Recruitment and Empowerment of Women the Rackley Roofing Way

By Anna Anderson, NWIR.

Recruitment and empowerment of women can sometimes seem like a daunting task.

But, many times its as easy as asking questions and listening. At Rackley Roofing, one of our core values is Innovative, which we define as introducing new ideas, originality, and thinking outside the box. As such, we are always looking at new ways to recruit and retain the next generation of workforce toward roofing.

As a founding sponsor of National Women in Roofing, and our continual involvement with the organization, our focus is always on empowering and employing women in our industry. We’ve found that the more aware we are of female empowerment, the more opportunities that we see. One of the most recent examples was found at the NASCAR Kentucky Speedway race in July of this year. Rackley sponsors the #68 Truck in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series, and we hired a few pit crew members to assist us on race day. NASCAR has created a Diversity Internship Program for recruitment of elite college students in a minority classification. We were fortunate enough to benefit from this program, as Breanna O’Leary was one of the only female pit crew members in attendance, and she was assigned to our crew. We were able to talk with her about what piqued her interest to become a female pit crew member in a male-dominated industry. She was a college athlete, looking for a way to continue to be competitive, and racing was a good next step for her. Check out our recent interview with her.

We should be using a similar thought process to recruit in the roofing industry. Why not look for ladies who are athletes, and enjoy being outside and working hard? Roofing can be an easy transition for any athlete, male or female. Why not look for veterans of the Armed Forces as potential employees? These folks are no stranger to hard work and extreme weather, and they are of course deserving of our respect!

Another area of recruitment and empowerment that Rackley has a passion for is Domestic Violence survivors. Rackley has been at the forefront of the Purple Purse Pilot Program with National Women in Roofing. While we still have a long way to go, Rackley is putting in the hard work to make it a reality for women to have a clear path to financial empowerment through a career in roofing.

Rackley Roofing is honored to have just been the recipient of the first ever Innovator of the Year Award by RT3 (Roofing Technology Think Tank), and while we do innovate in technology, we have to also lend credence to the fact that we innovate by empowering women in a still heavily male-dominated industry.
In our continuance to recruit the best talent, we understand the importance of marketing not only for our company, but marketing roofing organizations that are dedicated to raising the bar in professionalism. With that thought in mind, we have donated sponsorship space on our NASCAR truck for the upcoming Talladega Superspeedway Race, Saturday October 12 at 1:30 PM EST. Be on the lookout for the following names and logos: National Roofing Contractors Association, Roofing Alliance, RT3 Roofing Technology Think Tank, Roofing Contractor Magazine, and most important, National Women in Roofing.

We at Rackley Roofing are proud to be a founding sponsor as well as a 2019 Platinum Sponsor of National Women in Roofing.

Learn more about joining National Women in  Roofing.

Original article source: NWIR