The Women In Engineering Sydney Division mentoring seminar was held on 5 May 2011 at the Swissotel sponsored by WorleyParsons. Robyn Howlett, HR Manager of WorleyParsons expressed the company’s view on women in engineering and spoke about the continual support that the company provides for career development of young and experienced female engineers. Support is provided in the forms of flexible working hours, 10 weeks paid maternity leave for female staff, Return To Work incentive for those ineligible for the government scheme, and the opportunity to return to work in a part time capacity after maternity leave.

The topic of the presentation delivered by Dr Mark Toner and Gunilla Burrows was “How Female Engineers Can Improve Their Career Prospects in a Male-Dominated Organisation”. Mark and Gunilla outlined the current problems as being a lack of women in middle and senior management positions, a lack of career prospects for women, a large pay gap between men and women, difficulty in women returning to the workforce and negative attitudes to women. This was partly due to the general male opinion that women were “complex”. After outlining some of the general problems, Mark went on to explain some of the underlying contributing factors seen in the business world. From a business point of view, in an effort for business operators to achieve immediate financial performance, they tend to promote competitive organizational cultures that are results-orientated “macho” environments, with a 24/7 work culture. Other reasons included relationship-building based on “mateship”, hidden indirect gender biases.

The seminar then went on to offer some solutions to the problem: being aware of the issues that cause the differences, taking the initiative to do your own advocating and most importantly developing skills and competencies to play the “corporate game” the way and as much as you would like to. Mark emphasized that there was more to success in the work place than just working hard and completing tasks, instead it is also important to have an ability to read the way your organization “plays the game” to understand where the power bases are, what the male/female personality differences are and to decide what role you would like to take in this so called ‘game’.

Other tips for success were to network and build relationships inside and outside the organization; find ways to become visible to management; play politics and lobby for yourself and your work; communicate effectively and ask for lots of feedback while performing well and producing results. Most importantly was to never underestimate the power of being ‘likable’.

The 150 attendees took away with them tips on the unwritten rules of the corporate game, how female engineers can equip themselves with the skills that might help them to play the game should they choose to and how to obtain support and help from peers or mentors. Both speakers availed themselves to a queue of attendees wishing to discuss the topic further after the seminar concluded.
WIE has a pool of mentors available to support mentees. If you are interested to join the WIE mentoring program, please complete an online registration form from the EA website or e-mail us at sydneywie@engineersaustralia.org.au and tell us what you are looking for or what you can offer.

Mai Yeung
WIE Mentoring Coordinato