Challenges Male Dominated Industries Face When Recruiting Women

Nowadays more and more male dominated industries are expected to open the doors to women, which in some cases brings with it a host of issues. For starters, many women are uncomfortable working in a place dominated by men, and those same men aren’t used to working around many women.

So, the first issues is that some women struggle to\fit in with a male dominated culture, where bad language and sexist jokes may be the norm, but which need to be considered very carefully when there are women on board.

These days, more and more organisations are finding themselves needing to meet quotas to ensure that women get more equal representation, which often means a certain cultural change is necessary. Of course, there are also the challenges inherent in attracting women to male dominated industries and selecting those who are well qualified for the job.

To ensure that female employees fit into a male dominated work place there sometimes needs to be a bit of give and take. Males who are comfortable working with other males may feel resentful at the intrusion of a female employee who will possibly change the culture of the working environment. On the other hand, women are often intimidated at the thought of working among a large number of men, and are generally conscious of any resentment that can occur as a result of their employment.

When it comes to hiring women, the selection process should be no different from that for men. Women should be judged on their qualifications, achievements and references in exactly the same way that men are. The same goes for interviewing potential female employees. What do you look for in an good male employee? You obviously don’t hire men because of their attractiveness, although you may consider their grooming and overall appearance as an indicator of their professionalism. The same way, women shouldn’t be judged based on their physical attractiveness either, either in favour of or against (some employers in male dominated environments may be reluctant to hire an attractive woman for fear of creating a distraction for the men, while others may take the opposite approach). In all ways, it’s important to be professional.

However, it is important to consider how a female employee will fit in when she has to work with a mostly male group. Some women are able to fit in almost as “one of the boys”, while others remain awkward and uncomfortable. Once a traditionally male dominated workplace has a greater percentage of women, it will be easier for new female employees to fit in, but in the initial stages it is important to consider how a woman will get along with her male colleagues. Fortunately, most women entering predominantly male professions have also studied alongside a high proportion of males (for example, in some engineering disciplines and other courses that have a high percentage of males), and will thus be comfortable working alongside men, and will know what to expect.

If a workplace has been traditionally male dominated for a long time, there may be heavily entrenched behaviors and ideas that will need revising as more and more women enter the company. It’s important to consider constructing a gender-neutral policy. It’s quite common, for example, for a manager to refer to the “men” of the organization, which is no longer appropriate when there are both male and female employees.

Another thing that needs to be considered is the creation of an appropriate behaviour document (for example, outlining sexual harassment policies and definitions). While some women may not be at all offended by sexist jokes (even making some male-directed jokes of their own), others will be offended and upset, especially if they feel the jokes are directed towards them. Similarly, if there haven’t been appropriate practices for sexual harassment put in place, some men won’t know where to draw the line between what is acceptable to a female employee and what is derogatory or downright threatening.

Sometimes it is a good idea to hire an external consultant who can come into the company and assess the need for change, and help address issues that may make the workplace challenging and uncomfortable for women, and at the same time, help the organisation look at ways they can attract more qualified female employees to ensure there is true equal opportunity in the organisation. This may or may not require the need for educational meetings with employees where appropriate behaviour and boundaries are made clear to all employees and managers in the organisation.

What happens when an organisation is forced to hire women to meet a “gender quota” and there are few qualified women suitable to fill positions? There are some fields in which very few women enter, and few are qualified for. Naturally, an employer needs to assure that all his employees are qualified individuals who are suited to the type of work offered. It may be frustrating to many employers that they have to turn down so many qualified men in the search for a female employee who may or may not be up to scratch. It’s extremely important that women should not be hired just to fill a “gap”, any female employees must be hired because of their suitability. If not, hiring them will backfire in the long term. While initially, it may be harder to attract well-qualified women for such roles, over time as more women enter the company it will become easier to attract other women (especially if female employees are able to attend school and university career days and speak with students about their career and their organisation).

While attracting and hiring qualified women in male-dominated industries can prove challenging, if it is handled well it can benefit the industry, and be a positive experience for all employees, male and female alike.