Coast & Country is joining forces with housing associations across the region to promote work experience and apprenticeships in trades to women.
Working with fellow north east housing providers Thirteen Group, Karbon Homes, Gentoo, Livin, County Durham Housing Group and Bernicia, the project is designed to encourage women to apply for traditionally male dominated trades.
Coast & Country’s ‘Bring Your Daughters to Work Day’ provided the opportunity for female relatives of employees who work in these trades to join them for a days’ work experience this summer. Taking part in the event were John Park, Electrician and his daughter Katelyn Brundle, Darrell Bayliss, Electrician and his daughter Aliesha Brown and Carol White, Electrical Resident Liaison Officer with daughter-in-law Laura Wright.
Other housing associations involved in the project will hold a similar day in the October half term holidays.
Catherine Clennett, Head of HR at Coast & Country said: “Although our gender pay gap is minimal, the data we produced for our gender pay gap report highlighted to us that there are not enough women in our trades and related occupations.
“This project aims to increase the number of females employed in the housing sector in what have conventionally been considered as jobs for men.
“To achieve this longer term goal, the project hopes to increase the number of applications from females for trade apprenticeships.
“We want to use strong female role models to demonstrate that gender should not be a barrier to succeeding in a chosen career, and we are committed to listening to our employees to understand if there are any significant cultural improvements we need to make for our property maintenance service to become a more female-friendly work environment.
“We hope many colleagues across the region will take advantage of showing off their roles to their female relatives and help to further break down career gender stereotyping.”