Increasing the availability of personal protective equipment for women are among keys to bringing and advancing more women in safety roles in organizations, according to a report released Thursday by the American Society of Safety Professionals.
Other areas to focus include offering more advancement opportunities to women and reducing violence against women at work, according to the report, which the Park Ridge, Illinois-based organization says is a follow-up to its Women’s Workplace Safety Summit in October, which zeroed in on the overall lack of women in the safety field.
Only 22% of safety professionals with safety designations are women, according to a 2018 survey that included 10,000 respondents and was funded by ASSP and the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, the report highlights.
“Women make up nearly half of the global workforce and experience occupational risks differently than men,” ASSP President-Elect Diana Stegall said in a statement. “But safety interventions often take a one-size-fits-all approach. This report advocates for gender-specific solutions.”
Addressing the issue, the report narrowed its solutions to three:
The workplace safety industry may still be a man’s world, but women are gradually moving into high-level safety jobs and narrowing the gender gap.