The adventure travel company Wilderness Scotland has been recognised as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women in the 2018 Great Place to Work awards scheme. The Aviemore-based tour operator came sixth in the Small Business category, and was the only travel company to be recognised in the awards, regardless of business size. The result is endorsement of the changes Wilderness Scotland has made over the last two years, right up to moving into their new custom-built offices on the edge of the Highland town.
Two key changes are making the shift from a leadership that was 100% male to be much more balanced and inclusive, and introducing women-only adventures to support the wider movement of women wanting to travel in an encouraging and inclusive way. With these things in mind there is now a better integration throughout the company than ever before.
Commenting Rachael Gavan, Wilderness Scotland’s Program Manager, said, “Women have always been active in the outdoors but in the past it’s been hard to be heard in a culture that can appear quite macho. Recognising this and realising that the only way to make a difference is to start from within; we’ve actively taken steps to address this, including:
- Reforming the business’ leadership so that 45% of the management positions are now held by women,
- Supporting specific management and leadership development programmes for female members of the management team,
- Committing to recruiting more female guides to lead trips across all activities,
- From 2019, running a dedicated range of women only adventures,
- Supporting women that want to be active in the outdoors through specific online content and,
- Making positive changes to the work place including free access to feminine hygiene products.