Tag Archives: diversity

Why Women Drivers Matter

mary_barra_changeOn International Women’s Day one’s thoughts can happily turn to our own gender, hopefully without someone feeling the need to tell me there’s no International Men’s Day.

Well there mightn’t be but so what? If I want to write about women, celebrate feminism, praise the achievements of my gender, the new Women’s Equality Party and/or remind everyone why women matter then so be it.

Men have been patting themselves on their backs for years and that’s fine by me. But today it’s our turn and sadly the gender news in the motor industry isn’t as self congratulatory as it might look to those that don’t know how to scratch the surface here.

But let’s take this step by step…

1) The economic importance of women drivers

As you know, my blog is about women and motoring (by and large) so you can expect me to confine my comments to this area. So it’s worth reminding ourselves that the number of women drivers on UK roads will soon overtake that of men on our roads. So that’s close to 50% of all car tax, insurance and fuel payments/taxation straight away. We were at 47% of license holders last year for your information…

Then let’s add in the fact that women buy about half of all ‘new’ cars in their own right, influencing as many as 80% of all cars bought*. By influence, that’s when ‘he’ chooses the car but says to the salesman ‘that’s what I want but my wife/partner needs to approve this before I pay’. In the US they say this female influence accounts for as many as 90% of car sales. And some car dealers put this at 100%, based on evident experience (and a wicked sense of down-trodden humour I suspect).

* estimated as two million brand new cars and some five million used cars.

2) The female motoring multiplier effect

The point of this massive consumer motoring influence is that this also represents jobs in manufacturing plants, jobs in UK car dealerships, in garages and automotive suppliers – as well as the spin off effect of the jobs created to serve the expenditure from these jobs and so on. So what women buy (or not?) influences jobs and the businesses that do best and so on.

At FOXY Lady Drivers Club we feel the female shopping effect particularly strongly when it comes to buying garage services today. Like the many cars women are increasingly buying online (rather than going to unfriendly garages/car dealerships) an increasing number of busy females are shopping for MOT’s, car servicing and both mechanical & bodywork repairs online, often at night, for the family fleet. Even if those women then delegate the test drive and/or garage visit to a male (that’s another story for another blog…).

3) Is our fantastic motor industry as good as it could be?

Let’s look at the key statistics taken from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) excellent Facts Guide (2015).

+ The UK automotive industry turnover was a cool £69.5 billion in 2015
+ There are more than 32 million cars on our roads
+ More than 1.5 million cars were built in the UK in 2014
+ 2.47 million new cars were first registered in 2014
+ Nearly 800,000 individuals are employed in the UK automotive industry
+ 7 out of 10 F1 teams are based in the UK
+ 80% of the world’s largest automotive suppliers are based in the UK

Impressive figures for sure but let’s remember – this is the industry that we women are paying our fair share towards and much as I’d love to carry on crowing about it, I can’t because it doesn’t represent our female needs. But it should.

In a nutshell this industry needs to be a lot more female friendly than it is. Too many women prefer visiting dentists than garages. Recent research** suggests 90% of a Mumsnet and Reevoo female sample would not go car shopping without a man and women are three times more likely to report an ‘awful’ than ‘excellent’ experience in a dealership.

How can this be good enough for such important customers I have to ask?

**See Different Spin research.

Don’t you think we women deserve better than this guys, when you see why we should matter so much more to you?

4) The missing female industry talent

Whilst it’s International Women’s Day and a chance to celebrate our female influence in the automotive industry I’m sad to end this blog on a negative note, although this can become a future positive given genuine intent.

In a recent film project involving ITN, the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) suggests that a woeful 2% of jobs in this industry are occupied by women. I was horrified and have questioned this. Can it possibly be so low?

Accurate or not, diversity needs to be a top level strategic Board agenda objective and reported on annually by both the SMMT and the RMI (Retail Motor Industry Federation) about their respective memberships. We should surely benchmark best gender practice wherever we find it, to encourage the many laggards here to get their act together, once and for all, to represent female customers (and future employees) in the Boardroom. Only then will the ambitious female talent pipeline have somewhere appealing to head for in this industry rather than the many more female friendly career destinations we compete with.

5) Quotas are needed in the motor industry

I suggest we measure this gender outcome in future International Women’s Days to come. Quite frankly I’m not interested in Lord Davies’ token 25% gender targets now. We’re too far behind to follow his footsteps gently. We need an urgent and determined stride towards the only gender metric that really matters – 50:50. And we’re SO far away from this goal in the UK automotive industry that I can’t see us getting there without QUOTAS.

