To celebrate International Women’s Day, we wanted to share insight from women in leadership roles across the energy industry. This article contains a compilation of responses to two questions:
- What positive changes you have seen?
- What actions you think will really move the dial on improving gender diversity within industry?
What will move the dial?
Honestly, I think there needs to be more consequences when improvements are not being seen. I believe there is a lot of good work being done that can help the industry move forward but interventions are primarily voluntary. This is not about blame or demonising individual characteristics nor is it about taking people’s seats at the table. It is about shifting the focus to businesses being prepared to make room for others and accepting that there should be a consequence if you fail to show demonstrable steps towards change.
What positive changes have you seen?
Greater acceptance that women are just as capable as men in STEM professions, and more and more men welcoming the positive culture changes that tend to follow when they are working in mixed teams, in organisations which are supportive of families and joint careers.
What will move the dial?
Thinking outside the box when recruiting, offering reskilling/upskilling opportunities within the organisation (e.g. recognising project management skills in non-STEM workers and offering project management training to allow them to move into better-paid, formal PM roles), and being prepared to put women with non-STEM backgrounds into senior roles in traditionally engineering or technology-led areas of the business, either permanently or on rotation/secondment.
What positive changes have you seen?
POWERful Women has been gathering data on women in leadership positions since 2015, and it has been encouraging to see a steady rise over the past decade, but there is still a lot to be done to ensure we have a gender-balanced industry.
It has also been encouraging to see the variety of great DEI initiatives happening within the companies that sit within our Energy Leaders Coalition¹ through the case studies² they annually provide.
What will move the dial?
For me, there are 2 key actions:
1. having a DEI KPI set within senior leaders’ yearly remuneration packages
If leaders have a target linked to their renumeration, then this is one way of ensuring DEI stays at the forefront of their minds.
2. collecting and reporting data
‘You can’t measure what you don’t gather’. To ensure you are attracting and retaining diverse talent, you need to identify gaps and challenges, so gathering data and reporting on it drives change and accountability.
What positive changes have you seen?
What I’ve seen change is the surge in awareness and the emergence of a fantastic network of employee support groups. To supercharge our work on gender diversity, we need to engage directly with intersectionality. By acknowledging and addressing the interconnected nature of various forms of discrimination, we can create more inclusive policies and practices that empower individuals of all backgrounds to thrive within the industry.
What will move the dial?
To supercharge our work on gender diversity, we need to engage directly with intersectionality. By acknowledging and addressing the interconnected nature of various forms of discrimination, we can create more inclusive policies and practices that empower individuals of all backgrounds to thrive within the industry.
What positive changes have you seen?
I think what works is when people don’t talk in silos but work together with a view of tangibly changing things. So, measured objectives, programmes of work like TIDE, leaders being accountable for change as part of their work, ongoing conversations (including challenging ones) with staff – and I’ve seen lots of that kind of change this year.
What will move the dial?
This is a business issue – the most successful companies are ones with the best ideas, from the most diverse individuals, in leadership. Let’s stop asking senior women what they think. Let’s start asking the companies without senior women why they think it’s acceptable to carry that commercial and operational risk – because if they don’t have the best representation, they don’t have the best ideas, and they haven’t achieved their best performance.
What positive changes have you seen?
What I’ve seen change is the surge in awareness and the emergence of a fantastic network of employee support groups. To supercharge our work on gender diversity, we need to engage directly with intersectionality. By acknowledging and addressing the interconnected nature of various forms of discrimination, we can create more inclusive policies and practices that empower individuals of all backgrounds to thrive within the industry.
What will move the dial?
To supercharge our work on gender diversity, we need to engage directly with intersectionality. By acknowledging and addressing the interconnected nature of various forms of discrimination, we can create more inclusive policies and practices that empower individuals of all backgrounds to thrive within the industry.
Is your business #InvestingInWomen?
TIDE is collecting different examples of best practice to built a more complete picture of how we as an industry solve the ED&I challenges facing the sector. If you have examples of how your business is accelerating progress and moving the dial, you can find out more about submitting a case study here.