Yesterday was the 2nd Women Installers Together conference (#WITConf2018) which this year was held at The Building Centre in London. The event saw a fantastic increase in numbers with a mixture of Installers, Merchants, Manufacturers and Press all coming together to discuss women in the plumbing and heating industry.
The day started with Polypipe’s Learning and Development Business Partner, Jazz Jones, leading a session on Emotional Intelligence for Advanced Relationship Management. The session helped the delegates to determine what areas of Emotional Intelligence they may need to work on to successfully run a business and get best outcomes from interactions with customers and colleagues. It was a very well received session and we had some great feedback about Jazz and how useful Installers had found it.
Next, was Anna Hemmings MBE, who is a 2 x Olympian and 6 x World Champion Kayaker. Through her own experiences with her sport, Anna spoke to the room about how focusing on your end goal is the key to keep on going through adversity, to surround yourself with a supportive team and that no matter how many people say you can’t do something, with enough will and determination, you can prove them wrong.
After lunch, Stopcocks founder and organiser of the event, Hattie Hasan, spoke to the room. Hattie told us her story; from how her traditional Cypriot family had pre-destined her to be a wife and a mother, to how she changed her own narrative to become first a teacher and then finally a plumber. After working alone for some time she went on to establish the Stopcocks franchise and the WIT Conference to help other women into plumbing. It was an inspirational day with plenty of stories about overcoming adversity.
One key thing to take from the event is the lack of numbers surrounding Women Installers in the industry. A representative from Gas Safe at the event said they estimated that out of 100,000 people on the Gas Safe register, only 500 are thought to be women. It was great to see so many of these women in the room and to hear the ideas for what the WIT Conference can achieve moving forward.
Polypipe are proud to be event partners of the WIT Conference; long may it continue.