At Lanes Group, we believe that part of running a well-organised and productive team means making sure that every one of our employees feels welcome, supported and able to thrive, no matter who they are or what background they come from.

One of the most important elements of achieving this is ensuring that we are making proactive efforts to expand our female workforce, and creating a working environment where men and women participate equally in creating a strong professional culture. Historically, this is something that the utilities sector has struggled with, and we are committed to being part of the solution to this age-old problem.

Here, we will explore some of the key reasons why we are working hard to create a fully inclusive workplace for women in utilities.

Why are more female recruits needed in the utilities sector?

Traditionally, the utilities sector workforce has been mostly male. The industry has made considerable efforts over the last few years and decades to bring about greater gender parity, but labour market statistics have shown that there is still a lot of progress to be made.

Data from the Energy & Utilities Skills Partnership shows that currently, only 17% of employees in the energy and utilities sector are female, compared to a UK average of 47% across all trades. When looking at the craft-level workforce, this drops to less than 1%, suggesting that there is much work to be done to get women fully involved in ground-level engineering work.

Meanwhile, figures from the Women’s Utilities Network indicate that these issues with gender representation extend to the very top of many organisations. Among utilities businesses reporting their gender pay gap data for 2019-20, the average percentage of women in the top pay quartile was only 18.1%, meaning less than one in five senior-level staff within this industry is female - again, much lower than the equivalent percentage of 40.9% across all sectors.

Lanes’ own internal jobs data bears out a lot of these findings. In the 12-month period between February 2020 and 2021, just under 16% of applicants that applied for roles within the business identified as female. Looking specifically at applications for field-based roles - including drainage engineers, drivers and jetting assistants - the number of female applicants fell by half, to an average of 1.5 per vacancy.

Clearly, this shows that full gender parity within the utilities industry has not yet been achieved - and it is up to prominent employers such as Lanes Group to set a positive example and lead the way for meaningful change.

What can be done to better support women in the workplace?

In order to tackle this chronic problem, all employers within our industry need to be doing all they can to dismantle systemic barriers that may be preventing talented women from applying for roles within this sector.

Here are just a few examples of the kind of support that we believe can make a real difference in helping women feel more included and supported in their roles:

• Examining and tackling gender-based pay disparities and working to eliminate them
• Giving prominence to strong female role models and mentors within the business to give other female staff confidence in their ability to rise through the ranks
• Providing flexible rotas and working hours to make it easier for women to maintain a healthy work-life balance
• Offering childcare benefits to help female staff to accommodate their family commitments alongside their careers
• Implementing robust internal training programmes to give all members of staff the opportunity to develop and grow their skills over time
• Fostering a positive, inclusive working culture that values the voices and contributions of women on an equal level

The benefits of more inclusive workplaces

At Lanes, we believe that the utilities sector has a moral responsibility to create more inclusive, equitable workplaces for men and women alike. However, the advantages of doing so go beyond the ethical, delivering a whole host of key benefits for workers and businesses alike:

• Bringing a wider range of perspectives and skills to the team, allowing the company as a whole to benefit from greater innovation and diversity of thought
• Ensuring that every employee has the opportunity to fulfil their full potential and enjoy a long and rewarding career
• Creating a positive and supportive working environment that improves morale, delivers better team cohesion and fosters true loyalty within the organisation
• Giving the company access to a wider pool of potential talent, preventing the loss of potentially valuable workers to other, more inclusive sectors
• Showing that the company is committed to representing the communities it serves, and proving to conscientious customers that the business shares their dedication to ethical practices

As the UK utilities sector continues to recover after the setbacks caused by the pandemic, all of these benefits should be considered to be “must-haves” rather than “nice-to-haves” for forward-thinking organisations. This is why we at Lanes are optimistic that more businesses within our sector will redouble their efforts to support women in the workplace over the coming years.

Find out more

We have created a new hub page that provides full details on all the work we are doing at Lanes to recruit more female staff members, and the steps we are taking to support our existing employees. Gender is no barrier to a long and successful career at Lanes, and we employ a large number of women in various roles across our entire organisation. Discover how we help women in the workplace here at Lanes.

To hear some personal accounts from female members of our staff on how Lanes has supported them in their careers, click here. You can also learn about the full range of benefits and rewards we offer to all of our employees here.

If you’d like to browse the roles we have on offer at Lanes, explore our jobs today, and you can experience first-hand the work we do to support all of our staff.