Jill James

This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode is recorded November 28th, 2023. My name is Jill James, HSI's, chief safety officer. Today I have three guests on the show. Monique Parker is Vice President of EHS at Piedmont Lithium. Laynnea Miles is assistant vice president of EHS in the research and innovation industry, and Kristi McClure is marketing director and my colleague at HSI. Late this summer, the four of us created and authored a survey directed at women in EHS roles. The goal was to get a pulse on the challenges and experiences of women working in safety. Almost 900 people responded, including, I suspect, many of you listening to this episode. So thank you. The responses we received highlighted positive experiences, negative experiences, and a few stories that were difficult for us to read. Yet all the responses revealed honest, open, thoughtful survey takers. So with that survey in hand, the four of us headed to the National Safety Congress and Expo in New Orleans, where Kristi facilitated a panel discussion between Monique, Laynnea and I titled Advocacy Allies and Resilience for Female EHS Professionals. We are able to discuss some of the key findings of the survey, and today we're here to share some of the findings with you and to dig into things a bit deeper that we didn't have time to talk about at NSC. And who knows, maybe there'll be more than one episode as our survey takers had a lot to say. So welcome to the show, Monique, Laynnea and Kristi.

Laynnea Myles

Hi.

Monique Parker

Thanks for having us.

Kristi McClure

Great to be here.

Jill James

You are welcome. So Kristi, as you did at NSC, I'd like to pass the baton over to you, and I'm wondering if you could start us off and keep us moving, and I'll try not to be so much of a podcast host for this episode. So can you tell us about a little bit about women in safety, what we learned and who are the demographics of the people who took the survey of those 900 people to begin with?

Kristi McClure

Well, to start off, we did a little research and while women make up almost 50% of the workforce in America, they make up less than 30% of the EHS workforce, and only 22% of certified safety professionals are women. In addition to that, we're still making about 20% less than our male counterparts. And some studies show that pay parity with men, we won't achieve that or women won't achieve that until about 2056. So women in safety are not as common as we would like. Our survey that we sent out, we had, like you said, over 865 folks completed it in late summer 2023. It was anonymous. We wanted to ensure that we get lots of submissions. So it was very brief, mostly clicking boxes, multiple choice questions with an open comment section at the end. And we did get, I think over 250 open comments, folks adding color commentary stories, more information than the questions we had asked. We didn't construct this to be research. We're not drawing conclusions. It was really about awareness and the discussion. We had a wide range of ages. Majority were in the over 35 years old, which is not surprising at a smaller number in earlier in their career wide range of experiences. Quite a few have been in the industry for 20 plus years. So it was a really good cross-section of women in safety for sure.

Jill James

And 20 plus years is about what describes the three of us as well. Monique, how many years have you been in safety?

Monique Parker

I just hit 20 years.

Jill James

Congratulations, Monique, where are you?

Monique Parker

I am in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Laynnea Myles

Yeah. And Laynnea, how many years for you? Going on 20 years.

Monique Parker

And your home state is?

Laynnea Myles

New Jersey, Jersey girl.

Jill James

And I'm at 29 years old, man. I'm the senior member here and I'm on the line from Minnesota. So Kristi, some of the things we didn't get a chance to cover at NSC, let's talk about some of those things and ask us to react to those.

Kristi McClure

You got it. So one question we asked was if being a parent or being pregnant has impacted your career negatively?

Monique Parker

This is Monique. I'd love to go first on this one. I've thought about this a lot. I've reflected on it. I've had many conversations with other women. I will say the word negative always kind of puts a negative, no pun intended, tone to it. But the reality of it is when I was in my career, I did take a step backwards in a role. I went from a regional role back to a plant level role in order to be home more because at the regional role, I was traveling about 75% of the time. And so I do believe that that took me off my trajectory at that time. So obviously if I'd stayed there going to the next level would've been a promotion up with larger responsibility, bigger scope and scale. But going back, I did, I'll say repeat that more regional role again for my next role, even though I had had it because I took that four-year break of not having it. It was not very easy to transition to the level above a regional role as quickly. And so I do feel like there was an impact to my career because of that decision. Do I regret it by no means, but definitely it changed the timeline on which I was able to achieve the level that I have achieved today.

