The ongoing issue of gender diversity and women in engineering actually "presents an opportunity to create a movement" according to Engineering New Zealand's CEO Susan Freeman-Green.

With 14% of our neighbour's engineers being women - 2% ahead of Australia – the NZ engineering body has launched a program to encourage organisations to rethink their practices around gender diversity. They're also encouraged to commit to Engineering New Zealand's Diversity Agenda initiative, with its goal of 20% women in the profession by next year.

To this end, ENZ has created resources and education programs for organisations to evaluate their recruitment practices, workplace policies, inclusive graduate programs, leadership opportunities, mentoring and more. The goal is to get leaders thinking about how even the smallest change could make a difference, Ms Freeman-Green said.

“It’s about generating those conversations, and I think it also gives people courage,” she believes. “We’ve had people say, ‘I wouldn’t have raised this before, but I will now’.  It’s a really hard thing because it’s not people intentionally excluding, but it is just understanding the bias that we all carry.”

But changing people's perceptions, how they think about the world and how they see things isn't easy, Ms Freeman-Greene said, but it's for the future of the profession, its talent, and for engineering to remain relevant.

This side of the ditch, Engineers Australia has set a target of 30% female representation across its Boards and Committees by 2020. EA's National Committee for Women in Engineering's vision is "for engineering to become an inclusive profession which values, supports and celebrates the contributions of women and men towards making engineering diverse and inclusive profession".

Ms Freeman-Greene said diversity is not only a civil and structural issue, but one for all engineering disciplines. As more individuals, organisations and countries look to create a more inclusive engineering profession, she said it’s important to view it through the lens of how it affects the future of the profession: “This isn’t just a women’s issue. This is an engineering issue that belongs to all of us."

Susan Freeman-Greene will be tackling this subject further when she speaks at the World Engineers Convention 2019 being held 20-22 November in Melbourne. WEC 2019 is being co-hosted by Engineers Australia and the World Federation of Engineering Organisations.