What Will It Take to Diversify the Engineering Field?

Description

Embracing diversity in the engineering industry is essential for fostering innovation, solving complex global challenges, and creating a collaborative work environment. Yet, despite engineering offering opportunities for all, what is causing the limited adoption of diverse employment in the sector?

Joined by Sadie Peacock, Products Engineering Manager at Renishaw, we dive into the importance of diversity in engineering and explore how a range of perspectives can fuel innovation and create stronger, more inclusive solutions. From overcoming barriers to fostering supportive environments, our guest shares powerful stories and insights on how we can make engineering a space for everyone, regardless of background.

Items referenced in this episode:

→ Renishaw

→ INEOS Sailing

→ British Cycling 

→ Cardiff University Metrology Lab

Chapters

→  Why is diversity so important in engineering and manufacturing? (00:53)

→  How do varied perspectives improve innovation and adaptability of engineering teams? (03:03)

→  What does an engineer look like? (07:00)

→  What factors are contributing to the low adoption of diverse employees in the sector? (09:04)

→  How is Renishaw working to attract and keep a diverse range of talent? (15:35)

→  How might a diverse workforce shape the future, and what effects could it have? (22:45)

→  Your one wish to engineering and manufacturing leaders? (28:15)

Episode transcript

Alex Edwards 00:05 

Hello and welcome to the Protolabs inspirON exchange podcast, the show for engineers and designers to connect with industry leaders and academics to learn more about what's happening in the industry, how to innovate, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Today, I'd like to focus on what an engineer looks like and particularly the current position in manufacturing and their potential in this ever changing industry. I'm joined by Sadie Peacock, Proucts Engineering Manager at Renishaw, who has years of experience working in high pressure assembly manufacturing environments and has a passion for driving new and diverse talent into the industry to drive results. Great to have you on today, Sadie.

Sadie Peacock 00:44 

Yeah. Thank you very much for having me. I'm looking forward to discussing the topic.

Alex Edwards 00:49 

Yeah. Likewise. So, I mean, let's jump straight in then. We've spoken on this podcast a lot about this the skills gap and, you know, the manufacturing industry genuinely, you know, the skills gaps well documented. But I wonder-understanding your opinion sort of the importance of diversity in engineering and manufacturing. Why is that so important, and how will that help tackle the skills gap?

Sadie Peacock 01:02

Yeah. I think for me there's there's two main reasons why it's important.

There is a shortage of people in the manufacturing industry, especially engineers at the moment anyway. So it's about increasing the workforce in general.

The second thing for me is the benefits that diversity will bring. So if you go from a baseline of assuming that everyone has sort of the same intelligence levels and the same capability, then if we are just picking our pool of talent from one one small sector of society, it means we're missing out on all of those highly capable individuals with different cultural backgrounds, different genders, different demographic backgrounds. And the industry just doesn't get to benefit from all of their great ideas, and all of their great capability as well. So for me, that is why diversity is so important for the industry.

I think also it's a bit of a moral thing as well. I love working in manufacturing, specifically in the engineering side, and I think everybody deserves to have the opportunity to work in a career that I find so fulfilling. So, yeah, I think it's both in my mind, it's both for the benefit of the industry in terms of increasing numbers, and increasing the quality of the people we have, working in the industry, but also for individuals to have the chance to be involved in such a fulfilling sector.

Alex Edwards 02:41

Yeah. It's really interesting that you mentioned there about having those varied perspectives, being that sort of generationally, culturally, genderly, if genderly is even a word, but gender based. Rather than it just being about, you know, broadening that net just in order to get more talent in from anywhere, just in order as a means to an end, really, to fill the gap. What do you think those, what's the upside to those varied perspectives, particularly around sort of innovation and adaptability of engineering teams?

Sadie Peacock 03:11

Yeah. So I think as I've worked with more and more diverse groups of people, it's opened my eyes as to how people just approach things differently. And it's the difference in their experiences and their background that cause them to see a problem in a different light or see a solution in a different way. So as a bit of an example, I spent some time out in India as part of my job, in our manufacturing plant that we have, within Pune, in Renishaw.