Jill James

Yeah, that's making me, when you describe it that way, Monique, it's making me think of one of the other things that we talked about in the panel was pay equity. And that was listed as the number one challenge for women in safety in the survey. And there's a brand new, a brand new Nobel laureate who won the Nobel in economics on pulling apart pay equity issues with women in the United States for the last 200 years. And one of the things that she said that keeps our pay down or has kept us behind is exactly what you just said, Monique, when we fall into a caretaking role, so whether that's with children or whether it's with family members, we do exactly what you said. You make a decision to take a step back so that you're able to parent and not in your case, it was travel. And so when we make those choices, it has negatively impacted our ability to keep pace with our male counterparts with wages. So I mean, you just said what her study revealed as well, so that's really interesting. As for me and pregnancy, I guess my experience was that I was working for OSHA at the time, and there were very few women who were investigators in OSHA, and I was the first woman that my supervisor at the time had ever supervised through a pregnancy and he didn't know what to do. He came to me and he said, well, how long are you going to be able to work in the field? And I don't really know how to handle this. And so he and I came up with a plan together. We're like, well, let's go to HR and let's talk about what this looks like. And I said, I'll stay working in the field for as long as I possibly can, barring any complications. Here's what maternity leave looks like. So in that respect, we walked hand in hand, my manager and I through what that was. And then the next person, a colleague of mine who became pregnant called me and she said, okay, Jill, how did you do it? Teach me how you did it so I know how I can work with this manager and what does this look like? And so my experience, almost twenty-two years ago, was really teaching my manager what maternity leave was and what women can and cannot do at work, which basically was can do most everything. Laynnea, what thoughts do you have on this topic?

Laynnea Myles

Yeah, so I am not a parent, but it's one thing that I've thought about in particular in EHS, you typically don't have the resources, the bandwidth that you really need. And so it has crossed my mind, if I'm pregnant and then I go out for maternity leave, what's going to happen to my team? Who's going to fill in? Are we going to look down upon or are we going to be even more reactive? How would that look? And for me personally, I have myself, I know Monique, you said negatively. I have looked at it as it would be a negative for me. And so I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that there will be others. There are others that may feel that way too, that it could potentially hurt their career. So it's good and refreshing to hear the both of you, how your perspective was and how you handle it and how did you manage it. And one thing I would say is especially these days in time, companies are more willing in understanding of those who are pregnant. And so you see the changes on even more time with maternity leave and even paternity leave.

Jill James

Yeah, that's shifted.

Laynnea Myles

Yeah, that has definitely shifted. So I'm thinking for me, although before I've had apprehensions and thought it would look negative, it is looking hopeful for me.

Jill James

Kristi, what did the survey results show with this question?

Kristi McClure

Well, 36% of respondents said that it didn't apply to them. Either they're not a parent or have been pregnant, but for the rest, we had 24% that said it impacted their career somewhat negatively, 7% said significantly. And 34 said not at all, that it was fine. So an interesting distribution there of information.

Laynnea Myles

And you know what? I just want to add another point, although I do not have children, sometimes it's looked at in a negative light because, oh, well you can do this. You don't have any kids. Oh, I have to go and take my child to band practice or a sport or extracurricular activity. So you can handle this. The workload is lighter for you because you don't have any children. And I think sometimes people think because you don't have any children, that is the case, but that is not the case because hey, I do have a life outside of work and I do have other things that I am involved in. And a lot of times in particular, this is where that allyship that we talk about women because you never know why a person doesn't have children. And so we have to be cognizant and even sensitive to that matter. So it is important for us to really band together. And if someone doesn't have children, don't knock them for not, or even comments like, oh, well, you have more money or you can go on more trips because you don't have any children. Well, I know people who don't have children who doesn't go on a lot of trips. So I think we have to be really cognizant of that. And whether you're a parent or if you don't have children, just how can it impact someone and what is the really ultimate goal? And that comes our big emphasis on allyship.

