The Mining Industry Human Resources Council in Canada has released its latest report on gender in the mining industry.
The study that informs the report adopted a traditional view of the gender model to explore how being a man or being a woman impacts on the experiences of people working in the mining industry. Almost 300 mining employees contributed through an online survey and interviews. They were asked about workplace culture, work-life integration, and career pathways.
The results include:
The report reveals some ongoing issues related to gender in the industry, while also showing some improvements, particularly in women’s experiences, when compared to previous similar reports. For example, while women still have a harder time fitting into the workplace culture of mining, employers appear to be making more effort to respond to issues that make work life more difficult for women.
Critical to the work that Factive carries out in this industry is the report’s recommendation to “Equip managers and employees with the skills required to create inclusive workplaces”. Numerous tools already exist to help achieve this outcome. Unfortunately, these tools are not often designed or deployed to encourage change in understandings and practices of gender. Instead, they can often unwittingly reinforce gender assumptions and practices, particularly when the intent is to encourage men to better support or to better look after women. In our experience, this approach does little to empower women in the workplace, and in fact works to sustain a model of gender that creates many of the problems to start with. The called-for “skills” should include awareness of how the traditional gender model (including how it works in the mining industry) often fosters exclusion.
The full report can be accessed here.