And what I found really interesting about the factory that we have out there and the culture of the Indian staff is they are, they're a very highly educated workforce, but they're very, very meticulous and very, very organised. And they take great, great pride in their work. We do in the UK, but it is a different level in India, I would say. And what we could see from the way they'd set up their manufacturing processes, and some of the process controls that they had in place. They were they were well beyond what we had thought of in the UK.

And I think because of the society and because of the culture of doing things really to the absolute best that you can and and sort of going into all of that detail. It meant that there was lots of things I took away from from visiting that factory in India and thought, actually, if we changed our way of thinking a little bit, then then we could approach problems in a slightly different way. And in some situations, that would result in a better solution. So after after that visit, sort of getting some of our Indian colleagues more involved in helping us think about the way we're approaching, process improvements and quality control and that and that sort of stuff. That was really beneficial to share the different approaches, and make sure we came up with, the- ultimately, the best solution. But you kind of sometimes you need a different group of people to help you see that maybe your way is good, but it can be improved.

And rather than trying to think of it all yourself, if you share ideas with other people who have different backgrounds and and different driving values, then it makes all of that stuff so much easier.

Alex Edwards 05:19

Yeah. I mean, that it's fascinating, isn't it? And to look at, you know, how you can, sort of not just learn from what's around you, but almost have the, the confidence to really embrace that continuous improvement mindset, you know, whether it's looking within your own network and some of your own factories or whether it's even what maybe some other competition are doing or somebody in a completely different industry.

If there's something that you can take from it, then, you know, it's a good culture to have. So it's you you've just sort of set me on a thought there when you've mentioned about sort of end engineers. In in your mind then, what what does an engineer look like, or what does a career in engineering look like?

Sadie Peacock 05:59 

Yeah. Just before we go onto that, I just wanna pick up on something you said there about, like, having the confidence to. Yeah. Having the confidence to change the way of doing something and do what someone else is doing. I think that is sometimes a big thing with change. People are naturally quite defensive of their own ways of doing things. They want to defend the choices that they've made up until that point. And that can cause sometimes a bit of hesitancy to change. And I think that's what diversity can can bring for us. It can help us to understand that while we might have some ways of doing things, they won't necessarily you know, there isn't one way of doing things. And by being exposed to more and more different approaches and seeing the value in those, I think it can help people in general just be more open to a changing approach. And I think that's also really important with the question you were just asking about, you know, what does what does an engineer look like?

So I think at the moment, the workforce is quite- Homogeneous is maybe a bit harsh, but there is certainly a large percentage of the workforce that come from a similar background. There may be you know, in terms of percentages, I think in engineering, sixteen point five percent of the workforce are female, for example. So the majority of people you see, certainly within engineering, are are one type of person. And that can lead people to assume that the way that this group of people does things based on their experiences, that that is the right way to do things. And it it's a bit sort of, I would say, self perpetuating because you see an engineer and you think, oh, this is how this is what an engineer looks like, and this how they approach engineering.

Males- there's lots of sort of studies on the behavioral differences between between men and women, but men do tend to come across as more confident in lots of different settings. And so what can happen, I think, is people assume that this confidence that is exhibited by engineers is actually an inherent requirement of being an engineer.

When actually, I don't think that's the case. I think you can have a very confident engineer who's excellent at their job. But I think you can also have a more reserved person who is more thoughtful and isn't the first person to sort of speak up and share their ideas, who is equally competent, sometimes more so than the person who's, you know, overtly confident. But sometimes those skills are under under recognised, under appreciated because there is an inherent expectation of how an engineer should behave. And when someone doesn't behave like that, it's perhaps seen as wrong or not what an engineer should look like. And I think that's the challenge that an industry has when it's making the transition from being one type of person to a more diverse diverse workforce.

