Girls Just Wanna Have Jobs

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The construction industry generally has struggled to attract more women into jobs.  In a bold move, Northern Building Plastics has challenged this - with impressive results.

In the last 18 months, the number of women working throughout Northern Building Plastics depots and its Leeds based HQ has increased.

 “We believe the jobs we have are not ‘male or female’, but traditionally the roles had been predominantly filled by men and it was men that were applying for the positions.”

– Zoe King 

HR manager, Northern Building Plastics

Looking at the adverts

“As we were not getting interest from women for jobs at our depots, we looked at the beginning of the recruitment process. We analysed the words we were using and could see that they were biased towards men,” continues Northern Building Plastics’ King. “That is why we focused on changing the way we worded our recruitment adverts and social posts to make them less exclusive.

“It’s certainly worked. When we changed to more neutral wording, we saw a significant increase in the number of women applying for positions. It gave us a bigger pool of people to choose from and the high quality of the female candidates has meant we have taken on more women in the last 18 months for jobs in the sales office, warehouse and as a driver at the Hinckley Depot.”

Bigger conversation

King adds: “Being part of the construction industry, we know that there is a much bigger discussion about getting more women to fill not just support roles but hands on positions and trades. We have proven that making changes brings positive results.”

Picture: An equal opportunities for women policy at Northern Building Plastics has paid dividends.

Article written by Cathryn Ellis
17th June 2022

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