Use downturn as opportunity to tackle oil and gas industry gender imbalance, says expert

Firms should be considering the extent to which family friendly policies, such as flexible working patterns and shared parental leave, could be introduced within their organisations as part of a broader drive to attract more women to the sector, according to offshore employment law expert Katie Williams of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.

According to the latest employment survey by Oil and Gas UK, the offshore industry body, women make up around 23% of the UK oil and gas industry workforce compared to a 47% national average. Looking only at offshore staff, only 3.6% of the workforce is female. Yet research has shown that increased female representation can bring a range of benefits for companies including access to a larger talent pool, better financial performance, increased productivity and better market responsiveness, according to Williams.

"Against the backdrop of a low oil price and announcements of job cuts it may seem strange to be advocating that employers should be attracting and retaining more women into the industry, but I believe they should be using the law as leverage to do just that," she said.

"In the North Sea, the focus is now on realigning organisations to create sustainable businesses for the future. Strategies which could increase performance and competitive advantage should be highly relevant. My argument is that gender diversity should be considered as one such strategy. By introducing flexible working and shared parental leave it could boost the number of women in the sector and there is legal entitlement which allows positive action, but which is underutilised," she said.

"Employers will say there is absolutely no scope for flexible working in their organisation, and of course I am not suggesting that offshore shift patterns could be overhauled to make them more family friendly. But if these themes are rejected in their entirety without any exploration of potential business benefits in certain contexts, it could be a missed opportunity," she said.

The right to request flexible working, previously only available to parents with children aged under 17 and certain carers, was extended to all employees with over 26 weeks' service last summer. Eligible employees can now request a change to working hours, working time or working location once every 12 months. Employers must deal with all such requests in a "reasonable manner", and can reject them on the basis of one or more of the permitted reasons set out in the Employment Rights Act (ERA). These include the burden of additional costs, effect on ability of the business to meet customer demand and inability to reorganise work among other staff.

Williams said that it was understandable if oil and gas firms only sought to comply with their minimum legal requirements. Oil and Gas UK's latest economic report estimated that 65,000 jobs, or 15% of the total, have been lost across both the industry and its wider supply chain since the start of 2014, while the price of oil had dropped below $50 a barrel. However, it was clear that the industry needed "radical" action, she said.

"The continuous cycle of cut-cut-cut in hard times, and recruiting back when things improve, seems to me to be unsustainable and we now have an opportunity to do things completely differently," she said. "Other sectors like financial services have demonstrated the business case for greater gender diversity is quite compelling and it would be foolhardy for the oil and gas sector not to consider it."

"The various legal entitlements provide tools for leveraging these decisions, but ultimately oil and gas employers must consider going beyond compliance and forge a way towards increased female representation and gender equality. The industry has proved itself to be adaptable and resilient many times before, and this should be welcomed as one facet of the significant challenge in the coming years," she said.