Women in North West Engineering Conference (WEWIN) Manchester Museum of Science and Industry Tuesday 5 th Dec 2006

1. Women in North West Engineering Conference (WEWIN) Manchester Museum of Science and Industry Tuesday 5th Dec 2006 Date or reference

2. Project Manager: Dr. Haifa Takruri-Rizk Research Fellow: Dr. Lisa Worrall Research Assistant: Natalie Sappleton Research Assistant: Sunrita Dhar-Bhattacharjee Project Administration Co-ordinator: Rae Bezer Project Funding: ESF 42.54% UoS 57.46% Women in North West Engineering www.cse.salford.ac.uk/wewin

3. Outline • Background • Methodology • Entry • Retention • Progression • Positive Action • Recommendations

4. Background • WEWIN is a follow-up to the ‘Developing Female Engineers’ (DFE) project • Organisational cultures present a real barrier to female participation in the industry • Inflexible work practices, lack of access to informal networks and the long hours culture • causes for women early exit • WEWIN aim and objectives • Examine, analyse and evaluate work-place practices and organisational cultures in engineering industries in the North West • Make recommendations to enhance the participation of women in the industry

5. Background North West Region http://www.picturesofengland.com/mapofengland/north-west-map.html

6. Background North West Region • £98 billion economy • 6.8 million people • 230,000 firms • The region is growing faster than the England average: • 18% GVA (Grosse value added) growth compared to England average of 16% • 5% growth in no.of firms compared to the England average of 3% • 5% growth in no.of employees compared to the England average of 2% • 3% growth in employment rate compared to the England average of 0% • Engineering and other manufacturing industries: • Employ more than half a million people in the region • Contribute over 25% of the region’s GDP (gross domestic product) North West Regional Economic Strategy 2006 Report

7. Background ESF Priorities for the North West Region – Objective 3 • Active labour market policies • Equal opportunities for all and promoting social inclusion • Lifelong learning • Adaptability and entrepreneurship • Improving the participation of women in the labour market ESF NW Regional Development Plan

8. Methodology • Literature Review • Mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection • Online and paper questionnaires • Semi-structured Interviews • Focus groups • Data analysis

9. Methodology Literature Review • Barriers to women’s participation in the engineering industry are categorised into: • Specific discriminatory practices • Discrete cultural barriers = 'gender subtext of organisations’ Acker, 1990; 1992; Tienari et al, 2002)

10. Methodology Gender subtext of organisations Benschop and Doorewaard categorised gender subtexts into: • Structural - composition of work, the allocation of tasks and the division of labour • Cultural - implicit rules and regulations and underlying customs and conventions of the organisation • Interactional - expressed in the sex division of labour in the organisation • Identity - personal gender and professional identities (Benschop and Doorewaard, 1998)

11. Methodology Questionnaires • Employees • Employee details and nature of work • Equal opportunities and diversity perception • Perception of the company and own priorities • Image of engineering and gender segregation issues • Managers/Directors • Equal opportunities, diversity policies and practices • Work practices addressing flexible working, retention and return rates of employees and health and safety issues • Image of engineering and gender segregation

12. Methodology Respondents • Analysis based on the following: • 166 valid Employee questionnaires (78 female, 88 male) • 22 valid Managerial questionnaires (9 female,13 male) • 6 Focus Groups (19 Male & 13 Female) • 13 Employee Interviews (12 Female, 1 male) • 13 Managerial Interviews (8 Female, 5 male)

13. Methodology Questionnaires Respondents – Age Profile • Female • Employees • 40 (51.28%), 31-45 yrs • 20 (25.64%), 26-30 yrs • 13 (16.67%), 18-25 yrs • 5 (6.41%), +45 yrs • Managers • 7 (77.78%), 31-45 yrs • 2 (22.22%), 18-25 yrs • Male • Employees • 50 (56.82%), 31-45 yrs • 22 (25%), +45 yrs • 9 (10.23%), 25-28 yrs • 7 (7.95%), 26-30 yrs • Managers • 6 (46.15%), 31-45 yrs • 6 (46.15%), +45 yrs • 1 (7.70%), 26-30 yrs

