I have two daughters, Elizabeth (currently 15) and Jemima (13). Elizabeth gleefully tells me that next year she will turn 17 and will be able to start to learn how to drive. How did that happen? It seems like only yesterday that I was bathing her in the sink of our kitchen in our tiny house, and Jemima was still only a glimmer in my eye. They've grown up so fast. Too fast.
The question that was recently asked of me (at the IEEE in Toronto) was 'Would you encourage your daughters to work in the cement industry?' As it happens, Elizabeth is quite able in mathematics and has already said that she is interested to become an engineer (she is attracted by the availability of engineering jobs, by decent pay and by the prospect of rapid promotion, partly on the basis of her being a woman). However, if she was to study engineering at university, there are innumerable paths that she would be able to chose that would take her away from cement. And as her father, would I really advise her to choose the cement path?
Looking around at the IEEE conference in Toronto, you could be forgiven for believing that there is a bar on women entering the industry (and that applies to other 'minorities' too - but that's for another time). The proportion of female delegates - and I presume that the delegates reflect the proportion of workers in the wider industry as well - was miniscule, by my count perhaps 2%. However, there was a good representation of women on the speaker roster, with Clotilde Rossi di Schio of Turboden and Carrie Yonley of Schreiber & Yonley Associates/Trinity Consultants particularly impressive speakers. Sabrina Santarossa, also of Turboden, won the best presentation award at the recent CemPower conference, on a deep engineering topic, and was also a very good speaker.
Over the last few months I've also heard that there are female cement plant maintenance managers and plant managers, particularly in Canada and also in the former Soviet Union. Ladies can obviously 'do' engineering.
Also at the IEEE in Toronto, the topic was raised of the impending 'Retirement Bomb.' This is the idea that the Baby Boomer generation1 of those born between 1946 and 1964 are about to retire and to take their knowledge and contacts with them 'to the grave.' The fact is, they are retiring (people born in 1946 turn 68 in 2015, after all) and, unless they are hired back as consultants - usually on a better rate of pay and with better working conditions, depending on the negotiating skills of the consultant, their level of knowledge and expertise and the level of desperation of the cement company - then they will take their skills with them, hopefully into a long, happy and healthy retirement.
Normally this wouldn't matter, since people retire all the time - they are just replaced by younger people coming up through the ranks. The problem is that younger people just haven't been entering the cement industry at a high enough rate to take over from their ageing and retiring predecessors. That originates from three main factors: Not enough kids take up engineering in school and university; Not enough of those that do study engineering decide to work in the cement industry (semi-conductors or pyroprocessing - you decide) and finally, recruitment into the cement industry has been very low over the last two or three decades, as automation has eliminated jobs and as a series of busts have led to companies letting good workers go (and then not replacing them when times pick up, in order to save money, keep margins low and retain profitability).
So, a lot of people retiring and not enough workers being taken on and promoted to replace them has led to the current situation of 'dead men's shoes' being progressively unoccupied. How can we change this situation? Perhaps the answer is so obvious that it is staring us in the face.
Half of the population out there - women - are not being encouraged to join our industry (or any engineering-based industry). Can they do the job? Yes - as proven by some of the pioneers mentioned earlier. Then what puts them off doing the job? It's a question I have now asked a few of the ladies that do work in the industry. They answered that the long working hours of the salaried employees, the absence of childcare facilities and the lack of support for training (even as far back as schools and university) were significant factors that they have had to overcome before working in the industry.
So, if my daughter asks me for career advice, I would have to say to her, 'Go into an industry where you are assured of good working hours and a healthy work/life balance, adequate pay and childcare facilities on site. If you can possibly get the organisation to pay your way through college in return for a long-term job contract at the end of it (like the army, which she is considering) then so much the better.' Does that sound like the cement industry to you? If not, then shame on us.