Thales: Closing the Gender Gap in Engineering

9% is not enough

In 2016 The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) launched their ‘9% is not enough’ campaign to draw attention to the statistic that only 9% of engineers in the UK are female. 
 
The 8 March is International Women’s Day and Thales UK is using this to increase its focus on encouraging a more diverse workforce, especially with regard to gender balance. Currently Thales’s UK population is 20% female.
 

Encouraging STEM

Despite girls and boys achieving almost equal A*-C grades at GCSE, girls constitute only one fifth of A-level physics students; more alarmingly, the drop-out rate for girls doing science-based A-levels is considerably higher than for boys. Eve Maywood, Education and Outreach Manager, Thales UK believes that this is, in part, because a lack of exciting female STEM role models in the media perpetuates the myth that science and engineering are for boys.
 
She says “Most young people know who Brian Cox is but where are the women bringing STEM to life and making it relevant for girls? One of the biggest problems is the assumption that you have to be extremely intelligent to do STEM subjects and this has a big impact when it comes to girls as they will often have more negative perceptions of their own ability.”
 
To address this issue, Thales works closely with local schools so that they can provide inspiring examples of what women do in the engineering industry and demonstrate the different educational routes that get them there. It has many proactive, female STEM ambassadors who are passionate about engaging with students and Thales is also utilising the enthusiasm of recent graduates and apprentices in the same way. Eve says “It’s an interactive way of showing young people ‘Look, I was where you are once: this is where I am now and this is how you can get here too.’”
 

What are we doing?

Speed networking events are run regularly on Thales sites, where local school girls meet female engineers from across all areas of the business and get first-hand insight into the opportunities available to them.
 
Thales is also participating in WISE’s People Like Me campaign that encourages more girls to stick with STEM subjects post-16.
 
Eve says “To support International Women’s Day we are running the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) People Like Me training at two schools. 15 female engineers have just completed the training for this so that we can deliver the programme to female students; this is another great opportunity to engage with young people.”
 
Stephanie Williamson, Head of Professional Development, Thales UK comments: “One key area of diversity is gender balance and we are working with WISE, the IET and the Royal Academy of Engineering to look at how we, as a company, can create a more diverse and inclusive environment where all individuals feel that they can give their best and that the organisation is able to cultivate these strengths effectively. Gender is a strong focus for us at the moment, including how we attract and retain more women but also how we build more girls into the STEM pipelines to create more diversity in our longer term talent pipelines.”
 
Thales continues to research and create strategies to increase diversity, including a recently piloted leadership development programme for women and a planned educational campaign championing inclusivity focused around cultivating strength through difference.
 

Diversity matters

There is also Supportive Carers: a newly launched work stream that is researching the barriers that people with caring responsibilities come up against within Thales. This has the aim of improving their experiences and enabling them to continue their career. Initial feedback has been positive and has shown that Thales is already competitive in these areas, with supportive polices in place.
 
A 2015 research project, ‘Diversity Matters’ (McKinsey & Company) looked at data from 366 global companies and found that those who featured in the top quartile of gender diversity were 15% more likely to have financial returns that were above the national industry median.
 
Stephanie continues:
 
“Diversity is critical to improving business performance. Having a well-lead and diverse team can lead to a much higher performance within the workplace as it brings with it innovative thinking, increased engagement and employee retention. Having a diverse environment also increases our reach for potential new talent, something vital in an industry that has an acute skills shortage.”