Better recruitment and retention of women is vital to our economic success

TPS Schal director Joan Murray, who heads Carillion’s construction compliance, surveying and project management division, on the importance of supporting the recruitment and retention of women in construction and related fields.

I have been fortunate enough to work on some of the most fantastic construction projects, from the GCHQ in Cheltenham and the Barbican in London, to Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and even the runway in the Falkland Islands. Working in construction is always exciting and every day brings a different challenge. I began at Carillion in a technical role and am now a director of the business. I wonder, however, how many young people, especially girls, could imagine themselves in this industry?

I think my career owes a lot to my early schooling. At the school I attended in Limerick, Ireland, girls were encouraged to study the so-called STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths), as well as the humanities. We saw no restriction in what we chose to study and no barriers to any chosen profession.

You might imagine this upward trend has continued, after all, we all know how vital science and technology are in our fast-changing new economies. However, despite the best efforts of a number of initiatives, here in 2014, the statistics for girls studying STEM subjects and going onto third level to continue those subjects has not changed in 30 years. While we have growing numbers of young people taking GCSE physics, at age 16 there is a steep drop off: in physics the number falls from around 150,000 to 32,000 including just 7,000 girls choosing to study the subject. 

I went on to complete a degree in civil engineering at the University of Dublin and from there I joined Carillion as a graduate civil engineer. Yet I remain in a small minority and have asked myself, how can we encourage more young women into areas like construction and engineering? And equally important, how do we retain them once they are there?

We need leadership from the top down and plenty of initiatives from the grass roots up. In May this year I attended the launch of a new campaign – Your Life – in which the government welcomed over 170 leading businesses and institutions, offering over 2,000 jobs and apprenticeships. This campaign, launched by the chancellor, aims to inspire and boost young people’s participation in the STEM subjects by encouraging all of us to do more.

Every company can do something. For example, across Carillion we engage with a number of local schools each year, right across the country. This takes a more general approach to construction, health and safety and sustainability, mainly aimed at primary schools. But we have decided our commitment going forward should also include an additional more focused campaign in secondary schools, developing a tailor-made “introduction” to engineering and technology for girls. This module will be delivered to schools in the communities where we trade (four schools in year one, increasing year on year over a five-year period).

We will have ambassadors – women and men from our organisation – who will encourage and, hopefully, inspire. The image of careers in construction, technology and engineering has not always been one of being female-friendly. But we hope that by showing girls as well as boys the great choices they can have if they take the STEM subjects, we will go a long way to encouraging girls to study engineering and other technical subjects at university and ultimately create a better balance of females to males in our working environments. Carillion has also announced a pledge to increase the number of women in apprenticeships fivefold over the next five years.

Recruitment is one thing but when it comes to retaining women in technical roles and in male-dominated industries, it always seemed to me that something was missing. All my life I have had to get used to the fact that less than 10% of the workforce were female and, especially for new recruits, this can be intimidating.

Being part of a minority brings its own set of unique challenges and requires innovative solutions to deal with them. So in June of this year, at Carillion and TPS Schal, we launched Project SNOWE (Support Network for Operational Women Engineers). This is a voluntary network where women across the organisation can draw on the experience, support and encouragement of colleagues (male and female) when working in engineering roles. By creating this network, we are recognising the importance of support, encouragement and retention of women in these roles – we are saying that we value their contributions and want them to be part of the workforce.

Whatever a company decides to do, more than anything it’s about getting the basics right – high quality training, good professional support, good experience. By working together, along with other industries, organisations and government, we can open up opportunities to a whole sector of the population which may never have considered working in construction and engineering in the past.  And a wider talent pool is not only desireable, it’s vital to our economic success.
www.yourlife.org.uk/