Facilitating Career Advancement of Highly Skilled Women

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Focus on the Engineering Sector
Women’s Experiences at Work and Their Career Development
Organisational Policies and Practices to Facilitate Career Advancement in Women
Diversity Management
Work-Life Policies
Inclusion
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Many modern organisations in the United Kingdom can be discussed as gendered because of the accentuation of gender roles and positions in an occupational setting. The problem is that, in spite of the prohibition of discriminatory policies in companies, workplaces in many UK organisations remain to be male-dominated (Acker 1990). This situation is typical of the Western world despite all the actions taken to promote highly skilled female workers and address the problem of their hidden discrimination and gender inequality observed in companies. As a result of the fact that most organisations are gendered, women become deprived of opportunities to be successfully promoted in spite of their experience, knowledge and skills. This situation is typical of different UK sectors, including the engineering sector where leader posts and most managerial positions are occupied by men (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2019). This fact creates the need for examining how organisations can facilitate the career advancement of women in male-dominated occupational settings. Although many workplaces and leading posts remain to be occupied by men, organisations can effectively promote highly skilled women through diversity management, specific work-life practices and various inclusion policies.

Focus on the Engineering Sector

The promotion of women in UK organisations is the topic of researchers’ debates. Attention is paid to examining the specifics of facilitating career advancement of females in male-dominated environments. The sector of engineering is challenging in this context because most positions, not only leading ones, are taken by males, and female engineering specialists experience certain barriers to their career development and promotion. According to Fernando, Cohen and Duberley (2018), about 40% of women who have the engineering degree choose to leave their profession because of unfriendly workplace climates, gender prejudice and the lack of attractive opportunities for career advancement. According to the data of 2017, 11% of engineers in UK companies were female in comparison to 9% observed in 2015 (Peers 2018, p. 2). However, the percentage of female engineers in the United Kingdom is the lowest one in comparison to other European countries in spite of the fact that the attraction and retention of women in this sphere can “add as much as $28 trillion to annual GDP in 2025” (Peers 2018, p. 3). Diversity in the engineering sector is desired by HR managers to improve performance and productivity.

Women’s Experiences at Work and Their Career Development

Women’s subjective negative experiences in male-dominated occupational settings are usually associated with specific factors that should be viewed as prevailing in certain industries. Thus, in the engineering sector, these factors include enculturation, sexualised visibility and stereotyping regarding women’s incompetence. In this context, enculturation can be viewed as one of the most frequently discussed factors and challenges for female employees because they are expected to adapt to mostly masculine organisational cultures in their workplaces (Powell, Bagilhole & Dainty 2009). By such adaptation, they prefer to do their gender in a particular way, to avoid being viewed as extremely female. Referring to enculturation, women want to be accepted in a male-dominated setting as fitting organisational norms and culture (Powell, Bagilhole & Dainty 2009). According to the theory of a gendered organisation, women often accept the elements of the masculine (gendered) organisational culture, changing their personal lives and adopting the practice of extending working hours, for example (Acker 1990; Fernando & Cohen 2011). The problem is that, for a career perspective, such enculturation in a gendered organisation can have positive outcomes, but many women cannot ignore their domestic commitments and refuse promotion.

Sexualised visibility is another critical factor that can be discussed as typical for any male-dominated industry. Thus, female workers are viewed as different from men and often unequal to them, and their skills and experience become unrecognised because of their gender and sexuality. According to Fernando, Cohen and Duberley (2019, p. 6), the term ‘sexualised visibility’ describes “how in these work settings women are inscribed with sexual attributes that overshadow and obscure other attributes and values”. Therefore, it is possible to speak about new forms of sexism associated with the gender segregation of work as a result of sexualised visibility (Kenny & Donnelly 2020). For example, a woman working in the field of engineering is primarily perceived as a woman rather than a professional. The theory that can explain this situation is objectification theory, according to which women are viewed as sexual objects, without the interest in their abilities and skills (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2019). This situation leads to their invisibility as employees to be promoted in masculine settings. Thus, the concept of sexualised visibility narrows the invisibility tendency to the sexual factor that creates problems for women engineers.