Alex Edwards 09:00

Yeah. I totally agree. And I think the thing that that we always come across, you know, if if you ask me what's a career in engineering look like, you know, if you'd ask me before I got into it, I'd said the same thing. You know, I'd have for engineers, so it's an aging male, working on the shop floor doing, you know, working away engineering. But in reality, I've worked in the engineering sector for a long time, and I'm not an engineer, not a manufacturer.

You know, I'm in marketing So it's interesting that there's all these different fields that sort of fall within the engineering and manufacturing space. With with all of those sort of subsets and different roles that are in there, what do you think is causing the sort of lack of, adoption of diverse employees in the sector?

Sadie Peacock 09:46 

Yeah. Good question. I think a lot of it is the inertia. I think in terms of the hiring practices in the industry, people tend to value the things that they're good at. So if you have a recruitment panel, all of one type, and they value certain behaviours and certain, you know, there's an unconscious bias about, like, similarity bias or familiarity bias, which is why more and more companies are doing sort of blind screening for recruitment, because you you're naturally drawn to people who are more like you.

Sort of the the self affirming kind of stuff. So I think I think that doesn't help, in terms of the reasons why the industry might struggle to change. Why is it like it in the first place? I think manufacturing has changed loads over the past sort of number of decades. And whereas the majority of it did used to be heavy industry before, I think that has changed quite considerably. There's still a lot of heavy industry, but there's a lot more of the kind of engineering that I work in, for example, which is is precision manufacturing, we would say. So we're we're looking at the majority of our product portfolio is small. You could you could pick up most of our products with one hand.

And the kind of engineering we're looking at is much more on the smaller scale. So it's precision measurements. So we're looking at measuring sort of microns, and we're using optics to do that. So rather than lots of heavy machinery, we need things like clean air rooms and processes that are gonna handle optics very carefully. And I guess the- maybe it's the the pace of the change that the industry's seen, that the sort of promotion and the marketing and getting that update out to society just hasn't hasn't caught up.

But I certainly know that for me, my assumptions on what manufacturing and engineering looked like before I joined the industry was exactly what I think everyone else thinks, sort of the the hard hat, the, high vis jackets, the dirty kind of environment, all of that sort of stuff. Because I studied physics at at university, so I wasn't really clued up on what engineering or manufacturing looked like. And it wasn't until I actually saw a job description and thought, this looks like exactly the kind of stuff I wanna do, but it's under a title of sort of manufacturing engineer, which I didn't think that was for me.

So, yeah, it wasn't until looking into the detail that I myself sort of realised that, actually, yes, this is what I was looking for. So yeah. That's maybe the pace, maybe the change. Maybe it's difficult to get people in because people value things, that they see as familiar with themselves.

It it's really interesting how you sort of first hand, you know, you've came from sort of that physics field and and looked at it and thought, well, a career wouldn't be for me. So, you know, you can imagine how many, copious amounts of people that must be making the same, assumption.

Alex Edwards 12:47 

I think it's interesting that you made that point there about, like, the stock image, conception of manufacturing of, you know, hard hat on the dirty shop floor. In reality, you know, all the different sub industries within there, you know, it differs massively.

Are there any more sort of big misconceptions that you think people from sort of diverse backgrounds or people that are maybe not typically, involved in the manufacturing industry already or engineering industry. Do you think there's any more sort of major misconceptions that you're up against?

Sadie Peacock 13:20 

I would say manufacturing specifically, I think it's seen as quite, fast paced, maybe like cutthroat, competitive environment. So I would say, in some ways, that is a misconception.

It is definitely a fast paced environment, but the kind of teams that we have, as part of our manufacturing group and this kind of support that people provide each other is really integral to being able to deliver, you know, the customer orders that we need on time, good quality. So one of the things. Yes. It is a fast paced environment, but I find that that really brings people together.

It's not it's not, like, cutthroat. And, it can be stressful at times, but I think the fact that everyone's in the same boat and everyone's working under the same pressures can really bring people together, and creates a really nice team environment. You all have a very clear shared goal, which is often on quite a short timescale. So it really focuses the mind.

