Good WorkManship in 2025

They seem to mean slightly different things to me.although both are subjective.where perhaps we mean to a high professional standard which aligns to BS7671.

www.gov.uk/.../material-and-workmanship-approved-document-7

What I was trying to get to was the use of the word Man in workmanship in the same way that people would use the term man hour.  This does not feel like inclusive language.

WorkManship
WorkWomanship

Do you mean as in male and female?  If so is the word man not also in woman ?

Gary

In years gone by people would use the term Master and Slave when talking about computers HDDs (hard disks drives)

While the terms "master" and "slave" are technically still used in contexts like older hard drive configurations, the technology industry is moving away from them due to their negative connotations
. Many companies, including Microsoft and GitHub, have adopted more neutral terminology such as "primary/replica," "main," or "primary/secondary"

Sergio Fernandez said:

What I was trying to get to was the use of the word Man in workmanship in the same way that people would use the term man hour.  This does not feel like inclusive language.

Interesting. The term is used in legislation (including Building Regulations) as per my earlier post.

I suppose this type of word, though, is more like the words 'manslaughter' and 'human' which to the best of my knowledge are currently not considered be non--inclusive.

BS 7671 contains the word 'human' a total of 7 times (not including titles of standards in Appendix 1).

There are two standards referenced in Appendix 1, that have, in their titles, 'man-machine interface', which I guess not a lot can be done about directly?

I do understand that the term Workmanship is still used in legislation but maybe there needs to be an update.  In the same way we now use the term Police Officer rather than Police Man or Fire Fighter rather than Fireman.  Historically the police and fire service were male or predominantly male work places.  

S. 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978: 

6 Gender and number.

In any Act, unless the contrary intention appears,—

(a) words importing the masculine gender include the feminine;

(b) words importing the feminine gender include the masculine;

(c) words in the singular include the plural and words in the plural include the singular.

Whilst I can see that some people would prefer the noun, "worker" to "workman", this is different. "Workmanship" is an abstract concept which is not linked to the worker's sex or gender, so I do not see how any reasonable person can object.

There is a risk of silliness and literary ugliness when one attempts to be, "gender-neutral". At one time we had, for example, "batsmen". I see nothing wrong with the term, "batswoman". I struggle to see what, "batter" has to do with cricket: for me, it is something from which Yorkshire puddings are made

'man-machine interface' is largely being superseded by 'human computer interface' in the IT world.

The trouble with "good working practice" is that it suggests quality processes such as ISO9001.

So if your installers show shoddy workmanship, that's OK because:

1. You have a well-defined process for how to handle customer complaints, and
2. You have a continuous improvement process to train your employees to help them not do it again.