Are we really doing enough as an industry to encourage more women to join the sector?
An important part of the Automotive 30% Club’s ‘30by30’ strategy is to ‘Reach Out’ to attract more women into the sector, something our Club CEO and MD members are passionate about and fully support.
But is the industry as a whole doing enough to encourage more women to join our sector?
Our survey, issued at the beginning of October, asked our followers their thoughts. 46% of those who took part, said that they didn’t feel the industry was doing enough. So what more can we do?
Participants who took part in our survey felt strongly that there should be more events and talks with schools which showcase the many job roles within the sector to make it even more appealing to young women. In addition, participants stated more women in our sector should be highlighted in the press and others felt more could be done to feature young women on platforms which represent or are talking about the automotive sector.
The Club’s annual Inspiring Automotive Women Day and Inspiration for Innovation Network are just some of the great examples of the work we are doing as a Club to ‘Reach Out’ to attract more women into the sector.
The Inspiring Automotive Women (IAW) Day was launched back in 2016 by Club Founder Julia Muir with the aim of inspiring female secondary schools students to consider careers in the automotive sector. Female volunteers from within our member companies were invited to attend the day event and spoke to 100 female students from 10 secondary schools across the country.
Each year the event has grown considerably, and in 2019, in addition to the large anchor day event, the Club facilitated a further 30 visits out to schools across the country. Students were inspired by female volunteers from within our member companies to gain a greater understanding of the wide variety of jobs roles available within the sector. For 2020, due to the operational constraints of physical gatherings due to the Coronavirus, we will be running our IAW Day digitally. The event and further Reach Out activities will be sponsored by Volvo Car UK. You can read more in our recently published article here.
The Club’s Inspiration for Innovation (I4I) Network, sponsored by Patron member CDK Global and Northamptonshire/Buckinghamshire regional partner sponsor MEPC, Silverstone Park launched earlier this month and aims to connect with primary and secondary schools throughout the UK by creating access to opportunities for students to have meaningful encounters with experienced representatives including CEOs, directors and senior execs from diverse backgrounds. They will cover topics such as Digital Media, Marketing, Human Resources and Communications as well as Engineering, Technology and Design and will particularly focus on the post-pandemic need for employability life skills and mental wellness.
The purpose and key messages of the Inspiration for Innovation Network are to tackle negative gender stereotypes and career segregation in girls and boys, and to ensure that young diverse women in particular, see automotive companies and related technology industries as employers of choice.
MEMBERS: To learn more about the above programmes and ways within which you can get involved, please email Nicola for all IAW Day enquiries nicola@automotive30club.co.uk and Danielle for all I4I Network enquiries danielle@automotive30club.co.uk
Look out for our upcoming article by Julia Muir which will detail other ways within which our members are Reaching Out to attract more women to join our sector.
Article by Victoria Trudgill, Campaign Manager, Automotive 30% Club