And like I say, brings people together.

Whereas I think maybe other parts of engineering have more challenges in terms of a shared goal because there's lots of different, different objectives and different things that different teams want to achieve. But in manufacturing, that is all that's all really sort of boiled down and really clarified for you because that is the most important thing. Everything sort of points towards getting that good quality product, out the door for the customer.

Alex Edwards 14:51 

Yeah. Totally agree. I think, it's an interesting point that you made earlier around, marketing- businesses marketing themselves and sort of branding themselves to show a true reflection of what, sort of a career in the industry, could be. Naturally, you know, for a company like Renishaw, you know, it's gonna be a lot easier.

They'll be, I'm sure there's a lots of initiatives that you guys have to try and get people in and to showcase what a career looks like. It's probably more difficult for sort of smaller manufacturers, sort of down the supply chain to actually sort of spend some resource on doing that. Is there anything that sort of you guys at Renishaw are doing, sort of in your unique position, in order to try and attract more diverse talent?

Sadie Peacock 15:41

Yeah. I would say, two main things that's probably worth talking about.

In terms of the kind of products and stuff that we invest in, there's there's quite a few, initiatives isn't the right word, but there's quite a few, projects that the company have got involved in to help with understanding and to help with recognition of the company. So, there's various sporting things, like the INEOS sailing team and the British cycling team as well, where we've used our technologies to support the creation of equipment for these groups. And it's not like the day to day stuff we do. We're not day to day making making bikes, but, we've teamed up with, different, other companies or whatever, in order to support them and give a bit of a boost to engineering as well to explain how important engineering and manufacturing is to these to these sorts of, situations.

And these sorts of very relatable, things that people will know about. You know, most people have watched the Olympics, at least one event. So it makes it a lot more relatable to know, actually, okay, manufacturing and engineering has gone into making this bike, which I'm then watching, race in the Olympics.

16:58 Alex Edwards

Yeah. It it's an interesting point. We were only having a conversation, within the marketing team recently, at Protolabs about, you know, some of the things that we get involved in, you know, some of the products or some of the projects. You know, if you actually you kind of become numb to it. Like, we just talk as if it's nothing. But then if, you know, if you go home and sort of tell family members or friends, and they go, oh, like, you know, that's that's pretty interesting.

And you- we kinda get so drawn into the sort of the individual component that you might be making rather than the bigger picture of what it is. And I think that's probably the way, you know, to sell a career to people. It's you know, you're not making a a spring. You know, you're playing a role in, you know, creating a, I don't know, a lunar rover or something flying to the moon, or it's that bigger picture piece that I think we've got to sell.

Sadie Peacock 17:47 

Yeah. Absolutely.

And then the second thing that I would say Renishaw are doing is, linking up with, like, universities.

To help enhance the education courses so that they are industry focused and that the skills being learned are then gonna be directly applicable to industry. I think, again, that that's mutually beneficial because it means for the students getting that, enhanced, training and, learning through their course, they're gonna be much better equipped to join an engineering company. And then on the flip side, the engineering companies are gonna have a much easier time of recruiting and onboarding, these students because they have they have the skills and they have a bit of a heads up on, what kind of stuff actually happens in the industry. So, yeah, we do a lot with, with Cardiff University. They actually have a a metrology lab, a Renishaw metrology lab, which some of the students do, like, final year projects on to help give them a good appreciation of, yeah, what kind of stuff Renishaw does, and how they can use, like, industrial equipment to solve problems.

Alex Edwards 18:58 

Is it only, I mean, it's a great initiative. Is it at the moment, is it only sort of people in those STEM subjects for now that are being targeted, or is it, you know, is it creeping out into the the broader subjects?

Because, you know, it's you almost think how far do you push it because you could be doing an accountancy or a finance degree or qualification and go and get yourself a pivotal role in a engineering business. Where are you sort of are you sort of tackling the small bits that you can for now, or are you going quite broad?

