You may have already read today that, in conjunction with some of our readers from dealerships around the country, Service Dealer has established what we're calling The Working Title Group.
As Duncan says, we felt an informal, discussion group might be helpful because at industry events such as our Conference and Awards, it quickly becomes apparent what the dominate demographic of our sector is.
The Group doesn't claim to have any highfalutin aims. The intention isn't to smash the system and reshape the world to any radical political agenda. No, it's simply to discuss the issues that women have faced and are still facing today in the industry; think about why more women are not choosing to join dealerships; and then perhaps plan ways we may be able to offer some practical help.
With the expert guidance of the experienced, switched-on women who comprise the Group, we feel we can at least get a conversation started and then see where that leads.
Changing perceptions
The Group held its first meeting recently, where some home truths were raised.
We heard that ours is clearly a male dominated industry. There are of course women in roles at dealerships around the country, perhaps more often than not in admin or office roles rather than workshop or sales positions. Also these women may well be second or third generation, choosing to enter the family business. The real challenge perhaps, is finding ways of encouraging women from completely outside of the industry to consider joining a dealership.
One problem that our panelists highlighted that can adversely affect their working lives, is the archaic attitudes of certain customers. Apparently farmers or other professionals can often refuse to speak to women working in a dealership. They will try to go around them, asking to talk to a man about their machinery problems or requirements.
Some of our panelists are actually the daughters of bosses at dealerships and this still happens to them. So what if this happened to younger, non-family members of the team, they speculated? They stressed to us it's therefore vital that all women in the business have the complete backing of everyone around them.
We also heard some shocking testimony that male customers have acted a lot a worse than simply refusing to deal with women in the dealership. Inappropriate comments or actions, either in person or over the phone, that frankly would be classified as full-blown sexual harassment, have also been experienced.
We heard that specific types banter within the business is also something that is regularly encountered. Shrugging it off, or giving it back were given as means of dealing with this - although it was questioned why it even needed to come to that?
Encouragingly, we heard that the younger generation of women who come up against behaviour such as this, are not prepared to simply tolerate it. "I'm happy to put up a fight," one of our panelists told us.
What can be done?
Moving on, some initial thoughts were offered as to methods which might be employed to encourage more young women to consider joining the industry?
One quite simple but potentially effective means that more manufacturers might want to consider using, we were told, was to improve the visibility of women in their marketing materials. More images of women in workshop or sales positions when promoting jobs or in their general campaigns, would help towards normalising the idea of women working in dealerships. Certainly some of our panelists spoke of trying to source images such as this from their own suppliers when advertising jobs in their companies - but with limited success.
Also potentially helpful when looking to recruit more women, it was suggested, could be to offer a more detailed breakdown of job requirements. For example, when promoting a service manager position, it could be made clearer that a candidate doesn't need to be a machinery or parts expert straight away. It could be much more valuable to stress the skill-set requirements such as organisational and methodical abilities - something which could be better related to.
Through this sort of approach it was felt that it may be possible to achieve a sales-rep crossover - appealing to women in sales positions from other sectors where representation is naturally higher.
Messaging
A crucial element to getting the right message to potential new candidates, would be how and where the story of what a career in the industry could offer is told.
The consensus was that dealerships need to reach out through social media. Finding the right content combined with the right platform is vital.
It was felt that young women of 16-24 years old would be most influenced via Instagram and TikTok. Whereas there would be greater impact with the 22-32 year olds through YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
The question was posed, what is most important to a young woman who is looking for a job? Is it long-term job security for example? That was probably not their number one priority we heard. More important would be the promise of a fun, dynamic work environment, where they can enjoy their work and interact with friendly people. Therefore it was said what is essential is to pick appealing elements of dealership roles to highlight and to present those to the right audience in the right way. Quite the challenge.
Next steps
The Working Title Group is going to keep meeting throughout the year. Working within limitations, the Group intends work together to test some messaging and content and see what the uptake is.
In the short-term, the Group is considering options on how best to communicate the message to the industry. The intention was stated to also stress the whole angle of diversity and inclusion – because appealing to all young people across the board is of vital importance to the overall health of the industry.
As one of our panelists said, assumptions about traditional roles within dealerships need to be broken.
“Things change when people talk about them”.
