0:00 with that I’d like to welcome Kathy Laurette our moderator for the day to introduce leader shift pathways to
0:06 gender equity great thanks Alex well good afternoon everybody and welcome to
0:11 the online launch of leadership pathways to gender equity my name is kathy loreck
0:18 I am a senior vice president of business transformation at electric utilities and I’m very pleased to have the opportunity
0:25 to introduce today’s proceedings on a topic that affects every one of us in the workplace regardless of our gender
0:32 it’s great to see the large audience today as it really signifies the importance of this issue and how
0:39 passionate so many of us are for creating change in this area so the agenda for today starts with a
0:46 presentation on the research by Michelle Brannigan who is a CEO of HRC and meru
0:53 to Moga Freeza who is the program manager of diversity and inclusion and the reports research lead we’ll then
1:01 move to a panel discussion with industry members Lynne parent Garvey Jeannette
1:07 Southwood and Alaina Eifler and finally we’ll open it up to questions and answer
1:12 period so if you’d like to submit a question please enter it at any time into the chat box and a member of our
1:20 team will submit it to the panel as we know gender representation at work is an
1:26 ongoing conversation the electricity sector has long been very male-dominated
1:32 and has been slow to embrace change many of us have seen programs and initiatives
1:38 aimed at supporting women’s advancement over our careers but despite these
1:43 efforts progress has been far too slow women’s participation in the sector
1:49 remains about 26% and women’s representation at leadership levels is
1:54 similarly low so what’s going on here well a leadership provides the missing
2:00 piece of the puzzle as the first survey of its of its kind specifically looking
2:05 at the status of women’s representation in Canada’s electricity sector leadership offers a valuable snapshot
2:13 of where we are right now the report highlights existing initiatives profiles
2:19 champions of equality and offers recommendations on how we can make our existing empowerment and support
2:26 programs stronger to create meaningful lasting change so with that let’s move
2:32 right into it and I’m going to turn it over to Michelle and Maru to for those discussion of leadership pathways to
EHRC
2:40 gender equity Thank You Cathy and for
2:45 those who don’t know us electricity Human Resources Canada or ek4 C is the
2:51 organization that provides Trustwave market intelligence and evidence-based
2:58 solutions for human resource challenges in the electricity sector we speak to
3:04 best HR practices and innovative HR programs development from evidence-based
3:10 research and as a national organization we provide commentary on HR issues that
3:16 impact the electricity sector every day we really pride ourselves on acting as an essential HR partner for all of
3:23 industry supporting the electricity industry’s most critical asset which is of course our people now over the years
3:31 we have collected data on the number of women in the electricity sector at a broader level but of course we saw that
3:38 there was not missing piece and that was the lack of information in regards to women’s representation at the most
3:44 senior levels on boards and in corporate leadership roles so if you’re on this
3:50 call you’ll know that there is now broad consensus that companies really benefit in having a diverse workforce enhanced
3:58 innovation and competitiveness higher employee engagement and lower strategic risk these are just some of the benefits
4:05 that have been documented and in the context of an electricity industry that
4:11 is facing dramatic shifts be that technological or demographical the
4:17 advancement of women into leadership positions is critical but to do that
4:22 successfully to actually move that dial we need to understand structural and cultural barriers that
4:29 are impeding women today as you’ll hear the research confirms what is well known
4:35 by most industry observers and that is that the leadership ranks do not reflect the number of talented women in the
4:42 sector so the leadership report will provide our stakeholders with more information
Leadership Report
4:49 on how to accelerate change and also fully understand why these changes are
4:55 necessary and I’m not here not everyone is on the same page however change is
5:00 possible and I think the report really is going to provide insights on how we move forward now in the interest of time
5:08 I’m going to keep this section very brief more detail can be found of course in the report so if it’s now live on our
5:15 website electricity HR GA so following this event you can go and get access to
5:20 the full report throughout the research we did engage with over 61 organizations
5:25 of all sizes geography and business line and and following an extensive
5:30 literature review we conducted a survey which gathered not only statistical data
5:36 but explore the personal experiences and perspectives of both men and women working in the sector we then moved on
5:43 and developed champion case studies set with seven men as senior leaders who are
5:50 all recognized industry change agents now each of these men described the
