The numbers don’t lie – currently women make up 16 per cent of roles in the mining industry and 14 per cent in the engineering profession, however, recruitment and retention remain challenging.
Studies have recommended what should change so workplaces are more diverse and inclusive so women want to stay. But there is little information on how to successfully make the changes.
Jocelyn Peltier-Huntley’s PhD research at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) is exploring how companies can effectively turn recommendations into action – by creating allies to drive change within their workplaces.
“Past efforts were sometimes about taking those minority groups and trying to fix them or help them fit in to the dominant culture,” says Peltier-Huntley. “But it doesn’t actually help change the culture if we’re just trying to fix women within the workplace and help them be more assertive, for example. Trying to shift that dominant culture is where my research is focused.”
How did a mining engineer end up researching workplace culture?
After earning her mechanical engineering degree from USask, Peltier-Huntley worked in mining for 13 years, until 2017. When she started out, she was often the only woman in the room and didn’t always recognize when sexism, bias, or discrimination was occurring.
“It wasn’t until I was working in an organization that had close to 30 per cent women and I started to see all these things that I had experienced happening to other people – that’s what made me notice how women were being treated differently.”
Peltier-Huntley decided it was a problem that she wanted to look at more closely – and take a shot at solving.
“I decided to pivot to try to make a bigger impact on the world; to make some change happen,” she says.
The International Minerals Innovation Institute (IMII) and Mitacs, which links academia and industry, were both interested in addressing the problem and are helping to fund the project. Peltier-Huntley also received a 2021 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, which provides $150,000 over three years.
How do we know there’s a problem with workplace culture in mining?
For her master’s degree, Peltier-Huntley did a nationwide survey that 540 people responded to. They reported 250 incidences, half of which Peltier-Huntley labeled as discrimination, the other half she categorized as harassment.
“Discrimination was maybe a one-off comment here or there. Harassment usually was more personal, and was repeating, so it was more like bullying. Sometimes there were a few instances of physical contact and sexual assault,” she says. “The majority of the issues were communication – it was verbal, it was written. And most of the time, it’s not being addressed. In only about 22 per cent of the incidents did people actually report them formally. In less than one per cent of the cases the aggressor ended up leaving the organization.”
How can we begin to change workplace culture?
In her PhD project, which has included liaising with an industry steering committee, Peltier-Huntley is exploring an Equity Activation Model with four stages.
Awareness: Becoming aware of the impacts of inequality – “People are at different stages of awareness, which can mean they’re not aware of challenges that other people face. People that are less privileged and experience more barriers, they’re probably going to go through these awareness stages first.”
Support Seeking: Questioning and seeking understanding – “The next stage is to seek support in different ways, look for answers; someone may question their own sense of identity, how they fit into the environment around them. The risk is if it isn’t done well, this is where the leaky pipeline happens. If you’re an under-represented person within a workplace and you have a negative experience and then you go to seek help and you don’t get any, then you’re probably not going to stick around there for a long time.”
Realizing: Events marked by skills growth, finding community, and acceptance – “If the right supports are there, then people go on to want to learn and question and grow. It involves a lot of learning and un-learning, often doing it with other people, and finding acceptance and confidence in who you are.”
Leading Change: Active allies practice inclusion and equity champions shift systems – “Once people have the right skills and are equipped and motivated, then they’re able to lead change and really be active allies, practicing inclusive behaviours and supporting others. Some people even have equity, diversity, and inclusion in their job title or they’re really motivated to create new organizations to help shift systems – those are the equity champions.”
Peltier-Huntley’s next step will be taking what she’s learned to date and developing some training that she will pilot within the USask College of Engineering before doing so on a larger scale at a Saskatchewan mine site.
Ultimately, she is seeking to see behaviours change among the large “middle group” in a workplace – the people who are not early adopters, but who aren’t opposed to change either.
“What might be the key for people in mining and engineering is thinking about the importance of psychological safety, as they already understand that health and safety is really important. If they think about those instances where they faced challenges, especially over the past couple of years with the pandemic, they may think about a single mom working 12-hour shift work at a mine and ask, ‘What barriers may someone else experience that I don’t?’,” says Peltier-Huntley. “It’s shifting people’s perspectives, understanding that some people maybe have more challenges than they do and asking ‘What can I do as an active ally to support you in achieving your full potential?’. Often it’s in those small, everyday interactions that we can help create psychological safety and work to shift workplace culture to support everyone.”