If I’m wrong, and I’d love to be, pray tell me how come waiting for the female creme de la creme to rise to the top of the automotive industry naturally hasn’t happened to date? And why it would do in future without benchmark quotas to meet? It certainly isn’t because we aren’t good enough.

If you are against quotas (as I was originally) please work out how long it’ll take to be fair to female employees and customers if we don’t impose female quotas? But don’t tell me you would only want to be chosen ‘for being the best’ because you aren’t even in the final selection process as is…

How can 2% of jobs allocated to women in any industry be fair enough or suggest that any women who were chosen in a future quota aren’t good enough (or even the best) to too many male Board members who clearly don’t want any sitting at their top table?

As I see it, the time is right for gender quotas in the automotive industry and not just in the UK one either. I don’t see the industry has a choice unless women continue to let it get away with this any longer.

By all means tell me what you think via Twitter @FOXYSteph or info@foxyladydrivers.com.

And if any automotive businesses would like my help to get on the female radar ahead of others, be sure to get in touch with me via my personal website.

FOXY

NB: Our country earns a similar amount of motoring-related tax as it spends on defence, and twice as much as we spend on education it seems. I also wish more women voted hence my support for the Women’s Equality Party.

Dragons Den Devey and Diversity

Last night Dragons Den’s Hilary Devey aired some fascinating gender issues in a BBC programme called ‘Women At The Top’

What impressed me most was that she started out thinking that the status quo was a female choice but she soon changed her mind faced with clear evidence that a 50:50 gender balance (in her own company) was more profitable for the employer and probably a happier place to work. All this and to be told by gender consultant Avivah Wittenberg-Cox that she’d used her female strengths to benefit her business running her ship her way or else!

Of course real life isn’t an ideal world in any male dominated industry like Hilary’s logistics one and we’re much the same in the motor industry. A few feisty females in top Board positions but we’d probably struggle to make 5% let alone 50% as an industry average for Female Board Directors overall. Having said that I do think things are getting better in a few female friendly working environments, especially at middle management and in customer service roles.

Queen Bee by nature or nurture?

Undoubtedly Hilary is a Queen Bee in her business and industry. She knows she has brought fame and fortune to her business by virtue of her gender and talents but she doesn’t promote that when advertising for staff. I think she’ll change this now because if she would like to recruit the best person for the job, this means including females, and women like to see ‘women like them’ (or women to aspire to be) in their employer of choice. This is a lesson other male dominated businesses should address where they can, as well as promoting other female friendly credentials to potential recruits.

It isn’t good enough in my book for high flying females in male dominated industries to say ‘I haven’t found any discrimination in my career’ when it’s obvious that it exists all around them when they look. What they should be asking themselves is ‘what have I done to make this business a more female friendly place for others to follow in my wake?’

The way I see it, female Board members, no matter the industry they work in, need to represent the best interests of their customers (a likely 50:50 male:female split) and to get customer services right they must address their needs and expectations. This often means influencing the culture of a business from within especially if it is such a male dominated one as in the motor industry. Clearly the business case suggests that diversity needs to be a top level strategic objective for Boards; I have yet to find it to be so in the motor industry.

Is it worth the journey to the top?

Women who read this and who work in a naturally female friendly industry like fashion, health and beauty, won’t get this or appreciate the different business culture in a male dominated industry. This is where women have to fight to get to the top, often by being more blokey than the men they are competing with. But they shouldn’t have to do either; their talents should be nurtured, recognised and appreciated. But nurturing, recognition and appreciation aren’t natural male jargon whereas ‘demanding’, ‘relentless’ and ‘gravitas’ are the more likely terminology, as the financial recruitment adverts discussed in the programme illustrated. The ideal recruit clearly was a man!

But when she finally gets to her Board Nirvana, that’s when the fun and games can start, especially if she is the first female there. She doesn’t think like a man and if she’s there to be make up the numbers she won’t be listened to when she has a different point of view. In such instances she won’t last the course and she’ll consider herself a failure whereas it probably isn’t her fault. And the male status quo merchants will nod wisely because they always knew a man would have done a better job!

The female choice

It’s not a one sided game of course. Women can have babies and they can have a career. Yes they can have both and it can be done. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of the employer.

Hilary returned to work soon after having her son and I did too after 6 weeks. Needs dictated we both did. Neither son has suffered I’m sure but we both probably wish we could have spent longer in that unusual and special state of motherly euphoria.

