter. Since 2018, we have built a strong network of more than 220 signatories that share our commitment to change.

“By creating the Resource Hub, we can now offer current and future signatories a wealth of accessible content to refer to when developing an effective and long-lasting diversity and inclusion strategy. As the aviation and aerospace industry continues to persevere through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we hope that the Resource Hub inspires more companies and organisations to commit to rebuilding a fairer and more balanced industry for the future.”

The Resource Hub follows the  launch of the Korn Ferry Propelling a Gender Balanced Industry Report in November 2020, which analysed the lack of gender balance in the aviation and aerospace sector.

Additional research conducted by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Women in STEM, and the International Society of Women Airline Pilots (ISA) states that only 3 per cent of airline CEOs in the world’s top 100 airline groups are women, only 5 per cent of the world’s pilots are women, and only 10 per cent of engineering professionals are female.

This research reinforces findings from the Korn Ferry report, such as the importance of ‘Investment not Tokenism’ and the need for sustainable and coordinated investment towards reshaping attraction, recruitment and progression within the aviation and aerospace sectors.