5:55 personal experiences that shaped their understanding of gender issues and saw them actually walk the talk when it came
6:02 to making a difference in their own organizations the study was also guided
6:07 by a National Steering Committee who provided great insight and support throughout the project thank you so much
6:14 I know most of you are on the call and with that I am going to pass it over to Murder two to take us through the start
6:21 of some of the findings
Key Findings
6:30 you right you over to you
6:40 you
6:45 no sorry thanks Michelle here’s the exciting stuff so I’m going to speak to
6:51 some of the key numbers that emerged as with new cut holes for self directors and executive teams in the sector so
6:58 among the 61 industry organizations that will research we found that 88% of words
7:04 hobbit is one woman sitting at the table which means 12% of the world still have
7:10 no women in 77% of the words of two or more women which means that almost 1/4
7:16 which is 23% of the words have no women or and only one woman member the
7:23 previous research has concluded that one woman and alone on a board is insufficient and that the business
7:30 benefits of diversity and unlikely to be gained based on these numbers alone the
7:35 board in our sectors are missing out on the advantages that are more balanced perspective can bring also note that
7:43 being an only one board member has its own downside for instance as the only member on a board and can face
7:50 challenges in getting their voices heard and it sometimes buzina spoken off in themselves that they are seeing us talk
7:57 about it not because of their skills or experiences but we have some positive
8:03 news when we take into account account the size of the boards not having two women when a four-person board is not
8:10 the same as having two women on 10% board so we found that 63% of the words
8:17 have more than from 25 to 49 percent of their seats held by women in a very few
8:24 6% have had half or more of their seats held by women so overall 30% of board
8:31 seats are held by women within individual boards 58 percent of the board submit or exceeded the 30%
8:39 critical mass benchmark so we move from part of it to executive
8:46 teams we found that the sectors track record in executive ranking is not as
8:53 quite as positive at the board level we found out one quarter of the companies we reached research have no women
8:59 publicly listed on their executive teams and almost half which is about 46% of no
Research
9:06 women listed in assisted positions overall we have 26% of the senior
9:11 executive named own company information sources are women if you look at your
9:18 screen and see the charts on the left you will see the representation and executive teams we have 30% 34% of the
9:26 companies are one-quarter to one-half women and in 26 percent of the
9:32 organization the companies there are less than one-quarter women represented
9:37 in 25% of them have no women and then we look at the 15% of the companies that
9:43 are comprised of five or more women in their executive things while this 15
9:48 person might be encouraging these organizations are typical of the industry overall and we saw as one
9:56 number of Hogan additions I responded to the study which
10:01 kind of skewed the results and if we look at the right side to see most roles
10:08 held by women we know that the women are over represented in corporate functions they trust HR IT egan and we all know that
10:16 roles in corporate functions we’re really to senior positions and this is a trend that we saw through the study what
10:23 this means is that these women are less likely missing the highly volatile operations and technical experience that
10:31 would advance them into the CEO and other key decision-making ones close because it also contributes to the
10:39 gender pickup with women continue to earn less than men I’m wondering if
10:44 anybody has a challenge hearing me I can hear you okay Mario – okay so now
10:53 let’s go further and to look at the diversity of the board how is the representation so when we look at the
Representation
11:00 diversity of the board’s themselves and break it by age ethnicity education
11:06 level the field of study and certification over one-third are aged 55
11:12 in a bar and may be looking to retire and then we have only only 44% well that
11:18 are members of visible minority groups and then we only have 3% indigenous
11:24 population so even within our female representation there is room for improvement you can also look at the
11:31 field of study reflect on what I just mentioned earlier almost all have university degree in or our professional
11:37 designation the most common fields of study are commerce slim pants and no and
11:44 I think there’s a trend here which means that many women are not working in the area which they are they studied in
11:50 trade or they’re actually hitting the glass city semi within their careers so
11:55 it wasn’t enough for us to look at the numbers and you know numbers can be a little bit boring but so we found it
12:02 critical also to just go through and I understand in exam I examined what’s
12:07 happening in the world so we started we wanted to explore the perspective all
12:12 the employees men and women and we share would present that I said thanks for
Perspective
12:20 thanks Maria – so while the research of course looked at the numbers who’s
