Attitudes to UK Industry: International Women in Engineering Day report

21 June, 2023

Dr. Sillem said: “For me, inclusion is a culture piece. And this is creating a culture in which every single person feels welcome, feels safe, feels valued and feels able to contribute in full. Some people say it’s about equality, some equity, I say it’s about fairness and parity of experience and opportunity”.

There are organisations that are pioneering the EDI conversation and making real inroads into the agenda. For instance, thirty four percent of Schneider Electric’s workforce is women and the executive committee boasts a forty four percent representation. Forty one percent of new hires are women.

Kristin Baker, VP Industrial Automation UK & Ireland at Schneider Electric said: “EDI at Schneider Electric has been a journey from which many businesses can learn. Our focus on diversity has built a pipeline of talent that is now entering the business. Our graduate schemes, apprentice programmes and role modelling the women in the business has led to thirty four percent of our workforce and forty four percent of our executive committee being female. We’ve made really good progress”, but it’s not been without its challenges.

“The topic has now shifted to inclusion, because that’s where we’ve identified a potential problem area. We’re bringing women into the business, but they are not always staying. We’ve done some work to try to understand the root causes. Some of the feedback from the field was as simple as PPE not fitting right, which is something we’ve addressed. However other feedback was more deep seated in the culture and make-up of the wider eco-system we’re working in. In the construction industry for instance there is a lot of sub-contracting – very small players, often from other parts of Europe, with different cultures, different experiences with women in the workplace. Our team members in some instance found the onsite environment challenging as the inclusion approach and ways of working that Schneider Electric has adopted were often not the same way the wider industry was working. We’ve worked on creating allyship to really bring together our male counterparts onsite with those women so that they feel supported in that environment”.

Looking at regional differences, especially in developing countries is something that Aleesha Choudhry founder of WeSpeak identified. “I’ve seen a lot of mentoring programmes that help people on a local basis, but with my programme we connect girls in developing countries or low-income places and we connect them with professional women from all around the world. What’s the chance that your perfect female mentor is just down the road? Especially when we are talking about these environments. Our programme helps deliver active mentorship for women and girls online, wherever they are.”

Attitudes to UK Industry runs regular reports on the attitudes of the UK public. Taking a sample of 2,000 UK adults, the most recent report suggests that whilst the sector is taking positive steps towards a fairer, more diverse workforce, there is still a way to go when it comes to encouraging influencers of children and young adults when it comes to choosing a career in engineering. Tom Spencer, MD at Cadence Innovation Marketing, sponsors of ATUKI said: “Just over six in ten (65%) of those surveyed agreed that there should be more women engineers. One in ten (12%) people aged between 25-34 feel that engineering is not a suitable career for women. Nearly one third (29%) of people in the same age group expressed surprise that there are so many women in engineering, despite official figures reporting 16.5% of the workforce is women”.

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