Jill James

That's right. That's right. We all do better when we all do better. And so we have to be careful with that word judgment and gosh, we're God, as a society, we're so quick to judge other people and don't put more work on people who don't have children, and don't assume that, oh, we could go on and on and on about all the assumptions. The point is, regardless of whether you're a parent or not, let's all be an ally and advocate. Kristi, what else did the survey results show?

Kristi McClure

Well another good hot topic we asked about was about harassment or discrimination in the workplace. And while it does occur to both females and males, if you look at survey data and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is disproportionately the vast majority who file complaints for women. 78% are harassment claims are women, and 62% of all harassment claims are women. We asked our survey respondents, if you have been harassed or discriminated at work, how did you respond? And we gave a wide variety of answers. Majority of them did say they discussed with friends and family, discussed with colleagues. We had a good number say they hadn't experienced this good number. A good number also said they did report it to their manager to hr. Quite a few said they didn't take action. Some of our open-ended respondents clarified and said, listen, I did a combination of those. I spoke with family and friends and reported to HR. Unfortunately, some folks did end up leaving employment or transferring departments. So I guess the question to you all is how has this impacted your life as a female in a very male-dominated profession?

Jill James

And whether or not we've reported things, this is a delicate subject. And what we didn't do in the survey is we didn't define harassment. And I think if we asked all four of us today, we might have different definitions. And I think particularly as women, there are many things that are said and things that are done that you go, oh, yeah, well, oh, that thing. Oh yeah, maybe I wouldn't consider it harassment. Maybe it's like, oh God, I had to put up with that comment again. And so I think this can span so many different topic areas. What do either of you think about just that piece in general?

Laynnea Myles

Yeah, I agree. It is something that it can be a touchy subject. I have been a victim of harassment. And even with that being the victim, I didn't feel like others saw me as that. Even when the person admitted to it. It was embarrassing. This was younger in my career. I was afraid to walk around and do audits by myself. And it did make me for a moment, regret speaking up because then I was known as the person that got someone fired. And so that kind of pigeonholed me for a little bit because then I was vocal at that one moment and I wasn't going to say anything until a colleague told me to. And after I said something, like I mentioned, I kind of was a little bit more timid after that, after hearing the sly remarks of people, oh, you have to watch out for her. If you're a male, don't talk to her. And so my job is walking around talking, understanding a process, doing safety audits and so forth, and to be looked at the bad person. Younger in my career, it didn't make me feel good until I eventually got the strength and counseling and spiritual background and family, friends and support to say, hey, don't listen to what anyone says. You were the victim, and you should tell your story because it can help someone else. So I think that is the biggest thing that having people who you can count on that can be your support system that is important when you do experience harassment or even discrimination.

Jill James

Yeah. Yeah. Monique, your thoughts?