12:25 sitting around the board table and in the c-suite we also looked at organizational culture and examined the
12:31 viewpoints of men and women working in the sector and then of course still make up over 74 percent of the industry and
12:37 as such they have grass still have great influence on hiring decisions at all levels not to do not to mention
12:44 developing a culture that is or is not equitable for all employees so we discovered them women and men
12:51 don’t see the problem the same way and I wasn’t surprised with the fact that men and women still few gender equity
12:57 progress differently but I was surprised however at how far apart that actually were almost one in every five
13:05 men so 18% that we surveyed believed that it is actually easier for women to
13:10 succeed in their workplace than it is for men in contrast three of every four
13:16 women so 75% believe that women have a more difficult journey so we’ll just
13:21 take a quick look at the four areas or saw the biggest difference in perspectives so compared to the 82% of
13:29 men who believe that they can demonstrate their full availabilities and potential in the workplace only 66%
13:36 of women feel the same way now women believe that their advancement has been held back because of others assessment
13:44 of their technical skills or of their behaviors and their styles such as teamwork the way they communicate even
13:50 ambition and while 6% of men think that their employers opinion on their style
13:58 of behavior has held them back over a third of the women we surveyed actually
14:03 felt that way and then we look at colleagues opinion so while none of the
14:08 men thought that their colleagues opinion of them was a barrier to success 27% of women felt that it was indeed a
14:15 barrier to their advancement and then finally 25% of the women also founded a
14:21 challenge to get the educational and skills development they needed to succeed in their career of choice
14:26 none of the men actually reported that that was an issue so really the industry is really still falling short on
14:33 creating a shared understanding of our sectors gender reality with men being much more likely to think that gender or
14:40 ethnic backgrounds don’t make a difference in relation to career success and these views matter because the
14:47 respondents who are positive about career support are more satisfied with their jobs more likely to recommend
14:53 working in the sector unless likely to be planning to leave so what were the
Executive Perspectives
14:59 perspectives around those who are actually in charge those in leadership positions at the executive level well
15:06 the women in our survey are not at all confident that senior leaders are aware of the barriers or the extent of the
15:12 barriers within the organization that’s one piece the research also reported that women
15:18 still have some doubts about the commitment of our industries leaders including within their own organization
15:24 and and and one in every seven women in our survey feel that leaders within the
15:31 electricity sector are not at all interested in increasing the numbers of women in leadership and that a lack of
15:38 executive commitment limits women’s progress in their own company however
15:43 almost half of the men feel that the leaders are very committed so it appears
15:49 that men and women are hearing very different messages there and in fact
15:55 senior management respondents were much more likely to believe that equity is
16:00 firmly established within their organization so understanding why women’s workplace experiences often
16:07 differ so much from their male counterparts it’s critical because these differences in perspective make it even
16:14 more challenging to reach agreement on actions for change now the research also
16:21 found that male managers are not the only ones who might be hesitant to take action on gender issues about one third
16:29 of respondents also believe that women avoid supporting gender equity
16:35 initiatives in some cases they fear potential backlash or reputational risk
16:40 so they don’t want to be seen as making waves or being labeled if they push too
16:47 hard and that while it’s understandable is a little bit disheartening it
16:52 suggests that they don’t believe that the organization is as truly committed
16:58 to gender inclusion as a positive focus for the business men we spoke to some of
17:05 them didn’t see that there were gender barriers they don’t think that they themselves have the scope to make change
17:11 or they’re deterred by a concern that merit will be put at risk and that women
17:17 will get promoted over other candidates just because they are a woman and then
17:22 among our state survey respondents this relates to culture is one of every women’s the 20% which was high I thought
17:29 reported that they had personally experienced harassment violence or bullying in their work for in the
17:35 workplace at least monthly in the last five years
17:40 so the third focus of our research was looking at why and how individuals can
Salmon Champions
17:47 make a difference just over 50% half 51% of our survey respondents report that
17:54 all talk no action is a barrier to making progress towards greater gender
18:00 balance in their organization but our salmon champion first person interviews
