The thing that stops women taking the job is rarely the job
We were training women successfully and losing them at the offer stage. The fix was accommodation and a conversation with their parents.
For the first year of She Builds Networks, our training numbers were good and our placement numbers were not. Women completed the course, interviewed well, received offers, and then did not start.
We assumed a skills problem. It was not a skills problem.
What was actually happening
Field engineering means travel, night call-outs and, for a woman from a small town, living somewhere unfamiliar. The blockers were, in order: nowhere safe to live near the posting; the cost of getting to work before the first salary arrived; and a family that had not agreed to any of it.
None of those are addressed by more training.
What we changed
Six months of verified hostel accommodation. A transport allowance covering the gap before the first payslip. And a briefing session with parents and spouses, treating them as people to convince rather than obstacles to route around.
Retention at twelve months went from a figure we did not publish to 64%.
The other side of the table
We also stopped treating placement as the finish line. A woman placed into a workplace that pushes her out within six months is not a result, and counting her as one would have flattered our numbers considerably.
Employer partners now commit to interview panels that are not all-male, and to publishing their own retention figures for women in technical roles. Some declined. That told us something useful too.
