Case Study: Occupational Segregation

BT’s workforce is 23% female, but their Modern Apprentice campaign does not attract this level of female applicants. Indeed, the percentage of women working in engineering roles is much lower and the company is focussing on its engineering recruitment campaigns to increase the percentage of women applicants and recruits. Their research has identified that one of the reasons why young women do not apply is that they do not perceive an apprenticeship as a good idea.

BT has now changed the name of its apprenticeship programme to ‘Career Start’, undertaken targeted marketing campaigns and used the experiences of existing female apprentices and engineers to describe the reality of being an engineer at BT.

As well as attracting more female apprentices, BT is also working to increase the number of applications and recruits in its mainstream engineering recruitment campaigns. The company has set aspirational targets for the percentage of female applicants to engineering vacancies (10%) and has worked closely with its people suppliers to monitor progress against these targets. By very clearly briefing people suppliers and challenging them to attract more female applications, the number of applications BT is receiving from women is on the increase.

BT has also reviewed the recruitment phase. Recruiting managers have received equality and diversity refresher training and some simple changes to the selection process have been made. For example, practical tests are now undertaken with full instruction so that potential employees are tested on their ability to assimilate and apply instructions rather than on their previous knowledge

BT is looking at other ways to raise awareness and address the issue of job segregation within the company and in the wider community. For example, it runs an annual ‘Take Your Daughters to Work Day’ on which existing employees are encouraged to take their daughters to work if they work in a traditionally ‘male’ role. Many employees also bring their sons to work on this day if they work in a traditionally ‘female’ role

The percentage of female applicants and recruits into apprenticeships and engineering roles is increasing. Close monitoring of performance (weekly) regarding applications received helps focus everyone on what is trying to be achieved

Conditioning, such as parents and societal expectation, means that when considering their career plans men and women often consider a different range of industries. This means that doing nothing when advertising engineering vacancies will result in fewer applications from women.