18:06 and their organizational set success have shown that it can be done
18:12 these men have taken concrete action and and demonstrate the impact of active day
18:18 by day persistent involvement of leaders as advocates each of them describes the
18:23 experiences that help them become personally more aware of the challenges that women face in the workplace and
18:30 then they translated that awareness into behaviors that actually make a difference such things as addressing
18:36 unconscious bias building the trust required for flexible work arrangements
18:42 navigating style differences between women and men using equity to advance
18:48 women’s careers and sponsoring women for growth opportunities so they have really inspired me I know the two quotes are
18:55 OBO are ones that I will be using again and again because at the end of the day
19:01 it’s really it’s time to start doing now as always with any study it’s really
19:09 important how we respond or what we do next so I’m gonna hand back over tomorrow to for a brief overview of our
19:14 recommendations okay so based on what we uncovered through the study and our
Building Awareness
19:20 understanding of the gaps we recommend the value of building awareness which is
19:25 key and support by communicating on a personal David with candor and openness
19:31 to difficult discussions so we have to motivate leadership and all employees by sharing our success stories in a
19:38 personal in organization level this is no no way around it and spread the
19:43 discussion across the organization where and every day if needed if we also have
19:49 to change the narrative of women and address the perception implement good practices and then measure and report on
19:56 the progress achieved and the benefits gained we have to realize that change forming you try to change for men so
20:03 with change comes the challenge of confronting we know that but long-standing behavior patterns of women
20:09 and men we also need to get to change toward could have an inclusive environment or on it is also intention
20:17 to ensure that your organization or organization culture supports work quite effectively and we have to be
20:23 intentional about it and you have to make it so early no one for example for a new dad to take a year’s parental
20:30 leave in women leading the refurbishment of our nuclear plant so it takes
20:37 commitment at the individual an organization level if we want to be part
20:42 of this transition into a more equitable industry so speaking of commitment I
Leadership Record
20:48 like to bring something up to you just a reminder for anyone who is not aware to take a look at our leadership
20:55 record on gender diversity which encourages our leaders to commit fully in supporting women in your organization
21:02 in this leadership record provides the framework which enables organizations to assess their current situation and
21:10 improve we almost have 100 organizations that are leading the way and we have
21:16 they are championing it and if you want more information on how you can participate please reach out to us
21:23 HRC or myself there’s also more information on our website that is a
21:29 dinner for a conversation about the findings and I will hand it back to Cathy will be leading our panel
21:35 discussion
21:44 [Laughter]
21:53 [Music] no there seems to be some distortion
21:59 coming through it’s possible its feedback from other funds c’mon Alex can
22:13 you do it so that everyone’s my office is off just for a moment instead and I just Cathy whoever speaking gets their
22:18 mic on
22:25 okay let’s try the Friday in today
22:45 the numbers or the perspectives and
22:51 sorry I think audio a little bit broken
23:00 I’ll encourage mature Michelle to share the questions if you could just
23:06 temporarily mute I’ll bring up all the speakers right now you
Findings
23:13 you and which of the report findings did you
23:21 find the most compelling or surprising and the numbers are their first their perspectives and and why
23:29 perfect Thank You Michelle but before I get to that Michelle I just I want to reiterate the importance of this of this
23:37 work for our sector and for our organizations on gender equality because
23:44 I strongly believe that we truly do need to make more space for for women to
23:50 ensure that we you know that we better reflect the communities that we serve that we can successfully navigate the
23:57 change in disruption in our industry with with balance and increased
24:02 collaboration and innovation and of course to help us continually improve our business there are two findings I
24:13 want to talk about and you and Murrow to have talked a bit about them already but
24:19 the first is the representation of women on boards and in the c-suite so for me
24:26 transformational change really starts at the top and more representation of women
24:32 on boards and in our c-suite is key so because the report says there’s general
24:39 consensus that a gender inclusive executive team and board of directors
24:44 can produce better results but as an industry we still have a lot of work to
24:52 do in in in this area so having 30 percent of board seats in our Spector
24:58 held by we and I thought was encouraging but then that some organizations don’t
