Sharing good practice recruiting women into engineering roles
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For more information contact Jan.Peters@katalytik.co.uk
0797 4011278
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Event supporters
Sagent Recruitment
Women’s Engineering Society
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Welcome
DR SARAH PEERS
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UCL and Engineering Education
DR JOHN MITCHELL
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Engineering – A Diverse Cohort?
Intake from
State Section – 75% (UCL 65%)
Socio-economic groups 4-8 – 29% (UCL 20%)
Low participation Neighborhoods – 6.5% (UCL 3.9%)
Male : Female – 75% : 25% (UCL 51:49)
BME – 60.6% (41.6%)
What is Engineering?
engineering
….the art and practice
of
changing the physical world
for
the use and benefit of mankind
Prof Chris Wise, UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic
Engineering and Expedition Engineering
Wrap up
Research
DR JAN PETERS
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From anecdote to evidence
Action research
Questions
Anecdote: Women don’t perform
as well at assessment centres
• Evidence the numbers
• Explore assessment centre
performance by gender
• Explore graduates’ experience
by survey
FACT: In 2006/07, twice the
proportion of men graduating
with undergraduate
qualifications in STEM entered
SET professional or associate
professional occupations (41.8
per cent) compared with
women (21.0 per cent)
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Outputs
• short report
• inclusive assessment centres –
good practice guide
Adaptation and use of the resources and
activities
•Workshops and training
•Further collaborative research and diaries
•Leadership and engineering discussions
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Full time students completing first degree courses in 2009/10
Subject
Female
Aeronautical Engineering
10.5%
Chemical Engineering
27.0%
Civil Engineering
16.3%
Electronic Engineering
13.7%
General Engineering
20.4%
Mechanical Engineering
8.8%
Production Engineering
23.6%
Computing Science
28.6%
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Data source:
UCAS
Research elements
• Secondary analysis of HESA data, including DLHE data
• On-line survey investigating the variation of
undergraduates’ career intentions through the
course of study.
– 4,624 cleaned responses
– 1,200 from women
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Student expectations
Fact
Fact
Around three quarters of
men and women
undergraduate engineers
aspire to a career in
engineering or technology
Half of men and two fifths
of women make that
transition
80
74
72
70
60
Male
50
Female
40
%
30
20
16
10
10
12
8
0
E&T Role
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Non-E&T
Role
Further
study
Main activities of graduates in engineering subjects in 2008/09
and 2009/10
60
50
50
Male
Female
39
40
% 30
27
23
19
20
16
10
7
9
0
E&T Role
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Non-E&T Role
Further study
Work and further study
Transfer of graduates from their degree into relevant employment
A CRITICAL TRANSITION POINT
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Findings
•
•
•
•
Behaviours of students
Course content on teaming and leadership
Where students want to go and where they go
Support resources to help facilitate learning
for employability skills so students get the jobs
that are right for them
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• In general women are less likely to enter SET
roles even though both men and women are
equally likely to state that they wish to
• This appears to be related to the lower “career
confidence” of women E&T students
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• Key actions are around building the
confidence of women engineering
and technology students
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HE actions
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Employer
actions
Tonight’s focus
ASSESSMENT CENTRES
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Awareness
Fact When you are focused on one thing you can ignore other
important information going on right in front of you.
Act Assessor briefing
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Minority behaviours
Fact Minorities need to work extra hard to get their point
over
Fact It’s hard to be authentic in a minority
Act When welcoming candidates to your assessment centre
set out behaviour standards in your workplace and the
standards expected during the assessment
• politeness and respect towards all other participants
• assess these behaviours
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Behaviours
Fact
Act
Act
Act
You don’t tolerate bullying at work. Don’t tolerate bad
behaviour in your Assessment Centre
Ensure behaviours of male assessors towards female
candidates are professional and respectful and vice versa
Ensure that someone on the panel is assigned to make
note of any bullying behaviours
During observations monitor how the male candidates
listen to the female candidates
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Visual representation
Fact
Act
Act
Act
Role models are important
Female assessors present
Images in literature, posters, photos
Use female employees – technical where possible
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Interviews
Fact
Act
Fact
Act
Fact
Act
Every individual has their own biases and everybody will
have some unconscious bias
Each candidate to see a range of male and female
assessors so that individual biases can be averaged out.
This is particularly important if you use 1:1 interviews
Women tend to have lower career confidence than men
Encourage female candidates
An interview panel of all women or all men can be
intimidating
For larger panels, try to have a balance of men and
women on every panel. For smaller panels try to include
at least one women and one man
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Tests
Fact
Act
Act
Sometimes assessment tests have inbuilt gender biases
Ensure that your assessment tests have been rigorously
tested for gender biases
Make sure that the results of tests are analysed by gender
to check whether in general men or women do better.