The third factor includes stereotypes regarding women’s incompetence in the field of engineering that leads to status and income inequality. Thus, women often cannot occupy the same positions as men according to the organisational hierarchy because their career progress is not supported. There are many stereotypes regarding women’s leadership and professional skills, and this aspect influences HR managers’ promotion decisions. Women engineers suffer from being viewed as incompetent in their profession, and they cannot complain regarding the workload or inappropriate conditions because of co-workers’ and managers’ attitudes (Fernando & Cohen 2011). Consequently, women face many barriers to career advancement because of stereotypes related to their professional knowledge and skills. They need to adapt to male-dominated settings, acting as men to avoid being viewed as incompetent and rather uncommitted to an organisation (Powell, Bagilhole & Dainty 2009). These behaviours associated with undoing gender and adapting to the male gender norms are explained by researchers with reference to social constructionism and the theory of a gendered organisation (Fernando & Cohen 2011). Thus, female engineers’ actions and choices are determined by social structures around them and the organisational culture oriented towards men.

These three factors are critical to influence women’s experiences in the engineering sector. In order to be promoted and develop their career effectively, women engineers are expected to undo their gender to fit the culture of male-dominated occupational settings (Acker 1990; Powell, Bagilhole & Dainty 2009). As a result, being unable to combine work and domestic responsibilities, women leave their companies (Hertz 2007; McRae 2003). On the other hand, even if being competent and productive, females can be viewed as inappropriate for promotion because of their domestic roles (Hakim 2006; McRae 2003). This approach is especially typical for regarding young female professionals who plan to have children (Hakim 2006). Furthermore, the need for overcoming sexualised visibility also leads to women’s choice to undo gender to adapt to the men’s professional world (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2019). Thus, these factors need to be addressed in engineering organisations with the help of adopting certain practices that can help highly skilled women to succeed in their professional area.

Organisational Policies and Practices to Facilitate Career Advancement in Women

In modern UK organisations, managers are interested in facilitating the career advancement of female employees in order to increase their productivity, commitment and job satisfaction. In the context of organising women’s promotion and support in male-dominated occupational settings, it is necessary to develop certain policies, practices and strategies that can be used to help women to be more committed to their companies. Among the most popular and evidence-based approaches to promoting career advancement in female workers, researchers and practitioners determine diversity management, work-life policies and inclusion.

Diversity Management

In predominantly male working environments, much attention is paid to integrating diversity policies and strategies into the organisational culture. The reason is that more and more women annually enter the industries and markets that were historically viewed as dominated by males. The percentage of female workers in the engineering sector is comparably low when contrasting the numbers to other sectors, and there is a need in this sector for implementing specific practices in the context of realising diversity management (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018). To make European organisations overcome gender inequality, the European Commission focused on promoting a rather feminist position and initiative accentuating the fact that “it is purely a social accident that certain careers, some of them well paid, are male-dominated and do not tolerate motherhood, long parental leaves, part-time hours of work, and family-friendly arrangements” (Hakim 2006, p. 280). As a result, it is important to address the problems of the occupational segregation and the pay gap in organisations to make opportunities for working women and men equal.

The decisions that are proposed by the European Commission and the International Labour Office to promote gender diversity in organisations including the engineering field include the adoption of family-friendly and work-life balance arrangements and quotas. The reason for these initiatives is the necessity of coping with occupational segregation and workplace inequality, as well as gender discrimination in more complex cases (Choudhury 2015). The European Commission offered the use of quotas for hiring female workers in different sectors, including the engineering one. The purpose of this policy is to achieve the desired 50/50 male/female split in areas that are traditionally viewed as male-dominated in order to address such factors as the gap in payments, differences in social status among men and women, occupational segregation and barriers to promotion (Hakim 2006). However, the problem is that the implementation of quotas for hiring female employees in such fields as engineering can provoke workplace conflicts and the impossibility for HR managers to make reasonable choices because of the lack of female candidates.