25:04 have any women on their board or only have one woman on their board I found that discouraging at the same
25:13 time when you get to the c-suite level with almost half of the companies that
25:18 were researched having no women well then that was disappointing as well but
25:23 then then that means there’s at least 50% who do have women in their c-suite
25:29 and that’s encouraging I strongly believe and it always said this that seeing is believing and that young women
25:36 who start their careers in our sector or in our organizations must be able to see
25:43 it’s possible what’s attainable what’s a viable career path for them because if
25:48 they don’t see that they’ll leave so again you know women on boards women and
25:56 see sweets is important it’s important for young women to see to see what’s
26:01 possible the other area I want to talk about is culture and in speaking up so
26:08 the comments around culture really stood out for me in the report and I think
26:14 it’s so important that we’re talking about those divided perspectives between the between the genders so as Michelle
26:21 was saying you know women speaking about the barriers they face and believing
26:27 they’re at a disadvantage and then on the other hand you know we have men believing that the playing field is
26:33 equal and that in fact it might even be easier for women to to succeed so I
26:39 think it’s really important that that we speak more openly of these these
26:46 different perspectives not just in the report I do think we can use the report as an EM and just to doing that but but
26:54 we need to talk about this in in in our organizations and the other comment I
27:01 was particularly interested in is from women and non management employees
27:06 around leadership teams not being conscious of barriers faced by women so
27:12 I had to think about that because I think we are conscious I think
27:18 especially women leaders men as well but I think that we don’t speak openly about
27:25 it as much but I can assure folks that in private deliberations it’s spoken
27:32 about as well as what you know what are possible solutions or the different
27:38 approaches we can take so clearly what that said to me is as leaders we need to
27:44 do a better job of translating the understanding that we do have into
27:49 visible supports so that we can you know more openly remove barriers and create
27:55 successful invite parents for pro women and especially women in our traditionally
28:01 male-dominated roles and then lastly the the comment I want to end with is I
28:08 think we can learn so much from the report there’s this best practices
28:14 outline throughout the report and really at the end of the day there’s there’s not one solution right there’s we’re
28:22 gonna have to take a number of different approaches so that we can we can move forward and I’m I personally a big
28:30 believer in taking what’s worked in other organizations and and trying it
28:35 out in in in our organization so I think I would end by just encouraging everyone
28:41 to to do the same to learn from the
28:46 report to take out the best practices or the examples and to you know to apply
28:52 those in your organization’s and see if it works so on that thank you for for
28:59 the opportunity I’ll pass it back to Michelle or or Kathy tell you want me to
Jeanette Southwood
29:05 get another shot yeah you sound much better yeah that’s no reverb right now okay
29:11 so let’s move on for a question for Jeanette Southwood who’s an executive
29:17 what has helped you to become an influential executive and what advice
29:23 would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction so Thank
29:30 You Kathy and thank you very much to the EHR C for the invitation to speak today I’m honored to be here with my fellow
29:36 panelists and with Kathy Michelle Amer – congratulations also to the HRC on the
29:41 launch of this report today when I was very young my parents immigrated from
29:47 Cape Town South Africa with almost nothing during the time of apartheid so that my sisters and I could have a safer
29:53 life after coming to Canada I was fortunate to have attended University and become an engineer but it was not
29:59 until my current role as a vice president and engineers Canada that I came to understand how fortunate I was
30:05 an engineers Canada my team’s portfolios include diversity equity
30:11 now inclusion globalization and sustainable development outreach member
30:16 services communications and government relations public affairs and public policy engineers Canada is the National
30:24 Organization of Canada’s twelve engineering regulators that license Canada’s more than 300,000 members of
30:30 the engineering profession and we are proud signatories to EHR C’s diversity
30:35 Accord one of our key focus areas and engineers Canada is 30 by 30 our goal to
30:42 have 30 percent of newly licensed engineers be women by 2030 our work
30:47 tackles barriers at all parts of the continuum kindergarten to grade 12 hosts
30:53 secondary early career and Industry you’ve seen the research that describes
30:59 some of the success factors for women for example encouragement from family the importance of peer support role
31:05 models Mena’s allies and the forging of bonds with social and professional and technical networks for myself at that
31:12 time a young black woman embarking on a STEM education and career who was a first generation Canadian
