Women in Engineering - A new start?

The company I work for is being shut down, and I am waiting to hear whether there is a position available for me within the parent company, or if I will be made redundant. There will be plenty of you out there who have experienced or are experiencing the same situation right now.

I am grateful, because it was a lovely company to work for and they were very good to me. I felt able to express my views and enjoyed working with the rest of the team. It had a good balance of trust and respect, even though we were frequently under pressure to deliver projects. However the journey of life continues onward to new opportunities and experiences.

I am announcing my news to everyone quickly because the standard response is “Oh I’m sorry you are redundant”, “How dreadful”, “That’s tough because it will be impossible to find a job right now”. All these negative responses I have put in a box and sealed shut, so they can’t poison my thoughts or decisions. Will I ever meet anyone who says “Wow that’s exciting!”, “You are free to discover a new adventure”, “There are so many options, what will you choose to do next?”

Hmmm….what will I choose to do next?

I have spent the last 2 months on Furlough, which means being paid 80% of my wages to stay at home and not work. If it wasn’t for the current circumstances this would have been bliss. I have enjoyed getting the garden and house back in order after a year of it being virtually untouched. Having time to meditate, cycle and enjoy the sunshine and my family. I have even had time to watch some interesting series like Chernobyl, The Durrells and Afterlife. Life has been rather full on, so time to breathe and reflect has been very welcome.

My garden is coming along nicely

Even so, I know that this is not an option that I am happy doing long term. I get bored easily and am always happier with a challenge or mental stimulation. I need to find that balance where I can do some mentally intense work but still have time for gardening and family in between. Working from home cuts out hours of commute a week and really facilitates getting a good work life balance, so will be something I wish to continue. Having managed so well on 80% of my income, I am also wondering whether a 4 day week may be a viable option. It is slightly tempting to sell up and live somewhere by the coast or travel in a campervan, but my youngest daughter still has one more year at school, so those dreams will have to wait for now. Which means I am looking for a new job locally.

I am an engineer and a woman. The UK has one of the worst rates in Europe for employing women engineers. Women make up 51% of the population, yet less than 10% of engineering professionals are women according to the Statistics on Women In Engineering (WES, Jan 2018) as shown in their graph below. This is the lowest in Europe, whereas Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus lead with nearly 30%.

In my current workplace 4 out of 9 technical staff are women and it made for a good mix. In other engineering roles I was always the only one. The chances of finding new work for a company with any other female engineers is fairly slim. That red band at the bottom of the graph above is spread rather thinly. What is the problem with that?

What this large blue expanse translates to in the workplace is that you don’t fit in. You have to fight to get your views heard, and you are last on the list to be asked what you think about any issue. You will be overlooked for key projects where there is an opportunity to shine, even when you are the only volunteer stepping forward. And if you can’t shine it’s a hard slog to progress up the ladder. You will never be the “blue-eyed boy” on a fast track for promotion. It is far more likely that you will earn less than your colleagues for doing the same work and be regularly overlooked despite your competence.

20 years ago as the only female engineering manager in a team of 70 engineers that was me. The most memorable incident was in a meeting with the Operations Manager, Principal Engineer, and all the other engineering managers. Earlier in the day, I had inducted some contractors that were working for Pat the Site Services Manager, because he was busy. Now they had finished their work and needed their permits signing off before they could leave. I saw them through the glass walled meeting room as they walked past a few times trying to find Pat. Pat was often in the bowels of the factory where no phone signal would ever find him. I ducked down in my seat to try and avoid being seen, but they spotted me. They tapped on the door and then stuck a head round. The Operations Manager stopped mid-flow. “We just need Pat’s secretary to sign off our permits please”. The rest of the room cracked up with hysterical laughter, as I jumped up and tried to escape whilst glowering my worst scowl at these bloody contractors. Only the Operations Manager wasn't laughing. “She is not a secretary, she is one of our engineering managers!”, he managed to get out before I had reached the door, grabbed the contractors and marched off down the corridor. As if a secretary would be able to sign off safety permits! Duh! But to them it was a natural assumption that any woman was there to do admin, as they had never met a female engineer before.