It is important to note that quota systems for promoting diversity in engineering organisations can be realised in different forms: quotas for hiring female and male candidates and quotas for promoting female candidates for senior positions. On the one hand, the implementation of quotas for promoting women for higher managerial posts can be discussed as an effective approach for facilitating females’ career advancement (Choudhury 2015). In this case, there is a chance that the problem of prejudice regarding women’s competence can be overcome, and the issue of sexualised visibility also cannot influence the procedure (Hakim 2006). On the other hand, even the implementation of quotas cannot guarantee the elimination of gender prejudice and hidden discrimination in firms, as it is noted by Hakim (2006). The reason is that many women often cannot perform as senior managers because of their domestic responsibilities and preferences.

The focus on women’s preferences to determine an effective strategy for their promotion in companies is a modern evidence-based approach. According to the theory of preferences, “a new theory for explaining and predicting women’s choices between market work and family work,” women can be home-centred, adaptive or work-centred depending on their preferences (Hakim 2006, p. 286). These work and lifestyle preferences determine how women can perform at work, as well as their ambitions. Those female workers who are work-centred in their behaviours are more likely to be promoted, and their career advancement is more obvious (Meiksins et al. 2018). In this context, researchers argue regarding the effectiveness of family-friendly and work-life balance practices oriented towards women to attract them, retain and promote diversity in organisations: parental leaves, part-time working and flexible schedules.

Diversity training is one more practice that is applied in organisations in the context of diversity management. In the academic literature, the role of training is discussed from two perspectives: women need equal access to training in order to develop their skills and be promoted and diversity training is critical to involve both men and women (Fernando & Cohen 2013). The problem is that, even if women are required to participate in training and development programmes and courses to facilitate diversity in an organisation, they can be required to attend training after their working hours, and they do not view this practice as positive for them (Fernando & Cohen 2013). The attitude to training can also be explained with reference to the preference theory (Hakim 2006; Meiksins et al. 2018). On the other hand, Hakim (2006) notes that training for co-workers is important to address the problem of invisibility as it is necessary to demonstrate what behaviours and attitudes are acceptable in the workplace. From this perspective, diversity training should be oriented towards the development of female employees’ motivation, leadership abilities, skills of working in diverse teams and other qualities.

Work-Life Policies

In order to retain female employees in different types of organisations, including companies in the engineering sector, it is important to propose them opportunities for work-life balance. Researchers state that it is more typical for women to choose shorter work hours and flexible schedules when it is possible, and these factors are often more critical than the possibilities for promotion and salary increases (Fernando & Cohen 2011; Hertz 2007). In the UK, more employers become oriented towards providing women with opportunities to harmonise their correlation of home and work activities in order to achieve balance. According to Fernando and Cohen (2013), most British employers believe that policies directed towards the promotion of work-life balance are important to be implemented in organisations to increase female workers’ motivation, satisfaction and commitment. Thus, employers recognise the need for home-work harmonisation initiatives for their female employees to address their turnover intentions and satisfaction levels. However, the effectiveness of these practices is questionable, as well as their spread to meet women engineers’ needs in the sector.

Work-life policies and initiatives include options of working part time, opportunities for remote work and homeworking, as well as flexibility in scheduling and planning tasks. Today, these practices and approaches can be observed in many UK firms because of leaders’ and managers’ attempts to make working environments more attractive to women and to guarantee their productivity (Meiksins et al. 2018; Powell, Bagilhole & Dainty 2009). The implementation of these popular practices is grounded in the preference theory and assumptions that the majority of women want to balance their domestic and work responsibilities. However, McRae (2003, p. 586) criticises this approach stating that “women with essentially the same preferences for work and family can experience very different outcomes as they make choices in the light of the situations in which they find themselves, as women, wives, mothers and workers”. Therefore, a more individual approach to considering women’s needs without stereotyping is preferable.

