Some of Britain’s biggest automotive companies have today pledged
that women will represent 30% of their workforce within the next
six years, in a bid to drive gender diversity across all roles
and levels. The commitment by the Automotive Council, whose
members represent 99% of British vehicle manufacturing and half
of the UK’s automotive workforce, is a significant short-term
challenge given that just under 20% of the sector’s workforce is
today female. 1 For an industry that prides itself on
innovation but which must address some fundamental changes in
terms of technology, skills and disruption, fixing this shortfall
is essential if it is to have future success.
The initiative comes as the Council today launches a
new best practice guide, Shifting Gears: How to
better recruit and retain women in the UK automotive
sector, to provide forward-thinking businesses across
the industry – from car
and commercial
vehicle manufacturing to supply
chain and the aftermarket – with
the tools needed to improve gender
diversity across all levels. The report is just one of
the sector’s initiatives to drive
positive change, after the Council last
year launched industry’s
first ever Diversity Charter. As more
businesses double down on their commitment to
ensure their practices
and workforce are representative,
progressive and inclusive, Charter signatories have
since grown by a fifth.
Delivering a more diverse, equitable and inclusive (DE&I)
workforce is critical, not just to deliver social change but to
boost business performance. DE&I is an issue of
competitiveness and can lead to demonstrable improvements in
productivity, supporting top talent recruitment; raising employee
satisfaction, decision making and creativity, and increasing both
profitability and value creation. DE&I is, of course, not
only limited to gender, with other aspects including age,
disability, ethnicity, neurodiversity, race, social mobility and
sexual orientation, and Automotive Council members are also
continuing to implement additional measure to address any
representation shortfalls that exist among these groups.
Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive and Chair of the
Automotive Council UK Competitiveness and Business Environment
Group, said, “With so much change taking place
across the automotive sector, recruiting the brightest and the
best is essential to the future success of the industry.
The industry has often been perceived - and the facts back
it up - as male dominated. We need to change this quickly; gender
balance is not just about ‘doing the right thing’, it’s
demonstrably good for business. The sector should always be
representative of the communities in which it is based and the
societies it serves so addressing gender imbalance is
non-negotiable.”
With some 14,000 new jobs having been created or expected as
a result of UK automotive investment in recent months, there
has never been a more exciting time to join the
industry, for people of all ages and backgrounds, from
school leavers to career changers. From producing electric
cars to repairing hydrogen trucks and
developing increasingly automated
vehicles – there is a broad range
of cutting-edge opportunities for prospective recruits
to find their dream job. With the
automotive sector already facing an acute skills
shortage across all levels and roles, the industry must
ensure it is attractive to - and recruits from - every section of
society if it is to ensure it has the very brightest and the
best.
The 27 Charter signatories commit to take action in eight key
areas with the aim of accelerating progress across all aspects of
DE&I within their own companies. These include
introducing robust diversity and inclusion practices, a
board-level champion and improving recruitment practices to
remove bias, encourage diversity of applicants and increase the
diversity of talent pipelines at every level. Businesses in
the automotive sector interested in becoming
signatories can contact the Automotive Council
secretariat here for more
information.