14. Entry Who influenced your career choice? NB: Response of Likert category (1= Lowest importance – 5= Highest importance , 6- Other) The graph shows only responses to category 5

15. Entry Family (Positive) / Career Advisor (Negative) “I’ve just always tinkered. I was one of those girls who was always in the garage with my Dad messing rather than in the kitchen with my Mum cooking and I just naturally was better at my Sciences and my Maths than I was at my English. My Dad is an Engineer so I’d got some idea of what it entailed but when I came to actually talk to my Careers Advisor he actually put me off. He actually said, ‘What on earth do you want to go and do Engineering for?’” (Female Focus Group member, 26-30yrs)

16. Entry Career Teacher (Negative) “…I went to see the careers teacher and she said, ‘Don’t you know what you want to do?’ and at the time I was…and she said, ‘Well have you considered being a nursery nurse?’ and I thought ‘Right’…”. (Female, 26-30yrs)

17. Entry Employee Company Category NB: Respondents could choose more than one option to describe their company

18. Entry My company operates transparency in job recruitment processes NB: Response of Likert category (1= Strongly disagree – 5= Strongly agree )

19. Entry Gender Discrimination “They did actually say outright ‘you… sort of… child-bearing age. Are we going to train you up to find out that you’re just going to have a baby on us and not come back?’. I was mortified; I couldn’t believe they would actually ask me… I lied …I just told them what they wanted to hear to get a place, and then thought, ‘I’ll sort out my personal life once I’ve got my career sorted’.” (Female, 31-45 yrs)

20. Entry Key Findings • Many respondents stated ‘no one’ influenced their career choice • Family members raise aspirations • Careers Teachers ignorance of engineering careers • Biased training and entry facilitation for males in the industry • Little evidence of gender discrimination in recruitment at organisational level

21. Entry • More Findings • Lack of ‘real world’ content in engineering studies • Many women entered the industry via a non-traditional route • More women engineers have a masters degree than men • More women than men agreed that engineering is old fashioned

22. Retention Work Arrangements

23. Retention My colleagues and managers value part-time positions as highly as full-time positions NB: Response of Likert category (1=Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly agree, 6-N/A)

24. Retention Flexible Working “I work flexible hours….pretty much you can work the hours you want, so long as they are not ridiculous. Lots of people come in at seven and leave at three or four, things like that”. (Male engineer, 26-30 yrs) “…It depends on who your boss is as to how well you can fit your family life in…” (Female engineer, +45 yrs)

25. Retention Age, Gender and Salary

26. Retention Is there a Gender Pay Gap? – Managers View NB: Respondents could choose more than one answer

27. Retention Gender Pay Gap “You get your pay review every…it’s supposed to be every winter but they’ve already decided how much you’re getting before you have your review so there’s not much point …but I know when I was a contractor before, I got paid about £3 an hour less than the men…doing exactly the same thing…the same agency as everybody else”. (Female engineer 26-30 yrs)

28. Retention My company operates Equal Pay Reviews – Employees (NB: Equal pay for equal value work)

29. Retention Have you heard of or used the following work-life balance policies (respondents with children)?

30. Retention Need for returners scheme “What I would have liked at the time was a bit more support…the ability to have gone back perhaps later on to the same company…if they had offered me the chance to have nine or twelve months off and then go back part-time I might well have done that instead of having a career break of 10 years where I didn’t do any engineering work…” (Female engineer, 31-45 yrs)

31. Retention Awareness of bullying, discrimination and harassment within company- Employees

32. Retention Sexual Harassment? “…a friend of mine brought up a complaint against him because she was bending over and he slapped her on the arse.  So she went and complained to a senior female engineer in the office, who thought it was outrageous, and went to the regional director and they discussed it.  And the regional director wasn’t particularly, she felt concerned in the way that this female engineer was, but in the end… a member of staff in personnel did come down from … and interviews were given.  But the case wasn’t taken any further because it would mean disciplinary action, or an investigation into him.  But he was severely told off.”  (Female engineer, 26-30 yrs)