The problem is that the absence of work-life policies does not provide female employees with a chance to harmonise personal and professional lives, and this aspect negatively influences women’s achievements. However, on the other hand, not all researchers view the focus on work-life initiatives as beneficial for all UK organisations because many women remain to be deprived of opportunities for promotion (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018). The implementation of the most popular policies oriented towards work-life balance can lead to women’s dissatisfaction instead of their commitment and career advancement, as it is noted by Fernando and Cohen (2013) with reference to the example of highly skilled Sri Lankan female professionals. The problem is that such practices as counseling in the workplace and improved leisure time, as well as social after-work events, are perceived as useless because women are required to spend even more time at work. On the contrary, women tend to accentuate that the possibilities for remote work and flexible working hours can contribute more to their performance and the development of their career. However, these opportunities are rarely proposed to female workers depending on organisational policies.

Therefore, family-friendly policies and practices need to be implemented depending on women’s needs in a particular organisation. It is important to develop practices with reference to female workers’ desires and expectations to stimulate their commitment and productivity. Thus, in most cases, female employees in the engineering sector are interested in part-time and flexi work, but these opportunities are rarely provided to women in UK organisations (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2019). Additionally, women often prefer to get longer leaves as well as working from home (remote work) (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018; González-González et al. 2018). If these policies are adopted in engineering organisations, it is possible to contribute to women’s professional development and their career advancement. Although work-life policies are actively discussed in the literature as effective means to stimulate women’s work in organisations, it is necessary to state that much attention should be paid to the efficient implementation of the associated strategies to achieve better outcomes.

Inclusion

As it is stated in the academic literature, in addition to promoting diversity in companies, it is also necessary to guarantee the inclusion of female employees in the workplace. According to Cardador (2017), it is important to distinguish between diversity and inclusion practices, as well as between inclusion and exclusion practices and policies. The focus of managers should be on guaranteeing that all employees, regardless of their gender, age, race, status or other their attributes, are treated fairly, and they are all provided with equal opportunities to be promoted (Fernando & Cohen 2013; Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2019). In this context, the emphasis is expected to be on the inclusion of female employees into the workplace dominated by males through giving women access to managerial and leadership roles (Cardador 2017). In the field of engineering, this approach to integrating inclusion practices can be viewed as rather effective because women in engineering organisations need support and proof that they fit their companies.

This approach to realising inclusion practices that is based on the accentuated promotion of women in organisations also provokes much critique in the literature. The problem is that, taking powerful roles, women also face challenges associated with gender inequality in engineering. Thus, such promotion to managerial positions in the context of the inclusion practice can have the effect of “reducing women’s identification with the focal profession, validating pervasive gender stereotypes and fostering work-life balance tensions—factors that may ultimately make the pipeline for female engineers more tenuous” (Cardador 2017, p. 598). Fernando, Cohen and Duberley (2018) explain this paradox with reference to gender stereotypes because women are not perceived as effective leaders in a male-dominated sector. There are significant inconsistencies between the attributes of women associated with their gender and the expected roles and behaviours of a leader in an engineering company. From this perspective, this inclusion practice should be applied through carefully assigning high-role responsibilities to women to accentuate their competence and demonstrate their success to male team members (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018). In this case, it will be possible to overcome potential negative consequences of the strategy.

Another similar inclusion practice is associated with forming role models in the male-dominated workplace. On the one hand, this approach is similar to promoting female engineers to managerial roles and changing their power status; on the other hand, this passive and less obvious practice is more fitting male-dominated settings. Women often fail to perform successfully as managers or leaders because of their fears regarding “the apparent incompatibility of motherhood and engineering” (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018, p. 489). As a result, they need role models to see how it is possible to combine the responsibilities of a leader, an engineer and a mother. Thus, “role models worked as symbols of possibility for women engineers, offering inspiration and removing uncertainty by demonstrating that other women have combined a career in engineering with domestic responsibilities” (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018, p. 490). Still, in order to guarantee that the sector of engineering has effective role models for women to attract them to this field and demonstrate their competence to men, it is necessary to assign leader responsibilities to these women.

