Thousands of female university students are ignoring careers in the automotive industry according to a recent Autocar survey.

A tiny 3.5% of female university students interviewed would consider a career in the automotive industry although an encouraging 35% said they might do, possibly in an attempt to please their interviewer…

However that still leaves nearly 2 out of 3 females who aren’t interested in a career in the UK automotive industry compared to the majority of male university students who are (61%).

I am not surprised. The main reason why there are so few women in the UK retail motor industry is to do with its perceived image in female minds.

Whilst much has been done by the IMI in particular to encourage women into engineering roles and to train them to move up the ladder, little has been done to address the overly blokey attitude of the 80%+ male workers in this industry. This blinkered and often offensive attitude, that we all know exists, needs to change in line with female needs and expectations of a modern business today.

Why would any woman want to fight her way through an industry that can be so offensive (if you listen) and with such a poor record of females reaching senior management or Board positions.

If this image is to change, the UK motor industry needs businesses with more females at Board and senior management levels. Of course the women that have made it to the top already are very special and have proved it can be done but to get there they have had to be resilient and focused to cope (and turn a blind eye) with the testosterone and patronising behaviour so typical of this industry. Not all females can be that bothered…

And it should be said that this image is unfair and damaging to the many genuinely female friendly businesses we know exist…

The sadness is that few men recognise this image and successful females forget that few females are as focused or as fortunate as them.  In my experience the industry seems to think it is non-PC to favour females and seems to prefer to educate the customer in her dealings with the industry rather than the other way round.

I see it differently. Looking at garages and dealerships for starters, the industry is dysfunctional as it exists with such a male bias; we all kid ourselves if we think women (the gender spenders after all) want to be treated like men.

So something must be done to bring our motor industry up to date and to restore a more healthy female:male gender balance. The business case is clear –  women want and expect more than men from automotive employers and the retail motor industry businesses we deal with. Trying to understand us would be a good idea…

I suggest we

• put more oomph into the IMI’s Automotive Careers Champion network with a dedicated marketing campaign for young women that doesn’t make it seem as if we should be technically-literate
• investigate new channels to explain to young females how exciting a motor industry career in marketing, sales and personnel can be
• encourage more female NEDs from outside the industry; tasked to make individual businesses (manufacturers, dealer groups, trade associations and individual businesses) more female friendly from the top down
• encourage businesses to recruit and invest in more (of the right) female staff ie let’s have less of the ‘experience needed’ self perpetuating gender adverts when the likes of a simple systems training course would have the right female up to speed in little time and a fresh insight as a bonus

In short there is a need to train employers in the motor industry how to be MORE FEMALE FRIENDLY businesses and employers.

Let’s see how the two female judges in the 2011 Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award go about encouraging female automotive talent this year. As the pre-launch survey confirms women lack confidence in their dealings with the motor industry and need mentoring and encouragement. Otherwise they go to employers and into industries where they clearly feel more at home.

Which is totally understandable but a great loss of potential talent for our industry in many instances.

FOXY