International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality.

IWD has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911 supported by over a million people. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere, including in the workplace. At Camden we endeavour to emulate IWD’s beliefs, supporting and encouraging the woman in our company.

IWD’s theme this year is #BreakTheBias. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can break the bias in our communities and in our workplaces. Together, we can all break the bias - on International Women's Day and beyond.

Camden breaks biases every day.  In a male dominated commerce, the amount of females Camden hire is over the industry average. Contrary to the norm, this is not something that we have set out to achieve or targets we have sought to meet. This has happened naturally and organically. We pride ourselves in hiring the best person for the job based on skill, dedication and work ethic and we have never seen gender as any sort of deciding factor in this.

Women are found in most Camden departments and even dominate a few of them, such as Customer Services, Accounts and Decorative Glass. One of the highest positions in Camden, Head of Production, is managed by Irene Wilson. Irene has the very important task of overseeing all production within Camden, she is responsible for all the factory managers and effectively mentors them.

Sheree Gribbon, Head of Customer Support, has been an invaluable employee for nearly 8 years. Starting as a customer service advisor, Sheree showed her strength as a team player with great organisation and communication skills and hence was promoted to manage the team.

“My time at Camden has been, and continues to be, a positive experience. My gender has never been an issue and I don’t feel any inequalities. I am very proud to head up a team of 6 strong women, who are able to show empathy and provide amazing service to our customers.” Sheree Gribbon, Customer Service

Numerous Camden women have been with us for many years. Ones of our longest standing employees is Cathy McKinstry who manages our very busy accounts team.

“I started at Camden 24 years ago in the accounts department. I was the only member of staff in accounts for a few years.  Now I manage the Accounts team, which includes 3 other women.

Throughout my time here, I have been involved with Credit Control, HR and Internal Sales, but predominately I have been in accounts.

When I started there was one factory (which is now the Glass Factory), since then there has been massive growth with 4 factories at our Steeple site in Antrim.

During my time, there have been many females in Managerial Jobs. Women are treated no differently to men at Camden, as long as you can do the job, it doesn’t matter who you are!” Cathy McKinstry, Accounts

At Camden, we are very appreciative to have so many talented women involved within the business. We are proud to celebrate women’s equality on International Women’s Day and every day! There is still so much to be done to break the bias and encourage women to get involved with industries such as manufacturing. We have planned this year to partner with the local Grammar school and create a scheme or award which will encourage girls to get more involved with STEM subjects. Watch this space!

Click here to find out more about International Women’s Day, their missions and how you can get involved.