Gender in the workplace - Warwick Social Science Business Forum

• Jess Phillips - MP for Birmingham Yardley
• Dr Dulini Fernando - Associate Professor, Warwick Business School
• Dr Erika Kispeter - Research Fellow, Warwick Institute for Employment Research

Key Panel contributions from

•  Tracey Westall - Non-executive member of the Department for Transport Board

• Jonathan Duck - CEO Amtico International

Chaired by Cllr Ann Lucas OBE

Please could all attendees register by emailing Tony.Carroll@warwick.ac.uk 

Dr Dulini Fernando

Women face considerable obstacles within the engineering profession with the reasons that they leave being clearly evidenced. However, we know less about what enables them to remain. Dulini will explore how a group of British women engineers in two FTSE 100 companies account for “staying on” in their male dominated work settings. Four specific forms of help are established that facilitate women's retention in the field. Dulini will argue that exposure to help leads to women developing a framework of thinking and actions that enables them to carry on in engineering profession. This analysis is used to identify HR practices that can facilitate supportive relationships in the workplace and ultimately lead to a more positive organisational climate.

Dr Erika Kispeter

Erika has a background in Gender Studies and she is interested in how women and men's working lives are shaped by the labour market, work organisations and the welfare state. She has conducted research on the barriers to military spousal employment in the UK; the state of sexism in UK schools; and the impact of local welfare systems on women's labour force participation in the UK and in Hungary. Prior to her post-graduate studies Erika worked for a women’s rights organisation in Hungary that supports victims of domestic violence.