Remember that correlation does not necessarily mean
causation but if you find any issues investigate them
further
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Group work 1
Fact
Act
Act
Act
Research shows male students can dominate and
domineer in group and project work
Spend time thinking about the makeup of groups
Ensure that you are clear what behaviours/skills you are
assessing and try to design group work to minimise the
effects of other factors such as gender
Monitor participation for boorish or domineering
behaviour
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Group work 2
Fact
Act
Inclusion and respect are important elements at work
Add into group work or role play exercises some diversityrelated incidents
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Monitoring 1
Fact
Fact
Fact
Act
Act
Act
Women are in a minority among engineering and
technology graduates
Female engineering and technology graduates are less
likely than male engineering and technology graduates
to work in engineering and technology roles
Within engineering and technology courses, a higher
percentage of women than men get 1st class degrees
Number of women in your pool
Be proactive
If you collect data, use it. Make cross year comparisons
and anonymise it to avoid breaching data protection
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Monitoring 2
Fact
Act
Act
Act
Everyone is a product of their environment and will
display some biases whether they are aware of it or not
Monitor the % of men and women at each stage
Assess the same behaviours or criteria twice and make
comparisons. Actively look for gender differences and
gender biases
When you are making comparisons between men and
women – look to see what the gender of the assessor
was. Women can be biased against women too
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Findings
•
•
•
•
Behaviours of students
Course content on teaming and leadership
Where students want to go and where they go
Support resources to help facilitate
development of wider skills so students get
the jobs that are right for them
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HE actions
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Employer
actions
Unconscious Bias
GREET BROSENS
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www.sagentrecruitment.com
@sagentrec
Greet Brosens & Michele Garrigan
Founders and Directors
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
AND ENGINEERING
Apple Developer Conference
Bias: Some Examples
58% of male CEOs of
Fortune 500
companies are over
6’ tall versus 14.5%
of men in the general
American population.
(source: Malcolm Gladwell, Blink)
Bias: Some Examples
Bias comes in different forms
Explicit
Stereotypes that we
openly admit to
Implicit
Stereotypes that we are
unable or unwilling to
admit
Explicit bias?
“A brain type that leans
towards strong
systemising is more
common in males”
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
“Why Men Don’t Listen
and Women Can’t Read
Maps”
Allan & Barbara Pease
Explicit bias?
“The underrepresentation of female
scientists at elite
universities may stem in
part from innate
differences between
men and women”
Larry Summers, former
president of Harvard
University
Conscious versus Unconscious bias
Unconscious Bias at Play
Automatic stereotyping
Ingroup favouritism
Consequences of Unconscious Bias
Stereotype Threat: Girls perform
under their ability in STEM tests
Misperception: Men are assertive,
women are aggressive
What can we do?
Create awareness with relevant stakeholders:
IAT test (gender-career and gender-science)
Identify areas within the business where
unconscious bias is at play
• Recruitment and selection
• Performance review
• Promotion
Eliminate opportunities for unconscious bias
Examples for the workplace
Recruitment
& Selection
• Blind applications
• Multiple interviewers involved in the process
• Multiple channel attraction programme (abolish
reliance on referral programmes)
Performance
Reviews
• Keep comparative data of performance ratios
for men and women and report back
• Coaching for managers; coaching for women
• Women’s groups
Internal
Mobility
• Celebrate diversity to remove unconscious bias
• Mentoring Programmes
• Identify sponsors for high flyers early in career
THE FUTURE:
Will we achieve gender equality in
engineering?
JOHN ALLPORT
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The Cummins “Staircase of Talent” and how it
relates to encouraging female engineers
John Allport
Talent Development Leader
22 July 2013
Cummins
 Global company – World’s largest independent
supplier of Diesel engines
 Over 45000 employees
 Large proportion of female engineers everywhere
except in the UK
 “Hire to Develop” strategy
– 75% of new starters from graduates or apprentices
51
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Where to start?
 Support from the top
52
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Next steps
 Good role models
 Hiring large number of graduate engineers
 Graduate recruits all start at same level
– Less gender bias
– Can reach critical mass
quickly due to large intake
– Word spreads
– More female applicants
53
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Need a general model
 “Pipeline of talent” theory already common
 Didn’t quite fit the model needed
 Modified to “Staircase of Talent”
54
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Still not enough females applying, what next?
 Develop further down the “staircase”
 Closer links with universities, particularly with
womens engineering groups
55
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
 “Boots on ground” approach works much better than
advertising, especially in schools
56
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Key points
 All students respond better to direct personal
approach, especially female to female
 A consistent approach is much better than having a
“token example female”
57
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Comments from female engineers on good
practices
 Large percentage of women
 Work life balance
 Made to feel part of a team / welcome / wanted
 Flexibility regarding work patterns
 Facilitating return to work after maternity
 Pleasant environment – nice offices
 Relaxed but efficient atmosphere
58
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
Comments from female engineers on good
practices
 Social opportunities
 Interesting challenging work
 Not treated differently
 Decent / Helpful work colleagues
 Opportunity for career progression
 Opportunity for Professional Development
 Opportunity to do voluntary work / community
involvement
 Good training
59
7/23/2013
Cummins Confidential
MARY-CLARE RACE
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Recruitment Approach and
Challenges
Mary-Clare Race
22nd July 2013
Our current position
•34% of total recruits since Feb 2012
•32% of graduate recruits in 2012
Highlights of our approach
• Winning Awards and raising our profile – positioning
Arup as the organisation of choice for women from a
STEM background
• Our senior female role models
• Relationships with external partners e.g. UKRC / WES
• Linking with universities and schools through outreach
activities
Highlights of our approach
•Offering a ‘whole of self’ employment package
•E.g. Development opportunities based on social
support mechanisms
•A more flexible employment offering
•Targeting women in our recruitment approach
•Female undergraduate days
•Training our managers in unconscious bias
•Our values and culture – shaping a better world
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DISCUSSION PANEL
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