In conversation with… Female leaders
The Rockwell Automation Fair took place in Philadelphia, USA, in November 2018 and I was one of the South African media representatives fortunate enough to go and touch base with the global engineering industry. As part of my personalised conference agenda, I had the chance to chat to two female leaders in the company and hear their views about how manufacturing companies can create a more diverse workforce.
Tessa Myers and Rebecca House, Rockwell Automation.
My targets were Tessa Myers, VP for North America sales, services & solutions and Rebecca House, senior VP and general counsel for Rockwell Automation. Myers is responsible for all the company’s customer-facing resources in the US and Canada, overseeing 1500 employees, and has been with the company for 20 years. She is an engineer by qualification and has worked extensively in product management and development.
House has a legal background and was a law firm partner earlier in her career, but now describes herself as a “business person with legal expertise”. She plays a broad role at Rockwell Automation, overseeing the legal team, public and government affairs, global physical and information security, product safety, compliance, and environmental health and safety.
With little prompting, House jumped into our topic, something she is clearly passionate about: “In the manufacturing sector, women are woefully underrepresented. In the US it’s less than a third, and in areas outside the US it’s around 20%. When you look at the business case for the manufacturing industry to include women from the top down, study after study has shown that publically trading companies with diverse boards – teams that have women in them – make better decisions and drive better business results. We are long passed the time of it being a business imperative – you’re going to get to a better place if you have difference perspectives and life experiences around your table.”
Myers, addressing the workforce crisis in the manufacturing industry, added: “If you look at the manufacturing sector in much of the developed world and even the developing world, not only is there a skills crisis but also a record unemployment rate, and there are a significant amount of jobs available in manufacturing. We are at a critical point. New technology can help in changing the way that we work, but ultimately if we are tapping into less than a third of our female workforce, manufacturers should be looking at how to get women into their organisation. Representation is a key way to not only make better decisions, but to have access to the talent that manufacturers need in order to operate better.”
She said that there are four things that the manufacturing industry needs to do. The first thing is to attract more young girls into STEM-related fields. “It is important to get young girls engaged and build a pipeline of girls who have an interest.” “How young is young?” I asked, because I believe many initiatives are doing a disservice by only looking at youth in secondary and tertiary education. I was pleased to hear she was in agreement with me: “I think you have to start really early. A lot of studies show that by the time someone is in sixth grade, you’ve pretty much lost them in terms of STEM.”
Myers’ second recommendation was that the perception of manufacturing has to change. “The perception that people (young girls, their parents, and society at large) have as to what manufacturing is needs to change. A lot of people picture a manufacturing operation as dark, dirty, dangerous, highly-repetitive, and mindless work and I think manufacturing today is actually really high-tech, clean and safe, and is an innovative industry offering really interesting types of work.”
Thirdly, said Myers, young women need to see role models. “Girls need to see women in the industry who are succeeding and enjoying the work and making an impact. Having role models in both STEM and manufacturing is really important.”
Finally, Myers said that even if a company does all the work involving the first three suggestions, none of it will make any difference without an inclusive workplace. “If your workplaces aren’t inclusive and aren’t a place where everyone can feel like they can do their best work, you won’t keep the women there. This has been a huge focus for Rockwell Automation and we have had success around making our workplace inclusive.”
House provided some more detail on this: “This is something we can have direct control and impact over in our global workforce of approximately 23 000 people. The approach that we have taken is different than many other companies”, she said. Instead of working solely on empowering its female staff, the company has worked extensively with its male employees, educating them and generating awareness. “It has been a ten year journey from when we started implementing this and it really starts with education and understanding the different life experiences. It is important to get them to understand that the dominant culture in corporate America and in manufacturing is white male culture – it’s not good or bad, it just is. Understanding what that is, and educating men and giving them training and awareness around what that means, and how their experience in the workplace or personal lives is very different to other people’s, has been Rockwell’s focus.”
Myers concluded our discussion with an excellent point: “Cultures never change if the dominant group isn’t a part of leading that change.”
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