Benefits of women in trades

Our research showed that by having more women in their companies, there were strong benefits for the employers, other employees and the women themselves. 

A clear message from those interviewed was that employing women increased the value of the services being provided by the company. For many of the companies, having a tradeswomen was a distinct competitive advantage, both from the specific skills that the women brought to their roles, and their approach to customer service.

The key benefits that emerged for employers were the following:

• Women working in a male-dominated industry mellowed the culture and benefitted the workplace
• Employing women gave their business a competitive advantage
• Women brought different skills to the roles, for example, excellent attention to detail and good customer service.
  

The key benefits that emerged for the women employed by these organisations were the following: 

• Women felt pride in working with their hands and felt a sense of achievement from their work.
• Many women observed that, on the whole, trades workplaces had changed, and more diversity was welcomed.  Trade workplaces were not the common stereotype of chauvinistic places with girly calendars (although these places do exist).
• Women enjoyed the benefits of earning while they learnt (i.e. they didn’t require a student loan)
• Women developed best in their roles when they had a supportive employer.

Many of the women who were working in the industry, and enjoying success in their jobs attributed this most to women who were in management/decision-making roles within the company.  Most women we interviewed had not experienced any barriers to working in a male-dominated trade, although some had experienced difficulty finding an employer who would offer them an apprenticeship.  The women also commonly expressed that the reason they believed women did not work in trades was that they were not provided the information that this was a career option.

An opinion commonly expressed by both tradeswomen and employers in the interviews was that trades had evolved.  While heavy lifting and hard manual work was still a feature of some workplaces, the consensus was that health and safety requirements meant that the physical requirements of the job were manageable for women.

Women make good tradespeople – three of the women we interviewed had won apprenticeship awards, and we heard many stories where women, while under-represented in the occupation, were over-represented in awards given.

We are very grateful to the women and their employers who were interviewed for this project for sharing their stories and experiences. Their insights will useful for further work on attracting and retaining women into trades, and helping to break down occupational segregation.   The evidence is clear that women can bring many advantages to trades organisations, while offerring them a great employment opportunity.