Having assessed the variety of inclusion practices used in management, researchers and practitioners propose to focus on the following techniques and strategies that are perceived as most beneficial for women in the engineering sector. These practices include the provision of opportunities to perform high-level roles of a leader or a manager in a company, without discriminating women in engineering as less competent than men, support and feedback (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018). The practice of giving opportunities for promotion is the key one to address stereotyping regarding women’s capacity to work as engineers and take leadership positions in this sector. However, referring to the reviewed academic literature, it is necessary to find the balance between using the practice of promotion of women to higher roles as an inclusion or exclusion technique (González-González et al. 2018). Another effective practice is the focus on role models for women to follow in an engineering field to understand that they have enough skills and resources to achieve work-life balance (Fernando, Cohen & Duberley 2018). To achieve successful inclusion in a challenging working environment, women need to be given opportunities to choose flexible schedules.

Conclusion

The factors that can hinder women engineers’ career advancement include their enculturation, sexualised visibility and stereotypes regarding women’s incompetence. In order to overcome these obstacles on the path to career development and promotion, it is necessary to implement and follow certain practices in UK organisations belonging to the engineering sector. Thus, in spite of the fact that many workplaces in the United Kingdom, and the engineering industry in particular, are male-dominated, organisations can effectively promote highly skilled women and facilitate their career through diversity management practices, the implementation of specific work-life policies and various inclusion approaches. Still, in the academic literature, there is no single opinion regarding the effectiveness of these policies and practices. Although they are mostly viewed as efficient and recommended for male-dominated settings to support women’s careers, there are still difficulties and challenges associated with their integration into these complex environments. Therefore, managers need to pay much attention to selecting the most appropriate approaches to integrating the proposed diversity, work-life, and inclusion practices into engineering organisations.

Reference List

Acker, J 1990, ‘Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: a theory of gendered organizations’, Gender & Society, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 139-158.

Cardador, MT 2017, ‘Promoted up but also out? The unintended consequences of increasing women’s representation in managerial roles in engineering’, Organization Science, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 597-617.

Choudhury, B 2015, ‘Gender diversity on boards: beyond quotas’, European Business Law Review, vol. 26, p. 229-239.

Fernando, D, Cohen, L & Duberley, J 2018, ‘What helps? Women engineers’ accounts of staying on’, Human Resource Management Journal, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 479-495.

Fernando, D, Cohen, L & Duberley, J 2019, ‘Navigating sexualised visibility: a study of British women engineers’, Journal of Vocational Behavior, vol. 113, pp. 6-19.

Fernando, WDA & Cohen, L 2011, ‘Exploring the interplay between gender, organizational context and career: a Sri Lankan perspective’, Career Development International, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 553-571.

Fernando, WDA & Cohen, L 2013, ‘The rhetoric and reality of home–work harmonization: a study of highly skilled Sri Lankan women from public and private sector organizations’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 24, no. 15, pp. 2876-2893.

González-González, CS, García-Holgado, A, de los Angeles Martínez-Estévez, M, Gil, M, Martín-Fernandez, A, Marcos, A, Aranda, C & Gershon, TS 2018, ‘Gender and engineering: developing actions to encourage women in tech’, 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), vol. 1, pp. 2082-2087.

Hakim, C 2006, ‘Women, careers, and work-life preferences’, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 279-294.

Hertz, R 2007, ‘The myth of work-life balance: the challenge of our time for men, women and societies (by R. Gambles, S. Lewis and R. Rapoport; reviewed by Rosanna Hertz)’, Community, Work & Family, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 337-340.

Kenny, EJ & Donnelly, R 2020, ‘Navigating the gender structure in information technology: how does this affect the experiences and behaviours of women?’, Human Relations, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 326-350.

McRae, S 2003, ‘Choice and constraints in mothers’ employment careers: McRae replies to Hakim’, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 585-592.

Meiksins, P, Layne, P, Beddoes, K, Martini, G, McCusker, M, Rideau, R & Shah, Y 2018, ‘Women in engineering: a review of the 2017 literature’, Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Magazine, vol. 26, pp. 336-370.

Peers, S 2018, ‘Statistics on women in engineering’, Women’s Engineering Society, vol. 1, pp. 1-12.

Powell, A, Bagilhole, B & Dainty, A 2009, ‘How women engineers do and undo gender: consequences for gender equality’, Gender, Work & Organization, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 411-428.

Click Here To Order Now!