International Women’s Day is a moment to celebrate women’s achievements, recognise the barriers that still remain, and renew our commitment to creating more equal and inclusive workplaces.
To us at NJC, it is also a moment to recognise the role women play across our business and our industry. From frontline delivery to operations, leadership, consultancy and client-side roles, women continue to shape the future of cleaning and facilities management in ways that are practical, strategic and deeply people-focused.
As a female-founded business, International Women’s Day has particular meaning for us. It is part of our story, but also part of our responsibility. We want to help create an industry where women are a visible, valued and ordinary part of leadership, decision-making and operational excellence.
This year, we marked International Women’s Day with a special episode of the Not Just Cleaning Podcast. Hosted by our People & Culture Director, Kieran Soar, the conversation brought together Laura Brookes, Head of Operations for the Midlands and North at NJC, Zoe Bond, Associate Director at DJ Foley Property Consultants, and Sharmin Akter, FM Consultant.
Together, they explored representation, allyship, flexibility, psychological safety and the action still needed across the FM sector.
International Women’s Day is about asking questions around women’s experiences at work and what employers, leaders and industries need to do next.
For NJC, those questions matter because cleaning and facilities management still contain areas of strong male dominance, particularly in senior operational and technical roles. Progress has been made, but progress is not the same as completion.
There is greater visibility than there once was. There are more women in leadership, more women entering the industry, and more open conversations about equality. But gaps still remain around representation, opportunity, flexibility and how safe and supported people feel in the environments they work in.
Meaning International Women’s Day should be a prompt for reflection, accountability and action.
NJC was founded by Connie Heppelthwaite in 1984. Being female-founded shapes how we think about leadership, opportunity and the kind of culture we want to build. It reminds us that women have always had an important place in this industry, even when that has not always been reflected in visibility, recognition or senior representation.
That does not mean women should be handed opportunities because they are women. It means they should have fair access to the same opportunities, support and visibility as everyone else, and the confidence to step into them.
One of the strongest themes touched upon in our podcast was that women do not want tokenism. They want to be in the room, to be heard on merit, and to have an equal chance to grow, contribute and lead. Equality is not about optics. It is about ensuring talent is recognised, developed and trusted.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day was Give to Gain. The message is simple: when time, support, trust and opportunity are invested in women and girls, the benefits go far beyond the individual.
That idea ran throughout the podcast discussion and came through in the stories of people being backed early in their careers. It came through in the value of mentoring, advocacy and allyship. It came through in the reminder that giving time, whether through formal mentoring or simply making space for an honest conversation, can have a lasting impact.
For NJC, this reflects something wider about workplace culture. Strong organisations are not built by policy alone, and are, however, built through everyday choices: who gets encouraged, who gets listened to, who is spoken up for when they are not in the room, and who feels safe enough to contribute fully.
When people are supported properly, everyone gains. Teams become stronger, confidence grows, leadership becomes more representative, and service improves.
Facilities management is a broad, varied industry with huge opportunities, but many parts of the sector still feel male-dominated, especially in technical and senior operational roles.
That shapes how women see the industry, what roles they imagine are open to them, and whether they feel they belong at the table.
One of the most powerful ideas in the podcast was that representation changes what people believe is possible. Seeing women in senior roles, especially in spaces where they have historically been underrepresented, can widen ambition for the next generation and change expectations about what leadership in Facilities Management looks like.
At NJC, we want to be part of that shift. We want women entering the industry, or progressing within it, to see that leadership is not confined to one style, one background or one route in. We also want to challenge the idea that women only belong in certain areas of soft services, while other functions feel less accessible.
A stronger, more representative industry benefits everyone in it.
A key theme for International Women’s Day is allyship, through belief, advocacy and trust. A manager putting someone forward for a role. A leader opening a door. A colleague speaking positively about your work when you are not there to do it for yourself.
At NJC, we know that career development is shaped not only by formal structures, but also by confidence, visibility and whether people feel someone is willing to back them. Allyship is part of that.
The podcast also made an important point: allyship is not only the responsibility of one group. Progress depends on women and men both playing a part. Women in leadership have an important role in lifting others up, but so do male colleagues, peers and decision-makers across the industry.
Equality at work cannot be looked at in isolation from life outside work. Caring responsibilities, parenting, school runs, appointments and family logistics all shape people’s working lives. While these pressures can affect anyone, women still often carry a disproportionate share of them.
In cleaning and facilities management, where many roles are site-based or time-sensitive, flexibility can be more complex than in office-based environments. But complexity is not the same as impossibility.
Flexibility can take many forms: trust, term-time contracts, annualised hours, thoughtful rota planning, or simply treating requests seriously and asking how something could work rather than defaulting to no. For NJC, that is an important principle. Supporting people properly is not about applying one identical model to every role. It is about looking honestly and creatively at what is possible, while balancing operational realities with human ones.
That matters not only for fairness, but for retention, engagement and the quality of service clients receive.
Inclusion is not only about policies or statements, it also encompasses how a workplace feels. Can someone walk into a room and feel able to contribute? Can they challenge something without fear? Can they raise a concern and trust they will be listened to?
For women in male-dominated spaces, those questions can be especially significant.
The podcast explored the importance of creating environments where women do not have to second-guess whether they will be respected, whether they will be taken seriously, or whether speaking up will be dismissed as oversensitivity or emotion. That should not be the exception. It should be the norm.
At NJC, this matters to the culture we want to build. A safe workplace is not only one where people are physically protected, but one where they are listened to, respected and able to speak openly.
For NJC, these conversations are about our people first. But they matter to our customers too.
The quality of a service is shaped by the quality of the culture behind it. Businesses that invest in inclusion, fairness and leadership are better able to build stable, motivated teams. That has a direct impact on consistency, communication, accountability and service delivery on site.
Customers want partners who understand people as well as process. They want teams that feel engaged, supported and able to perform well. They want to know that the people delivering services in their buildings are working in an environment where standards apply not only operationally, but culturally too.
Equality, inclusion and psychological safety shape service quality.
International Women’s Day should not be the only time these issues are discussed, and it should not be where the conversation ends.
The discussion on our podcast pointed to a future where women in leadership are no longer seen as unusual, where actions matter more than performative gestures, and where fairness is embedded in culture rather than revisited once a year.
That is the direction we want to keep moving in.
At NJC, we are proud of our female-founded roots and proud of the women across our business and industry who continue to shape what leadership, resilience and excellence look like. We are also clear that there is more to do, and that meaningful progress depends on action, openness and consistency.
Thank you to Laura Brookes, Zoe Bond and Sharmin Akter for such an honest, thoughtful and inspiring conversation, and to Kieran Soar for hosting this special International Women’s Day episode of the Not Just Cleaning Podcast.
You can watch or listen to the full episode on YouTube.
International Women’s Day may be one date in the calendar, but the responsibility behind it is ongoing. We all have a part to play in creating workplaces and industries where women feel seen, supported, safe and able to thrive.
At NJC, that is something we want to keep working towards every day.