33. Retention Motivating Factors for Retention - Employees NB: Based on Likert category 5 ‘Very important’

34. Retention Motivating Factors for Retention - Managers NB: There were low numbers of responses from managers/directors of category 5, therefore the top five of category 4 ‘important’ were given

35. Retention • Key Findings • Male and female engineers agreed on better pay as the dominant factor for retention • Managers/directors thought promotion is the dominant factor • Gender pay gap exists • a major contributor to females early exit • Women ‘peak’ in their salary scale opportunities in the range of 31-45yrs

36. Retention • Key Findings • Gender disagreement on the issue of gender pay gap existence • Few women are aware of equal pay reviews compared to men • Part-time work is under-valued • Bullying, discrimination and harassment still occurs • Lack of support of returners’ schemes – link to ` • Flexible working helps to retain female engineers

37. Progression My company operates Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

38. Progression People in relatively senior positions tend to be men NB: Response of Likert category (1= Strongly disagree – 5= Strongly agree, 6-N/A)

39. Progression Gender Discrimination? “What I can say some of my male colleagues…just as experienced as I was were promoted months ahead of the time that I was… I don’t know whether that was down to gender or to departmental budgets…” (Female engineer, 31-45yrs)

40. Progression Female Managers are as effective as male managers NB: Response of Likert category (1= Strongly disagree – 5= Strongly agree ,6-N/A)

41. Progression Perception of female managers “If you had more women in it then there’d be the chance but the problem is in order for the women to get to the top they have to behave like men to get there.  Like Margaret Thatcher … Margaret Thatcher was the worse thing for women in power because she behaved like a man.” (Female Engineer, +45 yrs)

42. Progression Women have to achieve more than men to receive the same degree of recognition NB: Response of Likert category (1= Strongly disagree – 5= Strongly agree ,6-N/A)

43. Progression Self Promotion “…You will need to be better than your men and you also, I think one of the pieces that I suggest should be incorporated which goes back to my assertiveness, is that women are reluctant in that environment were the fact is you will need to excel the other part of that is you need to tell people that you’re better, right?.... one piece of advice is that women need to be shown that it is okay to blow your own trumpet which is what men would do”. (Female engineer, +45 yrs)

44. Progression Mentoring & support networks

45. Progression Benefit of Mentoring “I had a… mentor who was quite a high level female engineer in the company who I looked up to and respected because she’d worked her way from being a chemical engineer all the way up the ranks and was in a position where I admired and I would like to get to one day in my career, …I think it’s so valuable for people to have guidance out of their line-management, somebody who is totally independent who they can go and talk to; who understands how to get the best out of people, how to question them, how to make them question decisions they’ve made personally…she helped me be able to do that; built my confidence and built my self-esteem and that I then took forward into the position that I’m in at the moment. Without that guidance, I don’t think I’d have got to the position I am today.” (Female, Training Manager)

46. Progression Key Findings • Little evidence of gender discrimination in the provision of training • Vertical segregation persists in engineering industries • Stereotyped view of female engineering managers • Impact of mentoring on the development of women goes unrecognised

47. Positive Action • Initiatives to counteract the effects of past discrimination • Permitted by law under sections 47 and 48 of the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) 1974 (amended 1986). Positive Action vs Positive Discrimination • Positive discrimination describes discriminating in favour of a certain group. • The SDA forbids employers to recruit or promote on the basis of individual’s gender

48. Positive Action The Company has actively promoted policies to facilitate women’s representation in the Company NB: Response of Likert category (1=Strongly disagree – 5= Strongly agree)

49. Positive Action No to Positive Discrimination “I don’t believe you should push women into engineering just because there aren’t that many women in engineering… you should just be capable of doing the job and it doesn’t matter who you are… I certainly wouldn’t want to do a role… if I was only appointed to it because I was a woman” (Female, 31-45 yrs)

50. What Can the Industry Do? • Employers • Adapt working environment and employment practices • Flexible working • Well being and work-life Balance • Career development programmes and salary schemes • Employee surveys • Exit interviews • Professional bodies • Monitor activities of membership and share good practice • Employees • Know your statutory rights (http://www.direct.gov.uk) • Explore varied employment avenues