Sadie Peacock 19:29

No. That's a really good question. So I would say in terms of, like, specific focus, and equipment and support on projects, that is that is very much focused at engineering.

But in terms of our recruitment strategy, so there's we do a lot of what we call early careers recruitment at Renishaw. So that covers graduate schemes, industrial placements, summer placements, and apprenticeships.

And when we are recruiting for these, we cast the net wide, I would say, in terms of the educational background that we're looking for. So rather than I think we've always taken from, obviously, engineering and physics. But over the past sort of five years or so, we've expanded that right out to sort of any technical subject, anything scientific, anything that can show that you have the mathematical knowledge and the capability to learn. And then we can do the rest of it as part of our our graduate scheme or our apprenticeship or whatever. It's about getting the people with the right capabilities and the right attitude. And then we can teach them the specifics of the role and the specifics of the engineering side of things.

And certainly, I was lucky enough to, be given that opportunity and have that approach applied to myself when I joined, because I didn't have an appreciable amount of hands on experience when I joined the company.

And so I needed a lot of training on what lots of engineers would see as quite basic stuff.

So things like, I don't know, screws and pitches and heads on screws, all of this sort of stuff it is not particularly tricky, but it was all just brand new to me.

So it was all stuff that I had to learn from the start.

But by being a bit more open minded in terms of the background that people have when we hire them, I think that really helps ensure that you are getting that diverse range of people with diverse backgrounds.

 Alex Edwards 21:25

Yeah. I mean, like you said, it's easy once you know it. But, yeah, I mean, you you're there doing a degree in in physics. So, you know, the does it get much more complicated than that? But it does go to show you that how daunting it can be, you know Yeah. To change, like we said, going into somewhere where you've almost got to start again and be comfortable with that vulnerability. But, to start introducing that earlier in the in the process should really help facilitate that change over.

Yeah.

I think In terms I think.. Go on...

Sadie Peacock 21:56 

Sorry.

Oh, no. I was just gonna say, I think in terms of that, another benefit that we found is that if people are willing to embrace change from maybe, let's say, a different scientific background to move into engineering, it means that they're often also more comfortable with other sorts of change that might happen in the business and to build a resilient workforce, that's gonna drive forward the business objectives. We want people who will respond to change and they will embrace it. So I think by getting people in from different backgrounds who are willing to embrace the engineering side of things, we're almost setting ourselves up in good stead for the future to have those people who will then push change further and and push innovation, which is what we're looking for.

Alex Edwards 22:42 

So that's leads me on to the next point, really, which is, you know, five to ten years passed by. We've really truly embraced diversity within, the workforce. What do you think the impact of that will be? And what do you think the industry will look like?

 Sadie Peacock 23:01

So I think once we have a diverse workforce, it will be easier to- much, much easier to maintain. So I think yeah. Hopefully, once once we get there, once we get to the point of diversity, we'll be able to move forward.

What would the industry look like?

I guess.

 Alex Edwards 23:22

Or maybe not so sort of physically sort of what would it look like as in watching the impact of it would be.

Sadie Peacock 23:30

Yeah. Okay. I think I would like to think the impact would be that the engineering and manufacturing solutions that come out are improved and sort of productivity and efficiency, all of that sort of stuff is improved.

I would hope that people, get more work life balance, more job satisfaction as well.

From some of the reading I've done, I think it's been interesting to see the impact that diversity, especially in terms of management, has on the enjoyment and the job satisfaction of the workforce.

There's been various sort of studies and stuff that have been conducted, which actually show that women broadly prefer having a female manager to a male manager. But also men, preferentially, would have a female manager compared to a male manager. And in my mind, that isn't that isn't necessarily because of the genders. It's because of the behaviors that society has encouraged within women. And so what I think we have to learn from this is, yes, people people want an empathetic manager. They want someone who's gonna understand and listen to them, and feel feel valued.

