Workplace equality: beat the boys with an early start

ENCOURAGING women to take up jobs in male-dominated industries should start in their early school years.

Williams Formula One team test driver Susie Wolff says attitudes about women in motorsport are changing. Picture: Tim Carrafa.

Encouraging women to take up jobs in male-dominated industries should start in the early school years, recruitment specialists say, to ensure girls do not consider professions gender specific.

Recruitment firm Randstad’s human resources consulting operations director Kellie Rigg says that despite educational efforts and diversity strategies, many org­anisations fail to recognise that women can be highly productive, forward thinking and strategic in leadership roles in all professions.

“If you look at (Randstad’s) World at Work report, 61 per cent of employers say women in leadership roles will be a critical success for them, they recognise it, but they’re not often putting the strategies in place to promote women,” Rigg says. She says unconscious bias still exists in many white-collar industries, where male leaders promote people similar to them.

Despite programs such as Telstra’s All Roles Flex policy — which allows every staff member to apply to work under flexible conditions — there are still unconscious barriers in industries from finance to information technology and engineering.

In IT, a workforce comprising just 20 per cent women is the international standard. In Australia it is even worse. Specialist IT recruitment firm Greythorn estimates it is just 12 per cent.

Global IT and data analysis company Qlik claims to have a higher than average percentage of women, but its chief people officer, Diane Adams, would not reveal the exact number.

Adams says schools are making efforts to increase female participation in science, maths, engineering and other technology-related subjects, despite boys showing more interest at a young­er age.

“I do think naturally boys are more interested but it’s not a skills difference, it’s more an interest difference,” Adams says. “There’s so much being done around the world to engage girls younger but when you engage girls earlier they’re so successful in this area.”

Adams is a 30-year IT industry veteran, working with global ­giants including Cisco and US-based medical records company Allscripts before joining Qlik. She has changed the name of her human res­ources department to culture and talent, recognising that to increase participation and improve gender diversity companies need to consider their own culture and how staff fit in.

For women to be successful in a male-dominated industry, she says they need to stand out.

“Think: ‘How do I ensure that I’m showing value, that they want me to be part of their organisation, and can I show tangible results of my, or my team’s results,’ ” Adams says. She says women also need to show leadership inside and outside the workplace, understand their company’s culture and embrace it, and show leadership with other women through mentoring or encouragement.

Qlik research shows while efforts are being made at the staff level to improve gender diversity, at the most senior levels there has been little improvement.

Qlik Australia and New Zealand data shows men still hold 95 per cent of chief executive positions at ASX top 200 companies.

In the finance industry, which is also dominated by men, specialist recruitment firm Marks Sattin found women earned 29.6 per cent less than men, compared with the Australian Bureau of Statistics general wage gap of 18.8 per cent.

Director Ieuan Williams says women are less aggressive when asking for a pay rise and less likely to ask for a significant increase.

In a recent Marks Sattin survey of 600 finance professionals, 50 per cent of women expected a raise of less than 3 per cent, yet 32 per cent of men expected a raise of more than 15 per cent.

“If women are not asking for pay increases or accepting a lower salary in order to receive flexibility or other benefits, then these benefits are not free,” Williams says. “In fact, women are actually paying for this flexibility.”

Wolff takes on F1 challenge with gusto

SUSIE Wolff is positioning herself to be the first woman to line up in the Formula One Grand Prix Series, but the Scottish test driver does not think she is breaking through a gender glass ceiling.

The Williams driver, 32, has grown up in the male-dominated racing industry but has always considered it her life, rather than a challenge for gender rights or equality.

Having started racing motorbikes when aged two and karts at eight, and coming from a family of motorbike and car industry figures, Wolff has made her way on merit.

“I was never defined (by my family) by my gender and they never made me feel like I was doing anything different for a girl,” Wolff says. “It was never about a male domain, it was my world from when I was eight.”

Wolff, who is in Australia for the Melbourne Grand Prix this weekend, and speaking engagements with staff from team sponsor Randstad, says she was not conscious of being in a male-dominated industry until she competed in a Formula Three world championship when she was 18. She finished 15th but was given an award for being the highest placed female.

Despite the industry being dominated by male engineers, mechanics and other support staff, Wolff says more women are progressing through the ranks and attitudes are changing.

“My boss is a woman, Claire Williams, and the next generation is coming through,” she says.

“These barriers are being broken down and I never feel like I’m alone. If you’re good at your job and perform, you will earn respect.”

Wolff has lived her life in motorsport but briefly studied business at university and had a plan B in place in case her racing career did not progress.

After realising she did not fit in with the business crowd Wolff dropped out, but she says she has an understanding of engineering without needing a degree.

Whether it be racing or business, Wolff says for a woman to succeed she needs to prepare for high-pressure environments and not worry about what could go wrong. And of course to follow her passions, no matter which field it may be.