Watch: The women of Stone Brewing envision a workplace where…

International Women’s Day was last Monday and all of March is Women’s History Month. These are great reminders that we should be celebrating women every day, no matter the season. Craft brewing has a powerful and important female workforce, which we hope will continue to grow. Escondido, Calif.-based Stone Brewing Co. is encouraging that trend. Look no further than Stone’s new CEO, Maria Stipp, hired last September. Ok, maybe let’s look a little further to the The Women of Stone.

Kicked off last year, The Women of Stone is a company organization led by women (men are not excluded) with the goal to develop resources and opportunities that benefit everyone at Stone, with a particular focus towards the unique challenges faced by women in the workplace. The group is led by women, guided by Stone’s core values and sponsored by Stone’s executive leadership.

“We’ve developed programming to inspire, inform and educate our team,” said Lizzie Younkin, director of public relations and communications at Stone Brewing. “That includes some simple cultural efforts like bringing the team together virtually to network and learn about different departments over lunch or happy hour. We’re running quarterly meetings at which we ask select women in the company to share their story so that we get to know each other, our backgrounds and our skills and passions. We’re also bringing in guest speakers, new resources to the team and even a couple scholarship opportunities for women in Stone to advance their careers. The group is still in its early stages, but we’re thrilled by the level of support we’re seeing from all genders across the company. We think this can have a really significant impact on the culture here at Stone.”

Watch the video above, and learn what the Women of Stone Brewing envision in a workplace. These are all great takes, but Brewer Hollis Smith caught my attention: “I envision a workplace where the primary concern with women’s bodies is whether or not the equipment we use was made to accommodate them.” That’s great. Watch the whole thing above.