As the world prepares to observe International Women's Day on March 8, S&P Global Market Intelligence spoke to experts and women who work in mining, an industry that typically has been dominated by men. Part one of the two-part series explores the advantages coal mining could gain by hiring more women, while part two is a closer look at the experiences of women working in mining.

The coal mining sector and a hypermasculine work culture have long gone hand in hand, but some companies in the space are warming to the benefits of a diverse workforce that includes more women.

That push for diversity has been driven by studies and initiatives that suggest having more women in the workforce can result in higher levels of productivity, improved safety records and stronger environmental performance.

Just 4.4% of employees in the coal mining sector were women in 2018, a decline from when women represented 7.4% of coal employees in 1985. More recently, the percentage of women in the U.S. coal mining sector peaked in 2016 and has declined the past two years.

At a February industry gathering sponsored by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration and the Colorado Mining Association, employee diversity was a top focus. Hannah Ubl, an author and researcher focused on generational issues, provided the conference’s keynote that detailed why diversity is good for a company’s bottom line.

"If you look at gender-diverse teams, they outperform non-diverse ones by 15%, and more recent data suggests that might be actually closer to 21%," she said. "If you look at racially and ethnically diverse teams, that number goes up to 33%."

Gender diversity is likely to boost productivity growth, among other benefits, the IMF concluded in an October 2018 report and studies have pointed to better safety outcomes among women miners and stronger environmental performance when women are in leadership positions.

"When you're limiting the pool to the traditional in the coal industry, you could be missing out on skill sets that are really not defined by gender or really other types of diversity," Peabody Energy Corp. CFO Amy Schwetz said in an interview.

Peabody, the largest private-sector coal mining company in the world, is looking at strategies to recruit, engage and develop more women in mining. While female executives are relatively rare among U.S. coal companies, Peabody has two women on its seven-person executive leadership team.

"I know we're not alone in the broader mining industry in putting a focus on this," Schwetz said. "I always say on this diversity journey, it's not a race where we want to be the only winner."

Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to help promote workplace equality, the coal sector remains slow to employ a greater share of women. The mining industry has made progress, but there is still more to do, said Stacy Kramer, vice president of corporate safety and occupational health at global metals miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

"I'd like to remind people that it is not about equality, it's about equity," Kramer said during a Feb. 26 speech that touched on her company's approach to diversity. "We provide the same opportunity for people, but we don't just bring people because they're diverse. We don't want to turn away good talent. ... We really need to build up the pool that we have."

Coal- and mining-focused advocacy organizations and other nonprofit organizations have been more successful in promoting women than the industry itself. Women hold the top leadership positions at the American Coal Council, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute, the National Coal Council and more. The concept is beginning to spread to other parts of the industry, said National Coal Council CEO Janet Gellici. Executives running the companies, she added, are keeping up with the latest management trends and realize there are obvious benefits of a diverse workforce.

An argument for more women in the workplace, including in corporate leadership positions, extends beyond concepts of equality and fairness. Companies with diverse boards tend to perform better on environmental, social and governance performance metrics, according to a September 2018 memorandum from compensation and governance consultants ISS Corporate Solutions.

"The inescapable conclusion of our findings is that women contribute to the boards they sit on in a host of ways, such as improving customer responsiveness, ethical accountability and risk management," the memo said.

Transitioning to a more diverse workforce can be difficult in a sector entrenched in long-standing traditions of a male-dominated workforce. In 2017, Foresight Energy LP agreed to pay $4.25 million to settle two sex discrimination lawsuits after women said they were denied coal production positions with one of the company's subsidiaries since at least 2006. As part of a consent decree with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Foresight agreed to offer one of every three new surface or underground mining positions to female applicants.

Katharine Fredriksen, former president of Consol Energy Inc., is currently suing the Pennsylvania company over claims that she was vastly underpaid compared to her male counterparts.

"Shortly after defendant appointed Ms. Fredriksen president, [Consol President and CEO Jimmy Brock] told her he did not support the idea of a woman being president ... because, among other things, he would have a hard time getting 'my guys' to accept her," Fredriksen's March 2018 complaint states.

Consol has disputed the claims, citing issues of cost containment and work experience rather than gender in the company's decision-making.

A 2009 report from management consultants McKinsey & Co. called for convincing skeptics of the benefits of more women in top management, making gender diversity a top priority within organizations and implementing appropriate programs to support long-term effectiveness of gender diversity efforts.

"Based on our survey and our experience of companies that are highly committed to this issue, the success of gender diversity initiatives depends above all on deploying comprehensive programs that comprise a broad range of measures," the McKinsey report states. "It is not enough simply to provide more flexible working conditions or career management. Reaching a critical mass of women in the top management of organizations requires a critical mass of measures if we want to create deep-seated and sustainable change."

Wendy Hutchinson, president of the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute, said she wants to avoid stereotypes such as the idea that women are better at listening or are more empathetic, because she has worked with men with similar qualities. Still, she said the idea of having a well-balanced team that can communicate a diverse range of ideas is critical to a successful organization.

"You don't want a team of peo­­ple that think exactly like you do, or you'll all be blind to the same problem," Hutchinson said.

Coal mining's broader labor issues are compounding the struggle to diversify. Public perception and recent job losses have contributed to anxiety over the sector's future, and some coal companies have had a hard time retaining talent as the job market for miners, particularly those with specialized skills, becomes increasingly competitive.

"I know the market is tight right now," said Georgene Robertson, a human resources representative with Arch Coal Inc. "If we had a qualified female come in here, if we had a qualified mechanic with electric experience that was a female, we would hire her tomorrow."

Investors from "every part of the capital stack," are increasingly demanding diversity and other ESG-aligned initiatives, Peabody CFO Schwetz said. With the pool for coal mining employment narrowing, she said the industry needs to be more creative about the workforce it is attracting.

"You're not going to find top talent by continuing to whittle away at your talent pool," Schwetz said. "Diversity is not going to be successful unless you cultivate an inclusive environment. I think that's where companies have to step up and make sure that's what we're working on doing."