And what we can look at if we have a more diverse workforce is hopefully taking appreciating the differences between people's ways of working, understanding and recognising where the strengths are, and then taking that forward to make the workforce even better in the future. So so it doesn't become women are better because they're more empathetic. It becomes, okay, men have recognised that empathy is an important part of leadership, and women have recognised, that being assertive is another important part of leadership. So the gender divide becomes less of a thing, and we just end up with excellent female and male managers, because the diverse workforce has allowed all of this sharing.

Alex Edwards 25:35 

Yeah. I think that's it, isn't it? It's a harmony, and it's about the idea of sort of creating, getting more, talent within to the, into the industry no matter what the background.

And it's an interesting point there. You know, straight away, my mind went to, the actual practical, aspects of engineering as opposed to, like you say, the soft skills and some of the actual business and commercial, management side of things. Yeah. So that's even more to throw into the mix.

Sadie Peacock 26:05 

Yeah. I think in terms of retention as well, it's and keeping keeping hold of your employees.

So much has changed over the past sort of ten years with the massive explosion of social media. It's so much easier to hear about other job opportunities now, and to be headhunted for things on various social media like LinkedIn or to see other opportunities, whether that be another role or whether that be, you know, a previous colleague and seeing how well they're getting on and, that pushing you to want more for yourself. So I think this sector has an extra challenge in terms of the competition from other businesses as well, and the fact that employees, they aren't as likely to stay put as they used to be.

You know, previously, you would have people staying in a single company for their whole career. Whereas that that just isn't as common anymore. People are much more comfortable with moving around to maximize their what they get out of out of a situation, which I think that's why I think the the sort of retention and the environment that you create within a company is so important even for something like engineering. Because if you want the best people, you have to give them a reason to stay. And that's why I think diversity is, yeah, is really important. And that's why I think it will change the way the industry looks in five, ten years' time.

Alex Edwards 27:34 

Yeah. It's a it's a perfect point, really. You know, you mentioned about not only the opportunities to sort of leave the business, but then even to stay within the business, you know, if you look around and look above you at, you know, career path and where you can actually go, if there's no one that, you know, if there's no path for you or there's nobody in those roles that, you know, that you can sort of relate to, you think, well, you know, I'm not like that. Am I gonna be able to be a head of engineering or or what have you? But the more and more people that go in, the more people will actually be able to sit tight and think, you know what?

I've actually got a root here.

Sadie Peacock 28:10 

Yeah. Yeah. That's so true.

 Alex Edwards 28:12

So final point then. If you've got a sort of a one wish and of manufacturing leaders, what would you ask them to do today to sort of make the industry more welcoming, inspiring, or inviting, for talent?

I thought save that one till last.

Sadie Peacock 28:34 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've covered I've already covered some of the main things that I think I would like people to do. But I can definitely summarise those. Being more open minded about what your future employee needs to look like, understanding any unconscious biases that you maybe already have.

I think valuing diversity as well, that's a big one. Especially in manufacturing, a lot of the work that's done is very sort of metrics and output driven. And while diversity does ultimately improve that for a company, it's not quite as tangible as some of the other things that you could be investing time in. So I would encourage people and leaders within manufacturing to seek out the benefits, and understand them for themselves.

Yeah. I think those would be the main things. The open mindedness, addressing unconscious bias, and, yeah, reaching out to proactively understand diversity and proactively bring that into their organisation. Don't wait for it to come to come to them telling them about all the good things. I would want people to go in and understand how it can benefit them and then proactively look to implement that.

Alex Edwards 29:56 

Yeah. Sure. I wouldn't be able to pick a top one out of those either. I think if we if we land on any of those, we'll be in a good place. So let's hope that they do in the near future.

Thanks for your time today, Sadie. That's all we've got time for, but thanks for coming on and sort of sharing your insights, and thanks everyone for listening.

Don't forget to subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode, and head over to the Protolabs website for more information, including details around how to collaborate with Sadie or any of the guests that have been on any of the episodes.

That's all until next time. See you soon.