Preparing Women for Leadership in Garment Production: Early Career Interventions

孟加拉国制衣行业的400万工人中，绝大多数是女性，但各级管理人员几乎都是男性。在一系列项目中，我们研究了将妇女过渡到主管角色所面临的挑战。第一个项目由DFID-ESRC增长研究方案(ES/J009466/1)资助。我们的研究帮助工厂选择了更好的女性候选人担任主管职位，帮助培训机构完善了培训内容，并导致该行业女性主管的数量增加。来自44家项目工厂的长期跟踪数据显示，2016至2017年间，女性主管的比例从4%翻了一番，达到8%以上。在这个项目中，我们的目标是在女性领导力的势头和从早期研究中吸取的经验教训的基础上，帮助培训机构在更长的培训窗口内提供更有效的培训，同时从女性职业生涯的早期开始为担任领导职位做准备。我们将评估一项试点培训计划，该计划旨在更早地干预妇女在该部门的职业生涯，培训时间更长。我们的目标是了解，更早和更持续的干预是否会促使女性在成为有效监管者所需的技能上投入更多资金；增加她们在担任监管者时的信心；提高工厂和部门的留职率；以及在晋升后使她们成为更有效的监管者。我们将与工厂合作确定培训计划的候选人，并与培训师合作定制涵盖软技能(领导力、沟通和自信)和硬技能(线平衡、绩效评估等)的培训计划。培训将持续一年，每两周半天。这项研究将使服装行业的生产商和买家受益。如果评估表明，培训提供的好处超过了其成本，我们预计结果的传播将导致培训计划或其部分被采纳为工厂为女性工人提供主管技能发展的典型内部培训。此外，对该计划的详细分析将提供对女性晋升的挑战和障碍的见解，这将对管理人员有用。我们预计该项目将鼓励工厂管理层考虑女性晋升。与工厂合作的外部培训机构，如数都科或BetterWork，如果被认为成功，也可能有兴趣将部分或全部培训内容纳入其课程。

The overwhelming majority of the 4 million workers in the Bangladeshi garment sector are female, but managers at all levels are almost exclusively male. In a series of projects, we have examined the challenges of transitioning women into supervisory roles. The first of the projects was funded through the DfID-ESRC Growth Research Program (ES/J009466/1). Our research has helped factories select better female candidates for supervisory positions, helped training providers hone the content of their training, and led to an increase in female supervisors in the sector. Long-term follow-up data from 44 project factories indicates that the percentage of female supervisors doubled from four percent to over eight percent between 2016 and 2017. In this project, we aim to build on both the momentum toward female leadership and the lessons learned from the earlier research to help training providers deliver more effective training over a longer training window, while preparing women for leadership positions from an early point in their careers. We will evaluate a pilot training program that aims to intervene earlier in the women's career in the sector, with training spread over a longer period of time. We aim to understand if the earlier and more sustained intervention induces women to invest more in the skills necessary to be effective supervisors; increases their confidence when they are working as supervisors; increases retention rates in the factory and sector; and makes them more effective supervisors after they are promoted. We will work with factories to identify candidates for the training program and work with trainers to customise a training program covering both soft skills - leadership, communication and confidence - and hard skills - line balancing, performance measurement, etc. Training will be spread over a period of one year, with half-day sessions fortnightly. The research will benefit garment sector producers and buyers. If the evaluation demonstrates that the training provides benefits that exceed its costs, we would expect dissemination of the results to lead to adoption of the training program, or parts of it, into the typical in-house training that factories provide for supervisor skills development for female workers. Moreover, the detailed analysis of the program will provide insights to the challenges and barriers to promoting women that will be useful to management personnel. We expect the project will encourage factory management to consider women for promotion. External training agencies that work with factories, such as Suddoko or BetterWork, may also be interested in incorporating some, or all, of the training components into their curriculum if deemed successful.