Across the ecosystem of facility management, the statistics are disconcerting. Only 16 percent of engineers in Australia are women. The percentage of women mechanics employed within the air-conditioning and refrigeration sector sits at two percent. Female representation in trades is a mere three percent, with some trades such as plumbing and welding showing an abysmal one percent female employment.
Over the last decade, many suggestions have been offered to address the imbalance. These include repositioning the profession as collaborative, creative and people-focused; eradicating, or at the very least minimising, unconscious bias in promotions and hiring; and ramping up industry outreach initiatives, school awareness programs and mentoring opportunities to stimulate early-career employment in this field.
All of them are valid approaches. For a grassroots change to really take effect, however, we need more women in senior facility management roles, defining the right approach to attract, retain and grow the number of women in the sector.
That’s exactly what our C-suite cover story stars are doing daily, with their work impacting tens of thousands of employees. The viewpoints that you will read (pages 18-23) are diverse. These are women working in several aspects of facility management – legal, government portfolios and high-profile asset management, among others.
The common message that you’ll notice among them is a recognition that women need to be better represented in the industry. These five women aren’t waiting on that change, but are taking deliberate and measurable actions to be the change.
On the subject of change, elsewhere in this issue read our features about aged healthcare facilities (page 24) and the burgeoning build-to-rent sector (page 12). Both sectors have rapidly evolving laws and regulations by which facility managers must abide. Done right, the opportunity for growth for those working in those fields is immense.
Beyond aged care and build-to-rent, another sector where legislation, regulation and risk management are merging to define a new way forward is cybersecurity (page 30). Read our exclusive feature on that subject, with practical tips on what facility managers must do to stay ahead of the knowledge curve.
None of what we know, learn or assume to be true about the industry’s future will really matter if we can’t first increase the number of women participating in the industry.
Enjoy the issue.