And it is from these little assumptions, casual remarks and minor actions that inequality grows into a problem. It is parents that tell their friends that their daughter is a scientist because it sounds better than an engineer. It is the apprentices who are taught and influenced by male engineers, so any prejudices are perpetuated. It is the free calendars of half-naked women, sent as a ‘perk’ from the supplier, that hang in the engineering stores and engineers workshop – because only engineers aka men ever enter these areas. There is nothing that makes your position more uncomfortable than standing in front of the storeman to discuss delivery dates for essential parts, with the engineers behind discussing their favourite features from the latest pinup. (Well apart from a boss who stares at your breasts while he talks to you.) Why would this be fit for any workplace when your mind should be on work? It does not build respect for the female workforce. And for that matter it doesn’t build respect for male engineers either.

20 years later and you would hope the situation has changed, but really it hasn’t. Progress is as flat as the red band in the above graph. There is an equal opportunities policy now, but it just states the obvious – that you shouldn’t treat people differently because of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation etc. In my view it does little to stop discrimination, especially as most discrimination is subtle, underlying or hidden.

For instance how do women engineers know what the equivalent male engineer is earning? It’s not general knowledge and I have asked male colleagues previously and none of them will reveal their salary. So statistically we know men are being paid more but on an individual basis how do you prove it? If it is kept hidden then how will it ever be addressed? Maybe all women engineers should raise a grievance about their pay without any evidence, because pure probability says they would have a case? It may not be very palatable but what are the options to resolve this without some transparency?

Even the sexy calendars – if there are no women engineers in the workshop to see and question this practice will anyone else make a fuss? Apparently not, because I know in some places this still goes on.

And if you feel like you have been overlooked for a project, or you get given all the less technical jobs, such as going to the Continuous Improvement meetings, investigating grievances, or overseeing the work experience kids, then it is really hard to pinpoint that as discrimination. These little things then get you side-lined – it looks like you are not really technical, not a real engineer because you never do any of the technical stuff. Can you see how this leads down a slippery slope that means you get overlooked for promotion?

If engineering courses are all taught by men, classes are full of boys and you would be the only girl, you have to have a lot of determination and confidence to continue with engineering. And very few girls have the role model of a mum, aunt or grandmother engineer. Very little has changed in 20 years and the only way it will is with gender quotas or specific schemes aimed at bringing women into the industry. Retaining them with equal pay, good promotion opportunities, flexible hours, respect, and valuing their contribution needs to happen now.

The Fawcett Society produced the Sex and Power Index which reveals that men dominate in every sector in the UK, not just engineering.

     The Index reveals that women make up just:  

       ·         6% of FTSE 100 CEOs
·         16.7% Supreme Court Justices
·         17.6% of national newspaper editors
·         26% of cabinet ministers
·         32% of MPs

If the positions of power are dominated by men then you would think it would be up to them to change things. That’s not how change normally comes about though, because they are fairly happy or even oblivious to the status quo. Its women who need to re-write the script, by being aware and challenging situations. Its women who need to shine a light on their experiences. It’s the men they work with who can become more alert to the issues and support women in engineering roles. Sometimes it is hard for people to see that it is all the little things – like calling you “love”, that add to the full picture. By raising awareness in a non-confrontational way when something is unacceptable we can hopefully change attitudes. What do you think?

It is tiresome still facing the same prejudices 20 years down the road. I am asking myself if I can be bothered with working as an engineer still. But then if not me, with the experience to work through these issues and the strength to try and change them, then who? The new generation have a high expectation of being treated fairly, and being recruited and promoted on their merit, as they should. Let’s not let them down.

Women make up 51% of the UK population - we are the majority! If we can't be a loud enough voice for equality and change for women, then how much harder is it for minority groups to be heard?