31:19 first-generation University student and first generation engineer if it was not
31:24 for these success factors I would not be in front of you today so what advice do
31:29 I have for others well develop a strong network of friends and colleagues people
31:34 who will be there for you during good times and in times of failure because everyone experiences failure and be
31:41 there for those friends and colleagues during their good times and bad times listen to advice and feedback and keep
31:47 an open heart and an open mind to opportunities both work opportunities and volunteer opportunities connect to
31:55 and participate in professional and technical networks I’m a long time volunteer with several organizations
32:01 find your allies and finally I believe that we all know that the challenges do
32:08 not get any easier as a career progresses and as positions progress from junior to senior unfortunately at
32:14 all stages of a career we can currently expect to see the recurrence of the same negative attitudes and behaviors the
32:21 difference for those of you early in your career will be that as your career progresses you will have the increasing resilience that you will
32:28 build through your friends your family your colleagues and your allies the difference for all of us will be the
32:34 difference that is made through the work a thr see the work of engineers Canada and the work of other organizations like
32:40 ours that we are fighting those negative attitudes and behaviors trying to reduce their occurrence challenging the status
32:47 quo so that they won’t be as prevalent for future generations as I mentioned
32:53 always in my career there have been challenges about some aspects of organizational culture and the assumptions about what a woman or a
32:59 member of a visible minority can or cannot do what is and is not an appropriate role and also the
33:05 assumptions and stereotypes about what a leader looks like sometimes I had to ignore it pretend that it didn’t exist
33:12 try to understand it better and find my allies champions and sponsors sometimes
33:17 I have to oppose it directly I needed sponsors senior people who believed that I could take on leadership positions I
33:23 fostered strong relationships with people who believed in me so what else did I do to blaze and build these
33:31 pathways to gender equity I’ve been a mentor and sponsor of women I’ve amplified voices I’ve shown a
33:36 spotlight and provided support to advance careers my teams have been diverse and inclusive we can all do
33:43 these things and we can give back by participating in supporting and leading the change that needs to be made in our
33:48 culture the leader shift report identifies behaviors that can be made to change workplace culture and make a
33:55 difference for women for example understanding and addressing unconscious bias creating a more welcoming workplace
34:01 for women advocating for others and doing your part to build the structures and the culture that will advance the
34:06 careers of others and cascading this message throughout your organization and beyond thank you so much for the
34:12 opportunity to participate today congratulations once again to the HRC and back to you Cathy
Elaina
34:19 great Thank You Jeanette so turn it over to Elaina who is a senior manager at a
34:26 co and also an EHR C board member so Elaina in your perspective what is the
34:32 biggest challenge organizations and leaders are having at the moment to improve on women’s
34:38 patient at the leadership level great thanks Kathy can you hear me okay
34:44 yeah great so yes thank you for the opportunity to present today I have to
34:51 say that reading this report I do find it is one of the best reports I’ve read
34:56 around gender equity to date there’s so much real information in there around
35:01 the numbers the actions voices of real people in our industry so
35:07 congratulations on the report it’s excellent so for me this is a big question so I really had to sit back and
35:15 think about it and it couldn’t just boil it down to one I had to have two of the
35:20 biggest challenges and organizations for me number one is the numbers themselves
35:25 number two is the mindsets within our organizations so first talking about the
35:30 numbers we’ve heard it already and 26% of the people working in the electricity industry are women and we even see those
35:38 percentages drop further when we’re talking about the stem occupations which we know are the highly desired skill
35:44 sets to get to some of those more senior positions and companies so really the lack of the numbers overall and the even
35:51 smaller population within these stem occupations leaves a real problem in terms of a pool coming up the ranks to
35:59 actually get into those positions so if you suggestions to get started your
36:04 folks on the phone I think we’re all really accountable to know our numbers and know why they are like they are so
36:12 if you are I’ve been putting a ton of effort into diversity initiatives at your company and you find yourself in a
36:18 place where you are over have numbers of women over the benchmarks congratulations but I would say to you
36:25 do not stop or slow down rather find how you gain this momentum and pour gasoline
