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News
President’s Column: Three Ways Our Industry Can Promote Women in Manufacturing
On January 10, The Washington Post published a story that probably didn’t get enough attention: in December, women outnumbered men in the workforce for only the second time in history. The December jobs report also showed that women accounted for the bulk of new hires. Couple that with a growing number of women pursuing STEM fields, and this is a good sign for the future of manufacturing—and for the vinyl industry.
This month is Women’s History Month, which celebrates the vital role women have played in American history. Here at the Vinyl Institute (VI), we’re proud to celebrate this and specifically celebrate women in manufacturing where you’ll hear from some of the women who have helped build our industry—and continue to contribute to our successes. At the same time, we know we have more to do to showcase women’s contributions to U.S. manufacturing and to recruit more women into our industry.
The VI is committed to building a 21st century workforce that provides skilled workers at every level of our facilities and our industry. It’s one of the seven pillars of our 2020–2023 Strategic Plan. To meet our strategic “Develop” objective, we have to focus on getting more women into the job force, into chemical manufacturing, and into PVC.
Here’s how, together, we can recruit, promote and showcase women in the vinyl industry.
3 ways we can recruit, promote, and showcase women.
At the VI, we have made conscious choices to include more women in speaking roles at our events. We’ve also encouraged companies to bring more women in their ranks to the Vinyl Industry Congressional Fly-in and Vinyl360, and to appoint women to participate in our working groups. And, in 2019, we provided three grants to women undergraduate and graduate students to attend the Society of Plastics Engineers’ Vinyltec, the largest vinyl-focused conference in the U.S. Every year we provide these grants; in 2019, all grants went to women. All three said they will explore opportunities in vinyl once they graduate.
As an industry, we must identify ways to develop mentorship programs for women in PVC manufacturing. One way to achieve this is to partner with community colleges in locations where there are vinyl manufacturing facilities. For example, are there opportunities to reach out to, mentor, and then hire women finishing chemical engineering programs in your community?
Finally, we must recognize and honor the women already in our workforce who are doing great things to help our businesses succeed. One way to boost their profiles and their careers is to nominate women in your facilities for a STEP Ahead Award. The Manufacturing Institute’s STEP Initiative recognizes and supports women in science, engineering, production, and technology careers through two programs: STEP Forward, which educates manufacturers on attracting and retaining women employees; and STEP Ahead, which honors the best of the best female leaders in the manufacturing industry. Awardees are honored at an annual awards gala and armed with the tools to pay it forward and inspire the next generation. The 2019 awardees will be honored on April 30. Nominations for the 2021 STEP Ahead awards open August 1.
As an industry, we must do a better job of ensuring that we are recruiting a diverse 21st century workforce. Because the more diverse we become, the more profitable, innovate, and creative our vinyl industry will be.