Women Shaping Our Region event gathers leaders
CRANBERRY TWP — Workforce shortages, mentorship, collaboration and flexibility were all discussed when Butler County leaders and community members gathered at the Women Shaping Our Region conference Thursday morning.
After a COVID-19 hiatus, the conference, organized by the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, returned for its second year at the Regional Learning Alliance Learning and Conference Center at Cranberry Woods.
Butler County Commissioners Kim Geyer and Leslie Osche moderated a panel discussion between five female community leaders: Belinda Richardson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Butler County Community College; Cheryl Moon-Sirianni, PennDOT District 11 executive; Tammy Schuey, general manager at the Butler Eagle; Bobbi Watt Geer, president and CEO of United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania; and Tricia Staible, president of Robinson Fans.
“This has certainly been two years of upheaval in our lives. Leadership has been challenged to its core in these last couple years,” said Osche, commissioners chairwoman. “This group represents a very diverse leadership in education, transportation, business and media.”
“More than ever after the past challenging two years with COVID, it's important to have good leadership for all areas,” Geyer said. “These amazing women here today are here to share their perspectives with us. It's an exciting time.”
'Pink-collar jobs'Difficulties finding employees and the ongoing labor shortage were at the forefront of discussion. Richardson spoke about the difficulties faced by those in “pink-collar jobs” — lower-wage, front-facing positions occupied primarily by women. She said that these jobs were some of the hardest hit by pandemic conditions.“How many people working in these positions were furloughed and laid off?” she said. “How does that impact women, and how do we respond to that? From the perspective of higher education, I thought: We need to think of (ways) to provide opportunities for this unique population of individuals, ways to 'retool' them, so that when this passes they can re-enter the workforce more skilled and in a different position.”Moon-Sirianni said that in searching for workers to fill vacancies amid the hiring shortage, especially in labor and industry fields, employers may need to look outside their usual areas.“These are great-paying, long-lasting career jobs,” she said. “Maybe it's not an 18-year-old straight out of school anymore, but maybe it is a 40-year-old woman who lost her job. Maybe we need to start educating some of those folks about these great opportunities.”Geer added that childcare, while it's not the first thing someone thinks of in the context of supply chain shortages, is in short supply, and a shortage of child care affects women trying to work.“What we cannot buy right now is child care, and this is why women have exited the workforce in such significant numbers,” Geer said, citing a statistic that as of autumn 2020, about 13,000 women left the workforce in southwestern Pennsylvania, and over a million mothers have exited the workforce nationwide since February 2021.“Women are being disproportionally impacted by the pandemic. They are being pushed out of the workforce because of all of these expectations on our shoulders,” she said. “This is the most significant supply-chain issue. Without child care that we trust and depend on, we can't fix this workforce problem.”
The group discussed the opportunities offered by the possibility of the national infrastructure bill. Schuey said that an expansion of broadband would increase access for many rural parts of Butler County.“There's a lot of rural regions that don't have access to high-speed data,” Schuey said. “These kids in Moniteau and Karns City who are sent home with Chromebooks, but don't have data to actually do their schoolwork, that's a problem. We want to build our workforce, and that's our future workforce, and they're being injured at the elementary level because they can't learn remotely.”“The digital divide is real,” Richardson added. “Even if they do have the access through technology, they may not have access to broadband. That is a conversation that is very high priority for institutions of higher education.”Geer said that access to infrastructure is closely tied to equity.“We've got stories of kids sitting outside of libraries and fire halls doing their homework during remote learning, and we were tracking and seeing that in more vulnerable communities. The only option was remote learning, but there was no internet access,” Geer said. “We really need to tend to infrastructure issues to ensure that we can create greater equity in our communities.”
Osche and Geyer asked the group to share their perspectives on how women can be best supported in the workplace and in leadership roles, especially after a year and a half of COVID-19 challenges. Mentorship and collaboration were frequent refrains.Richardson called mentoring an obligation for leaders to help the younger generation, and recalled advice she received early in her career encouraging her to listen before sharing an opinion.“The minute my ego becomes my motivation is the minute I know that it is time to engage with those that I trust and respect,” Richardson said. “The best way to build communities is to come together.”Schuey added that mentorship can come from women or men, and that there is a responsibility to be the person who others can look to for answers.“Mentoring is so important, and you may not even realize you are being mentored,” she said.Staible, who leads as part of the family-owned Robinson Fans industrial air moving company, said that working in a family business role emphasized to her the wealth of experience and knowledge held by her coworkers.“To me, to solve a problem it's always best to invite people in with you,” she said.Geer said that the United Way is by definition about bringing people together to solve community problems, which includes mentorship.“It's about meeting, moving, working and building with people in the community, across all sectors to do that,” she said. “It's an honor to be in this space, and it's an honor to work here with Butler County.”