36:33 all over it light that fire the last thing you want to do is slow down and go
36:39 back to trying to put two sticks together to create it again for most of
36:45 us we will find in our organizations that we are at the benchmarks or below when it comes to women
36:51 leadership so like my colleagues have said take full advantage of the leadership’s report because there’s time
36:58 those specific actions and ideas for things you can try within your organization this has been mentioned as
37:05 well but ask lots of questions to everyone at all levels in all functions
37:11 to really find out what it would take to move the needle and also what have you
37:16 been trying that actually is not working and you need to fess up and move on
37:21 think about your recruitment and promotion practices are they helping or hindering the numbers you currently have
37:28 tons of research tells us that the hardest move for a women to make is from individual contributor to manager and
37:35 when I speak to my friends about us being in leadership we always get to the
37:40 place where we need to we feel like we need to be more do more being more seen
37:47 within our organizations to get these promotions so immediately where my head
37:52 goes to is do you have a culture and an acceptance for people to be courageous
37:58 within your organization step out be bold and really get to a place of
38:03 innovation but the other critical success factor there is having a high level of accountability within your
38:10 organization you can be courageous and put your ideas forward but if you’re not holding people accountable to deliver
38:16 those big results you won’t have the impact and therefore the promotion might not come so encouraging people to be
38:23 courageous but also having a high level of accountability it’s critical within organizations the other piece that I
38:30 would say is get involved outside your company so right now 56% of Canadian
38:36 institutions that have stem programs how specific initiatives to draw women in
38:41 which is awesome so how can we help them and how can we hire those women into our
38:47 companies second is really around mindsets and this is the big one mindset
38:53 can be defined as a person’s way or attitude about thinking about something for example if I believe that the
39:00 percentage of women in the electricity industry is pretty good considering its
39:05 industry traditionally filled with jobs by men I’m not likely to behave in a way that’s gonna put real effort into
39:12 increasing these numbers so for me the few mindsets in the report have been
39:18 mentioned but our key almost one in five men in the survey believe that it’s actually easier for women to succeed in
39:24 the workplace and in contrast three of every four women believe that it’s harder to succeed in the workplace the
39:32 other one that stuck out for me is many men feel that gender diversity measures are sometimes unfair and detrimental to
39:39 their own career opportunities and leaders male and female assume that the
39:45 DNI problem is nearly solved which is drastically misaligned with non
39:50 management staff who report that a person sex or ethnic background makes a big difference so the men on the call
39:59 right now probably feel like I’m calling you out in a way and I am but not in the
40:05 way you might think I think unleashing and talking about these mindset is critical and if some of
40:11 the first times have been hearing the real ones come out the ones I know because I am married to a white engineer
40:18 at home I know how they think and they’re finally coming out these mindsets are important so really four
40:25 mindsets what do you do dig into the mindsets that exist in your organization and they are literally driving the
40:31 behaviors that are helping or hindering your efforts changing mindsets is hard in the data around the business case for
40:37 why you would want to is very clear and available when company succeeds
40:43 everybody succeeds so really when you’re going out and learning about mindsets be
40:49 prepared to learn more and be thankful that you did by you asking for people’s
40:55 honest opinions about diversity is role modeling the courageous behaviors that
41:00 we know we need more of in organizations more courage equals more information and
41:06 more opportunities for everyone to step up and deliver high-impact results which
41:11 is critical to be seen and critical to have more people in leadership in our
41:16 organization thank you very much for the opportunity today and I’ll hand it back to Michelle
41:22 for Kathy how can you thanks Elena so we’ve got some questions from the
41:28 audience that we’d like to go through you may not be able to get to them all but let’s start and well well probably
41:34 you can issue answers to some of the questions we can’t get to later so let’s do the first one and I’m going to send
41:41 this one over to you Jeannette so how have organizations engaged men in
41:46 supporting equity initiatives when they don’t believe this to be an issue thanks
Gabby
41:55 for that question at engineers Canada one of the areas that we have put a
42:02 strong focus on with respect to 30 by 30 is the player and the industry part of
42:08 the continuum and I’m going to step back
42:14 for a moment and provide just a little bit of context when we look at our goal I’m going to use 3030 sorry can you hear