But we’re talking about real life and I believe that some women can be more honest with their employers after the birth of their child, knowing how generous maternity and paternity leave is today. I’d like to see those that plan to return to work for a SME appreciate the sacrifice that employers make to keep their job open for them. This is a costly exercise but worth it in the end for them both of course. Those that can resume some sort of work at an earlier stage, using technology as I did, should start to do so if only to show an employer that she is doing her best to say thank you – and for having chosen a family AND a career. Those that have no intention of returning to work after the child’s birth do their gender a disservice by waiting until the last moment to let their employer down.

That’s when childcaring Mums (or Dads but there are fewer of them) have to settle for a job not a career; like the 4 out of 10 Mums with degrees who accept lower jobs than they are capable of.

For me the star of the show was Proctor & Gamble who showed that a huge organisation could turn its culture around in ten years, making it the female friendly employer it undoubtedly is today. Easier for big companies than small said Sir Stuart Rose (ex of M&S) but I can’t help thinking that having a committed female at Board level, with a mandate to achieve this in the UK, was a key factor in leading this change.

What next?

I hope leading luminaries in the motor industry were watching this programme and took it seriously.

Next week Hilary looks at ways to make businesses, including her own, more female friendly including the matter of whether to impose quotas to get to the magic 50:50 formula.

Happily the business case is clear but when the Mum at Ford spoke about feeling guilty when she left work at 5pm for family reasons (and then worked c3 hours that evening after her children went to bed) I can’t help thinking that the way to retain the best staff has to do with a more flexible outlook towards technology.

But either way, let’s embrace diversity everywhere in British business, making a start at Board level in the many male dominated industries that remain, including the UK’s motor industry. We need the improved ROI that women can bring.

FOXY

The high price of female success

We all know that we can’t have it all but there often seems to be something in the female genes to suggest we might, if we simply worked a bit harder… and then a bit harder.

From personal experience it seems to me that women face more risks than men today when they set out for the top in their chosen industry.

One risk is that married women might put their career before their marriage and end up professionally successful but living alone. Which might be preferable for some of course…

Another is that women returning to work after maternity leave may feel the need to opt for part time roles so they can fit in their childcare and home responsibilities.

And I’m sure we all know or have read about women who delay starting a family until it’s too late and live to regret this. Of course some don’t regret this at all, but with women delaying their families until they’re financially better off in their 40s, it’s statistically much riskier to give birth then than in their 20s and 30s.

The final risk I see is that successful females end up being the success they crave but don’t recognise the person they have become to get there, as US singer-actress Fanny Brice explains so well…

“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where will you be?”

Aren’t these career risks the same for men?

I don’t think men face the same career risks. Those I know who are ambitious, successful and keen to have a family seem to have rolled out their career carpet at an early stage and chosen a partner who supports their ambition, appreciates the lifestyle rewards and is willing to play second fiddle to her husband. Having thought long and hard about this, I honestly don’t know any men who took time out from their careers to be full time Dads (time off to help when the baby was born, yes) compared to the many Mums that do. And finally, very few men seem to suffer anything like the same feelings of guilt that women do, trying to juggle home, family and career responsibilities.

Many of these risks evidently exist for ambitious women in the motor industry whether they are at the top, getting close to the top or simply starting at the bottom. Despite it being generally agreed that more women are a good thing in the industry, few leading businesses seem to have diversity at the top of their strategic agenda and few female school leavers and/or graduates seem aware of the exciting career opportunities they could be enjoying in this male dominated industry.

How do women in the motor industry see this?

I am often intrigued when women at the top of male dominated industries say they haven’t encountered discrimination on the way up. They probably haven’t because they’ve had to be exceptionally talented to get there in the first place. But they’d have to be blind to see that this isn’t true for everyone, including women who perhaps aren’t quite as exceptional or dedicated. And mightn’t the sacrifices that these exceptional females have made be deterring other very talented women from following in their wake? There are still so many motor industry Companies without even one female Executive Board Director, as things stand.

The reason this matters is because women in influential and customer facing roles can be seen as role models for tomorrow’s leaders, in an industry that needs to be seen as a more female friendly place than it is today, to please the gender spender, the female shopper.

At present too many women see garages and car showrooms as places to avoid, where you need to take a man with you for support, or where you need to enter with guns blazing for fear of being patronised and/or ripped off.

Hear, hear Fanny Brice. Nobody can have it all in life, of course, and I’m only speaking for me but I’d like to see women being encouraged to be the women they are, not men in skirts (as it were).

Let’s celebrate the fact that men and women work best together (as in marriage) when it’s seen to be a partnership, not a battle of the sexes. That’s the success we should all want to work towards in business, with women playing an equal part alongside men. And if this requires changes to business culture and/or working hours to help women, in particular, through their family years, then so be it.

FOXY