Laynnea Myles

So my thoughts, I'm glad that you started it the way you did about definition of discrimination, because I think many times, especially when women are involved, we immediately go to maybe sexual harassment or some of those types of topics. But obviously just whether it's men or women, there are different types of harassment. And I can definitely say from my 20 years in the workforce that I have experienced harassment. And it's one of those things where depending on when it happens in your career, I think it changes how you respond to it. Laynnea's example, when she was younger in her career, that molded the professional she became after that, and obviously I'm sure the person that she became in many ways in that regard, from a work perspective, mine seemed to happen when I was later in my career, just from a standpoint of what I felt like constantly have to, and again, when you look at definition of discrimination, for me, I felt I was discriminated because everything I had to justify and validate and prove over and over again, regardless of how long I had been in industry, the knowledge that I had, the experiences and exposures that I was exposed to, everything was always questioned. Whereas if I were in a conversation and a counterpart, if we were equal in every aspect other than gender and maybe race, then there was a different outcome and a different type of questioning that that person received in the same conversation. So for me, I felt like I was constantly having to validate and prove myself. And then when I brought those types of situations up, it was always, I'm being too sensitive. I'm being too emotional. Women are so emotional about everything. Instead of looking at it for, instead of looking at it for what it's really worth, which was it was wrong and it just wasn't equitable in any way form or fashion, but very similar where I feel like as the survey showed, many of us have been discriminated against in some way, or harassed in some way form or fashion. And it's just how we handle it, how we look at it, how we bounce back, how we react, do we tell, do we not tell? I mean, the list of questions goes on and on and on. And when you have the right support system around you, that conversation becomes a lot easier to have that conversation, discuss the situation with others so that you can feel comfortable that you're going to get the right amount of support.

Jill James

That's right. That's right, and I think for the people who are listening to this, particularly people who are getting started in their career and who are younger, we all said that we're 20 years in and over. This is not a rite of passage. This is not something that is harassment and discrimination in any of its forms isn't something that you have to put up with to get to some end goal. And it's also up to each individual to decide how they want to handle it. The survey results showed that the majority of people discussed with family and some people filed formal complaints. I've done both in my career and have experienced various levels, various levels as well. And Monique your point of having to prove yourself. Yep. I think we could probably spend the rest of the podcast giving examples of how that's happened.

Monique Parker

Yes, Jill.

Jill James

Right? Yeah. In my OSHA days when I was a twenty-some-year-old kid in a factory, some safety person said to me after the inspection, gosh, when OSHA was showing up and I heard somebody was here, I was so excited because I need so much help here. And I was just thought, gosh, I'm going to learn so much and I'm going to be able to move so many things in this company with the help of this OSHA person. And then I opened the door and saw it was a woman, and I was so disappointed because I didn't think I'd learn anything from you. And he goes, but gosh, I did learn from you today. But Monique, that's an example I guess, of something that you were probably thinking in your mind too. And again, we could all share stories and stories and stories from this wide range. And I guess I want listeners to know that you control your narrative, you control yourself, and you don't have to be a victim or put up with things that are inappropriate work and ask your allies and advocates for help and how to navigate those situations. Kristi, what else have you got for us?

Kristi McClure

I was going to say, you all touched upon some great points that came up, not just in the questions, but a lot of the open comments about experiences and stories of not being validated or taken seriously, like you said, Jill due to gender or age, or just if a male counterpart is nearby, that's the person that's looked at or surprised that so much because you are so young or you are a female or ethnicity. We also asked about having each other's back and if you feel like you have an advocate, and that was something that quite a few people said, yes, that they do support not just other women, but they feel like they have a lot of colleagues or management that supports them. So that's good that so many of you feel like you do have allies. And I know Laynnea touched on that earlier about all of us being allies to each other. One question we asked is if you have a professional certification, what was your motivation to achieve it? Getting into that, one of the answers, which came up actually quite often, twenty-eight percent said to earn respect or credibility, twenty-nine percent said promotion opportunity, get another job, really move up. But the largest number was personal gratification. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they really did it for themselves. What about you three?

Laynnea Myles

Well, for me, I would say it was a little bit of both. It was personal gratification. And the other one is because I know I needed it to get ahead. And even, it's funny because I said, you know what? I needed my certification first before I even received a master's degree. So that was my thinking. Or even a Ph.D. I said, I need a certification. Because it is so important when someone looks at a safety person, when they see CSP behind it, certified safety professional, okay, she's qualified, she's technically savvy, she knows she has that acumen. So it was a little bit of both for me because for the personal gratification, it was something that I already knew I could do. And it was just another like, yes, I did it. I knew I can do it regardless of what any naysayers said, I did it. This is what I wanted to do.

