A tick-box exercise? Political correctness gone mad?
Nope. Diversity and inclusion in engineering is a real, pressing issue, that organisations need to ensure they are tackling.
According to a government study, the engineering sector would need to bring in around 186,000 skilled recruits each year until 2024 in order to reduce the skills shortage that is currently facing the industry.
Hiring from a more diverse pool of candidates is an easy win to combat this problem. But getting women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ people into engineering roles is proving to be an ongoing issue.
Results of a 2017 study revealed that only around 11% of the UK engineering workforce is female.
87% of UK engineering firms have no policies or initiatives in place to help LGBTQI+ people in the workplace.
And being black or from an ethnic minority background is shown as a bigger obstacle to employment than any other factor.
As strides are made in other areas of society, with increased representation of minority communities in the media and other industries, engineering companies need to work on their diversity and inclusion efforts.
Don't worry though, we've rounded up a few recent articles that could provide some helpful tips and insights for anyone striving for a diverse and inclusive engineering sector:
- We recently had the pleasure of chatting with Felicity Furey, an Australian social entrepreneur, engineer and leader in all things diversity. We talked about redressing the gender balance in engineering and all the work she does educating young girls on what a career in engineering is like. Take a look at the full interview here.
- Diversity in engineering no longer just means an equal split of male and female engineers. In our recent article, we delve a little deeper into the issues surrounding diversity and inclusion in the sector.
With increased attention on issues of diversity both in the media and business, organisations are beginning to recognise the clear benefits of becoming more diverse and inclusive. Check out our recent piece on how to ensure workplaces are diverse and inclusive by our very own Lucy McKerron.
We help clients spanning different industries to ensure they're recruiting a diverse workforce and providing an inclusive working environment for all employees. If you've got any questions on how your organisation can become more diverse and inclusive, get in touch with the team, we'd love to chat.