If I were Minister of Energy

With a post title like this, it is probably worth pointing out that Theresa May scrapped the Department Of Energy and Climate Change in July and it became the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Just read that new department title again......slowly.......it is FOR business and energy. And the energy that they are FOR is more energy consumption to profit the Big Six energy suppliers, along with Fracking. Not FOR the energy efficiency measures that reduce consumption and fuel poverty, or make our industry more efficient and competitive. Climate Change has been completely dropped from the title, along with any pretence that this government gives a damn about reducing carbon emissions.

"The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) works to make sure the UK has secure, clean, affordable energy supplies and promote international action to mitigate climate change."

The old mission statement replaced with.....

"The department brings together responsibilities for business, industrial strategy, science, innovation, energy, and climate change."

So there is no Minister for Energy and Climate Change in the UK, but if there was one, that was not tied in to business and industry growth targets, there really are plenty of things that they could do to reduce carbon emissions.

One of the cost effective measures to reduce energy would be to send the office workers home. If one person in the office works from home, they will still use energy for their technology at home and in winter some lighting and heating. However they will not be commuting and in summer it is most likely that their home will not have cooling (we don't tend to in UK homes) and the lights wont be on continuously.

Technology has come so far that we can work anywhere. There is really no need to have a separate 'office' to work in when documents can be stored on the cloud, conversations held on skype or facetime and work carried out on 'pocket-sized' portable devices. Wouldn't you rather work from a park bench or sat on the promenade in summer, than in a stuffy office space?

Now if all the workers in the office worked from home the benefits increase dramatically. That company may no longer need to lease a building or maybe just a smaller building that contains meeting rooms and hotdesks, but no permanent desk spaces. Instantly there are less corridors and toilets being lit all day, besides the massive saving in cooling and ventilating many of these densely packed office spaces, so a big energy saving.

Additional carbon savings would be from the reduction in traffic congestion - if you only had to go in to work for a meeting once a week, you would probably avoid first thing Monday morning, right. Traffic congestion is an appalling waste of energy, engines running whilst going nowhere, and a significant contributor to air pollution. Reducing the number of commuters will ease the situation for the people who can't work from home, like nurses, retail workers, police officers and politicians. And of course you could always hold your weekly meeting in your local coffee shop or curry house, which would benefit small businesses outside of the central district.

There is also a community benefit as it would bring more able-bodied adults back into communities during the day, making them a safer place for the elderly. Not to mention how many hours a week extra you could spend with your family or friends if you are not commuting. There are a whole host of other benefits, such as reductions in absenteeism, improved mental health, better work-life balance etc. but you get my point.

And if you think that you can't send people home because they won't get any work done, then you are soooo wrong. Trust me on this. I thought that I am getting a bit slow with work and not as efficient as I used to be, after 8 years working from home, but once I stepped back into an office environment I was vindicated. It is far more distracting working with other people. You are obliged to ask them how they are, get distracted by other peoples phone calls, then discuss any query/decision/irritation/success with everyone, just because they are there. At home you get distracted hanging the washing out or walking the dog, but in between you get to concentrate. There is also the incentive that if you finish all your work quickly you are free to relax, instead of watching the clock until home time.

And if you think you may miss the social aspect, just ask yourself if you have any genuine friends at work? If you do you will stay in touch, but chances are there are a good few people that you would happily not sit next to every day. Do you get up to speak to the people in the office next door or just email them? I rest my case!

It would be a win for the government because less investment would be needed on infrastructure if the roads are slightly emptier, and reductions in carbon emissions and air pollution would help meet some of our legal reduction targets. They could also see significant savings by sending government workers home. The demand for new office buildings would drop, and government support for converting them to dwellings, would help landlords to re-coup their losses and give a good opportunity to require energy efficiency improvements, along with easing the housing shortage.

This is really a biggie and is the next logical step given the way technologies are heading. It is the kind of solution the government likes because it doesn't cost them very much, just a bit of change management required. All it needs is some dynamic companies to demonstrate the potential for reducing their overheads or a Minister of Energy to promote the change! Please feel free to nominate me for that role ;-)