Jill James

And Laynnea, you're applying for another advanced degree to earn your PhD right now. What was your motivator for that one?

Laynnea Myles

Yes, I am. I'm actually in school now.

Jill James

Oh congratulations. Okay. You're not applying. You're in it. Okay.

Kristi McClure

Yes, I'm in it right now. One, representation, I identify as a black woman and one as we know, there aren't many women professionals that have higher degrees in safety and let alone a black woman. And so representation matters. So it is important. And two, there's a lot of research that I would like to do in particular regarding minorities in the disparities of these incidents and injuries that we have, because we're still seeing the same incidents, the same kind of incidents. The top five incidents are the same, and we've gone so far with technology, we've advanced so much. And why are we still seeing these same injuries and incidents? So more research.

Jill James

Monique, how about you?

Monique Parker

Well, my story is very similar to Laynnea's. One, it was one personal gratification. I wanted it for myself. The other reason was very much driven behind. It wasn't something that my company pushed for desired, but it was what I saw as being able to gain respect. So again, very similar to Laynnea's. It was I needed, for me something to prove to the outside world that I was worthy of the higher level position, the higher level roles as I was going out looking, a lot of the job descriptions said, preferred CSP, those types of things. So for me, it was a marketing tool to be able to show credibility and be able to get those higher level roles that I was desiring.

Jill James

Yeah. And I don't have my CSP twenty-nine years in, and I have a master's degree in industrial safety. And when I look at the survey results and see that twenty-nine percent, have their certification or your education to get a job, that was completely me. That was completely me. This is the reason that I did it. I came from a family where I'm the first person to go to college. And when I learned about this weird degree that nobody very few people know about in safety, a master's degree in safety, I know my family's like, can you get a job? And I'm like, yes, I hear you can get a job and I can have benefits and I can make my own way. And I would've loved to have been a figure skater or a anthropologist or something. But hey, safety gets you a job and lets you take care of yourself. And so 29% of other people, that's where I fall. And then luckily, I had this opportunity to work for OSHA for over a decade, and that has been my door opener. You talk about ways to open doors and put things behind your name as a way to wedge yourself into more opportunities. And that's always been mine because people go, oh, oh, well, you worked for the agency. Oh, you must know the regulations. Oh, you must know. Oh, you must know. And that doesn't mean that I know everything backwards and forwards. It was the door opener for me.

Monique Parker

That just shows the path to safety doesn't have one path, and the certification is for different reasons. But at the end of the day, it is definitely very personally gratifying, I think, for all of us because it's a great accomplishment and it is not easy to achieve.

Kristi McClure

I agree. Yes.

Jill James

Amen. That's-

Monique Parker

Amen to that.

Jill James

That's a good, that's a positive.

Laynnea Myles

What's the saying? It is more than one way to skin a cat?

Jill James

Something like that. Something like that.

Laynnea Myles

Something like that.

Jill James

I know we're getting close on time, Kristi, is there something else you'd like to ask us as we're starting to wrap up?

Kristi McClure

Yeah, I was thinking as we wrapping this up for that conversation, and that question would be an interesting one for our male listeners to think about and apply to themselves as they're thinking about what motivated them and the same feelings of needing to, I don't know if it's prove yourself, but earn that respect and credibility through the letters after your name, and if that's something they've encountered as well, viewing it through a male lens versus female. And along those same lines, when we did this session live, we had men in the audience along with women. And so I'd like to wrap us up with talking about allies and advocacy of how do we as a community of safety professionals, not just women, but men and women, how do we support and help each other being successful in this workplace?