42:21 me can you hear me Gabby okay great I’m going to use and I’m going to go quickly because I know that there are lots of
42:27 questions and we’re close to the end here we know about reaching 30 by 30
42:33 reaching 30 percent of newly licensed engineers being women by 2030 is not something that can be tackled by only
42:39 approaching women that are on the road to licensure we know that the context for women in the workplace in workplace
42:45 culture needs to improve we know that we need to have women in the continuum for
42:52 our universities we know that women who are in high school need to feel more comfortable about the prospect of
42:59 engineering as a career or a stem career in general with respect to men in the
43:05 workplace what we are tackling with our employer initiative is the workplace culture piece we found that and I think
43:14 this very much echoes what is in the leadership report that if the culture if
43:22 the attitudes if the actions aren’t set from the top in that case then those men
43:30 who are not comfortable with the way that the organization is going forward they’re not going to change they are not
43:37 going to see that there is a need for themselves to change so long story short
43:43 it’s the need for the message and the action to change and to improve and to
43:50 be there from the top hope that helps thank you great Thank You Jeanette okay I’m gonna send the
43:58 next question over to Lynn so Lynn what do leaders need to recognize to achieve
44:04 and sustain a culture change in their organization or what makes culture
44:09 change possible Wow that’s a big question so I think I
44:17 think you first need to start with what is your culture right you need to understand what your cultural strengths
44:26 are and what your cultural weaknesses are and then you need to use your
44:32 strengths to build upon the the cultural
44:37 attributes that that you need to strengthen or that or that you need more
44:43 of and so once you’ve identified the cultural attributes that you need more
44:49 of then you need to put together action plans that you know look at every aspect
44:57 of how you do business that look at your entire employee lifecycle and how you
45:03 can support and and draw attention to you know to the cultural attributes that
45:12 that even want that you want more of and so in short that that’s what I would say
45:19 you’ve got to understand what your culture is you have to understand and
45:25 turn your mind to what do you want your culture to be and ideally you want a
45:30 culture that’s able to help you deliver on your strategic plan or your strategic
45:36 direction and then you need to you need to do the heavy lift of you know of
45:44 trying to to change the culture and draw attention to to those to those
45:50 attributes and I think the last thing I want to say is it’s a long road to
45:56 change sure it takes time some would say it takes a generational change but I
46:04 would I think I wouldn’t I would say just keep at it right and and and over
46:11 time but the culture will change to – to the culture that that you want that’s
46:18 good yes it certainly is a journey not a sprint mm-hmm I’m just looking at
46:25 do we have probably don’t have time for any more questions I think we’ll capture
46:30 them and we’ll send them out it will we’ll do a response Kathy and respond to folks along with the with the
46:36 communication that we send to them and following that following the launch ok
46:41 so I’m going to turn it over to you for the closing remarks I want to thank you the panel very much for answering those
46:46 questions ok thanks Kathy again I will echo Kathy’s that remark thank you so much
46:53 Lynn Jeannette and Elena you’ve offered great insight today and of course to our moderator and chair of the EHR sea board
47:00 at Kathy loreno I think most people in the industry know Kathy why don’t we
47:06 really do miss holding these discussions in person I hopefully you’re all coming away today with inspiration from from
47:11 what we’ve heard and I really do believe that the insights from this research drive home that the need to accelerate
47:17 progress to begin it appears that we’re still falling short on creating a shared
47:23 understanding of our sectors at gender reality many of the organizations have
47:28 instances of long-standing gaps and practices and in women’s representation
47:33 and they need to be addressed but there are good stories we have good momentum
47:39 we have pockets of great practices and we’ve got some really inspiring success stories to build upon you know the
47:45 current dramatic shifts in our industry right now it presents an opportunity for change we must and we can move
47:53 resolutely now to more fully leverage the leadership talent of women we want
47:59 to continue the momentum so our doors are always open even if only virtually right now so reach out and contact us if
48:06 you want to be part of that journey with us as Lynn and Kathy I said it’s going
48:12 to be a marathon but what we can do it and we have the tools and resources to get you started or to support your
48:18 organization in any stage of that journey including with our leadership record and so with that we will close
48:25 and thank you all so much for your participation today and please enjoy reading the report
