In June, we were delighted to mark our ongoing commitment to UK military personnel by once again celebrating Reserves Day and Armed Forces Day, when we showed our support by raising the Armed Forces Day Flag and organising a socially distanced ‘Salute Our Forces’ across our UK sites.
This year in particular, Leonardo was proud to show its support and long-standing association with the UK’s armed forces as all our employees, but especially our key workers, made sure that they were “Always on-hand” to ensure UK aircraft and other key military capability identified by the UK Government as essential to the security of the nation, remained operationally ready. The UK Ministry of Defence wrote to Leonardo to stress how our work is of national importance and how key programmes should continue in order to maintain the readiness of our Armed Forces and those of our allies.
The month was also a major milestone for the ‘majesty of the skies’, as we celebrated 50 years of the Westland Sea King helicopter. The aircraft has supported military personnel for five decades, and stood the test of time by bridging the gap to the latest-generation AW101 helicopter.
Our campaign for inclusivity continued in June with three Network Group-led events in the shape of Virtual Pride, Carers Week, and International Women in Engineering Day (INWED), led by our Pride, Carers and Equalise groups respectively. Despite being distanced physically, we managed to host a day of activities on Instagram for INWED, including a question and answer session with our engineers talking about what it means to be a woman in engineering in 2020. Later in the month, one of our outstanding placement students, Katie Walker, was recognised by the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) as they awarded her the Innovation Prize at their Year in Industry Contribution to the Business Awards.
Our first ever Virtual Pride event saw colleagues from across the business come together to celebrate with quizzes and guest speakers, including our UK Director of Government Affairs, Clive Higgins, and friends from the Royal Aeronautical Society and Martin Baker. This year, we marked Carers Week with a moving article from our Senior HR Adviser, and co-chair of Leonardo’s Carers Network, Anne McCluskey, as she reflected on a personal period of difficulty, which struck a chord during a pandemic when many were having to learn how to be a carer in a crisis.