Monique Parker

I think the first thing that I always think about and look at when this topic comes up is take away the things that make us different. So we shouldn't be looking, oh, I need to do something extra special because there's a woman or there's a black or brown person or somebody that doesn't look like me or doesn't have the same beliefs to me, but look at how do I help the next person next to me? If we go into a mindset in every situation we're in of helping others achieve their best outcome for whatever that may be, then at the end of the day, we automatically can create and generate allyships and advocacy for others. So there's good and there's abilities and there's potential in everyone to do better, be better, and a lot of people want better. And so I think it's one, make, having those relationships, understanding the desires of others around you, and making sure that you as a person promote other people in a sense where they do have those opportunities. And when you're in a room and they're not in the room, what great things can you say about them so others know the greatness that they have. Now taking it back to the women's side of the things and diversity and how we engage, a lot of times those relationships are easier to form with people that look like us and think like us. And so I think as men and women, we need to be more open and willing to open ourselves up and be a little bit of vulnerable in order to build those relationships with people that we may not naturally lean toward to build those relationships. So you can be that ally or advocate.

Laynnea Myles

And just to piggyback off of what Monique said is so often we say, okay, who can be my ally? Who is going to advocate for me? But it's one of those things is that, are we being servants? We have to be servants first. So take it back and look at yourself as who are you advocating for and who are you being an ally for? Because it will come full circle. And so often it's in particular when you have mentoring opportunities, when you're mentor someone or someone that has that potential, but they may not say anything. That's where that advocacy come from. And so if everyone is looking for someone to advocate for them, then who is doing the advocacy? So we have to look at it that way. And just to also piggyback what Monique said is those opportunities even go to someone who may not look like you and say, hey, I think you will be perfect for this position. And I know Jill and I we had this conversation and Monique about as the results say that it's predominantly when it's female, it is Caucasian women. And so if you know, how can you make a difference? Well, you know what? We need more representation, so you know what? I know someone that is a great candidate, and so just giving those people opportunities, and that is the biggest thing, giving others opportunities who may not normally get the opportunity, that does not mean that, oh, I have to give them this job. No, it's just giving them the opportunity because sometimes people don't even get the opportunity, and so that is very important.

Jill James

Yeah, I mean, you both said it, to look around at any situation, whether it's a work group, a leadership team, and say, who's missing, who's missing? And how can we help bring someone else in by talking if they're not present, if they're not at the table, how can we talk about their work product, their contribution, what they have to offer? And a practice that I've personally been doing for the last number of years when I'm on a work group for something or sitting in a leadership position, I ask people ahead of time what they're trying to achieve, especially when it's in a work group, what are you trying to achieve when we go into this next meeting and how can I support you in it? And that's whether it's a man or a woman. I ask that question, and how can I support you? And anyone who's listening can do the same thing for anyone else and say, instead of maybe sometimes we think we can get our help all over people, like the great author Anne Lamott says, don't get your help all over everybody. You can actually ask people what would support look like for you? What do you need? How can I help you? What are you trying to achieve?

Laynnea Myles

That's so true. So true. What does it look like? Good point.

Jill James

Yeah. Kristi, I know we're at time. Kristi, do you want to share with the audience where they can find the report and the information that we shared at NSC?

Kristi McClure

Definitely. If you go to our website and then you go into our resources section, we have the survey report on our website, and there's a link to a landing page that we've created as well, that includes a whole reading list, articles, books, information that we wanted to share, this group that we thought was valuable, the book and information about the Nobel Prize winner that Jill spoke of earlier, and all of our information in terms of contact information. If you want to reach out to any of these three experienced, kind, wonderful, knowledgeable women.

Jill James

Thank you.

Kristi McClure

All of that can be found in one easy location.

Jill James

And we'll make sure that Emily, our esteemed podcast producer, will share the link in the podcast show notes as well. Ladies, thank you all so much for your time today. I really appreciate it, and it was so fun to work with all three of you.

Laynnea Myles

Yes, yes. It was amazing. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Monique Parker

Yes, it was a wonderful opportunity and I'm so thankful to have the time with you all as well.

Jill James

As always, thank you for listening today, and more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple podcast app or any other podcast player you'd like. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review the show. It helps us connect the show with more and more EHS professionals. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer, and until next time, thanks for listening.