Safety+Health Nov 2023 article: Women in safety face six common career challenges,researchers say:
Leadership training and organizational support may help bolster the well-being and careers of women and safety leadership positions according to a researcher in Western Kentucky University, Jacqueline Basham, a WKU instructor and associate Safety professional interviewed 15 female safety leaders to find out what career challenges they faced and to identify potential interventions that could be used to increase the number of women working in the industry. She found six common barriers: 1. Work hours and travel reqd.
2. Lack of formal education in safety before the career began.
3. Low number of women in the industry.
4. Frequently having authority questioned on the job.
5. The notion that the industry is not for women.
6. Being perceived as young and inexperienced augmenting feeling of frustration around the job.
To help elevate those barriers, she list three.
Check out the quick read, I hope you found it as interesting or maybe relatable as I did.
Comments (7)
Is there a link to the rest where I can read?
Be encouraged that women have a tremendous capacity for caring and making emotional connections with others that a lot of males do not either due to immaturity, personality flaws or their own nature. I'm not trashing men, but trying to encourage women. The industry needs more people who know how to do real safety. To often, my peers are disengaged, authority driven and care more about KPI's than people. They don't want to get their hands dirty. A woman's capacity for caring for others is a natural tendency that aligns with being a safety professional. Talk to anyone who has been in this madness for awhile and listen to them talk about the good ones; a capacity for caring about others is present, so is a moral imperative to do the job and connecting with others. It does take a woman more to earn the respect of men, but I believe when a person shows a capacity to care, gets their hands dirty and can connect with people in a humble manner it makes the best safety people (male or female). I think females have bigger hurdle to hop to get their, but once they do it's obvious they make good safety people. The other advice I often give to everyone is that if your employer does not value YOU, does not give YOU authority, does not give YOU resources to do your job and does not preach safety from the top...do NOT compromise and find another job where your loyalty and purpose will be valued. I don't say that to make sounding selfish sound good, it's not, but the bottom line is this and it's something a lot of young folks were never taught: You only have so much time. Your labor/time is a commodity you trade for money. Don't compromise, make it count. Don't be a mercenary for another 2k every six months. You can find a job where you have a good salary, support and resources to rock it out, it is possible. Loyalty is fickle these days, but if you are paid well and can do your job be loyal. If it changes, keep your resume updated and develop those skills.
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While I agree with the sentiment of supporting women in the industry, the 3 interventions are 1) offer support 2) provide training 3) establish support. All of these for the women. No offense, but anyone who has been in this industry long enough has certainly tried these things and they don't fix the issue.
It's not a woman problem it's a culture issue.
How about ideas for the existing male leadership like: be an advocate for women you see being overlooked, having emotional intelligence training for the leadership, or better yet, have the men in the organization who have the higher EQ explain the benefits of having a woman on the team is (and diverse people in general). And link a study that shows these benefits (there are tons).
Great intent but without the scientific backing this feels like a "did you know the sky is blue?" kind of solution
Different people (race, color, gender, etc.) = more diverse solutions. Period.
Oh this is an interesting article. As with any survey, results are skewed by their respondents!
1. Work hours and travel reqd. - This doesn't bother me because i'm childfree, so I enjoy the travel etc. I can see a working mom struggling with this though.
2. Lack of formal education in safety before the career began. - I feel as though this is also applicable to males in the workplace; I feel very few safety folks intentionally think "i'm gonna go into the safety field" as a kid.
3. Low number of women in the industry. - This one is a struggle for sure, although I noticed at this year's ASSP that the diversity in attendants was much better. It was a woman who served as my mentor and got me interested in the job.
4. Frequently having authority questioned on the job. - I'm also autistic, so I tend to 'info dump' and people easily see that i'm knowledgeable on the topics I'm talking about. But authority.. yeah, that's a big one. I've had to throw my weight around a couple times to be taken seriously, but since then, I haven't had issues with people not taking me seriously/having authority questioned. It's definitely a challenge I can see even more in construction, etc. (I'm in manufacturing)
5. The notion that the industry is not for women. Yep I can see this as well. Typically safety pros are needed in heavy industry, manufacturing, construction etc, which are already male-dominated areas.
6. Being perceived as young and inexperienced augmenting feeling of frustration around the job. - Absolutely, see number 4.
Overall, definitely relatable to the respondents here. If I were in a less supportive company it would be even more of a struggle (dealt with not-even-thinly-veiled misogyny at a previous company).