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Prosegur strengthens its commitment to the feminisation and empowerment of its workforce

On 8 March International Women's Day is celebrated. The date, which Prosegur will mark with a talk on female leadership and self-motivation, is a perfect opportunity to assess the incorporation of a growing number of women.

On 30 January, both Prosegur and Prosegur Cash announced their commitment to the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEP), one of the main global pacts for the active promotion of the role of women in business environments. These are nine principles promoted and sponsored by the UN Global Compact and UN Women first established at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in September 1995.

At that time the United Nations already considered it a key priority to foster the "increased participation of women in decision-making processes and their access to positions of effective power in the sphere of private activity." On that occasion, the practical criteria into which this commitment was to be translated required further development, but today they are fully established and consolidated.

United Nations already considered it a key priority to foster the "increased participation of women in decision-making processes and their access to positions of effective power in the sphere of private activity."

These principles have to do with the equitable treatment of men and women in the workplace; the presence of women in the governing bodies of large companies; the protection of health, safety and well-being and the promotion of female education; the active promotion of equality; the measurement of and reporting on progress to achieve gender equality, and the extension of these attitudes and behaviour guidelines to all levels of economic activity, including marketing, corporate strategies and supply chains.

A total of 7,330 companies from around the world have already signed up to the initiative, including more than 200 Spanish firms. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Austrian lawyer and activist Volker Türk, it is "a systematic effort to feminise economic activity at all levels, starting with leadership, which has traditionally been a stronghold of patriarchal inertia and male power".

A manual of good practices

For Prosegur, joining this global pact means having a new gender equality behavioural guide. A guide that is also aligned with the 2030 Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, also adopted by Prosegur within the framework of its good practices and social responsibility policy. As Juan Luis Martín, Prosegur's Global Human Resources Director, explains, adopting the Empowerment Principles means taking another step forward in the task of "transforming our company into an agent of change and helping to make our sector more attractive for the professional development of women".

According to figures from the Spanish sector association Aproser (the Professional Association of Private Security Companies), the percentage of women working in sector companies has increased markedly in recent years, but still stands at around 17%. Thanks to the effectiveness of its corporate strategy of gradual feminisation of its workforce, women now account for 21% of Prosegur's headcount. Although this remains some way short of full parity, it is nonetheless considerably higher than the sector average.

How to nurture female talent

In recent years, the company has equipped itself with internal tools such as the Empowered Women programme, which was introduced in 2021. This is essentially a scheme that seeks to identify, foster, nurture and retain female talent, offering women the opportunity to developing a professional career within the company that reflects their abilities. Over the last year, the programme has been extended to a total of 16 countries in Europe and Latin America. It also includes a series of spaces for the exchange of ideas and experiences that allow the women who work for the company to highlight their achievements, explore their possibilities for internal promotion and benefit from the advice, supervision and active support of female managers who have already achieved positions of responsibility in the Group.

The programme is supplemented by a range of scholarships, launched in tandem with the Prosegur Foundation, aimed at ensuring that this blossoming talent does not lack opportunities for education.

The programme is supplemented by a range of scholarships, launched in tandem with the Prosegur Foundation, aimed at ensuring that this blossoming talent does not lack opportunities for education and continuous training to fully realise its talent. In addition to this ambitious plan, Prosegur is also involved in other initiatives to foster gender equality. These include the global training competition Technovation Girls, which aims to promote scientific careers among girls and young women from 18 to 28 years old.

In 2022, ten teams made up of 34 daughters of company employees took part in this fun competition with an educational purpose. One of the teams reached the world semi-final with an innovative proposal to protect indigenous habitats from the possible presence of invasive species. In addition, several Prosegur professionals have dedicated some of their free time to training and inspiring these teams and, in general, demonstrating by example that there is no reason why girls should not opt for disciplines related to science, engineering, technology and mathematics.

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