Filling the Manufacturing Gap with Women in the Workplace

As the manufacturing industry continues to grow, two million jobs are vacant, and today, manufacturing lines and facilities are mostly male-dominated. According to an article from Gallup, women can help solve the manufacturing gap.

Twenty-nine percent of employees in today’s manufacturing industry are female. Many companies are making efforts to increase that percentage. For these efforts to succeed, facilities need to first understand what women value in the workplace. From there, officials can make adjustments to their organization to incorporate more assets that are attractive to this demographic.

What Women Want (on the Job)

According to Forbes, two of the four factors women look for in the workplace are a healthy and safe environment and a place where they feel autonomous. Feeling “safe” means many things nowadays; while females require their fellow male coworkers to treat them with professionalism and respect, they also desire a workplace where they feel physically safe from harm. For most people, a manufacturing facility with heavy machinery and equipment isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about safety.

Manufacturing is not a place where people typically picture women working. This is perhaps because of the “dangerous” environment, or because people generalize that women and heavy equipment don’t mix. However, production facilities are transforming with the digital age, making them a space where both genders can thrive amongst technology, innovation and efficiency.

The Key to a Safe Facility

Empowering women in the workplace starts with making them feel safe and confident to do their job and do it well. Ingersoll Rand provides smart, safe and connected solutions for manufacturing plants with tools like the QX Series Ergonomic Tightening System (ETS). It has an ergonomically-enhanced motor control algorithm to minimize the force experienced by the operator, protecting workers from injury. On top of the safety features, the ETS is simple to set up and intuitive to use, which gives the user control and helps them feel autonomous with the tool quickly.

As women start to learn more about today’s manufacturing industry, and how the days of hand tightening/fastening are over, they can feel empowered to step into a safe role where the technology is intuitive, easy to use and will keep them out of harm’s way while on the job.