Change at the drop of a hat
Of the press releases to have crossed my desk in the last week, one immediately struck a chord with me, touching as it did on a particular bugbear of mine. It came from Sainsbury Management Fellows, which has come up with what it calls the 'Hard Hat Index'.
It came from Sainsbury Management Fellows, which has come up with what it calls the 'Hard Hat Index'.
SMF argues that the prevalent use of hard hats in media images to define engineers is not only inaccurate, but undermines their role as "creative problem-solvers who improve lives and shape tomorrow's world". SMF conducted media analysis over 12-18 months to support this claim and found that, during the monitoring period, 185 images of engineers wearing hard hats featured in 16 engineering titles (118 advertisements and 67 editorials, while 940 such images featured in national newspapers (88 adverts, 682 editorials).
There is nothing wrong with wearing hard hats, of course. Often the law requires their use, in fact, which is why we sometimes have to use images of people wearing them in magazines. However, for them to be symbolic of engineers is nonsensical. On factory or site visits, I've had to wear a hard hat many times. No-one would associate hard hats with journalism – and yet?I've probably worn one more than many of the engineers reading this.
The image is pernicious, though. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen stories designed to offer a positive image of engineering, only for all the good work to be undone by a picture featuring someone in a hard hat or – even more egregiously – wielding a spanner. And while we're at it, can we also have a moratorium on stories in the national press concerning manufacturing and/or engineering and featuring a photograph of someone welding?
If this seems like an overreaction to a few pictures, it's worth bearing in mind the effect such images can have. SMF also undertook a YouGov poll as part of its research that revealed that, of 2,000 people asked what items they thought engineers primarily wear on an average working day, the hard hat came top with 63% of the votes, whereas a business suit received 25%. Equally, when asked where engineers worked, building and construction sites came top, followed closely by industrial sites, with offices only coming fifth.
Clearly, these perceptions are difficult to shift and the media sometimes doesn't help. However, engineering as a whole needs to be more protective of its image if it is to encourage more people into the profession.
