2016 Gender Diversity Awards winners announced Tuesday, 09 August 2016

Message by Jo Kirby FIEAust CPEng, Chair of Women in Engineering National Committee.

The Women in Engineering National Committee (WIENC) recently announced the 2016 winners of the Gender Diversity Awards at the Women in Engineering Sydney Winter Gala.

The Awards were presented by the WIENC Chair Jo Kirby FIEAust CPEng and Deputy Chair Melissa Jovic FIEAust CPEng. These awards acknowledge and commend organisations for contributing to and implementing gender diversity.

AECOM emerged the winner of the ‘Most Outstanding Company in Gender Diversity’ category. During the last year, AECOM has had a 16% increase in females promoted to leadership roles and a 13% increase in female board members, equating to 38% female board representation. Equitable remuneration practices have been introduced to actively close the pay gap, including reserving 5% of end-of-year remuneration budget for gender pay adjustments.

Last year’s winner, Aurizon, was awarded ‘Highly Commended’, for exceeding their FY16 recruitment target of 60% of all trainees, graduates and apprentices being female and the introduction of a ‘Shared Care’ paid parental leave scheme.

In the ‘Most Ambitious Company in Gender Diversity’ category, the winner was Transurban. Transurban runs the Females Excelling in Engineering and Technology (FEET) program, inviting female students studying a degree in engineering or technology to benefit from a week of work experience and mentoring. Over the last three years, 36 students have participated in the program with a further 38 due to undertake the program over the next 12 months. To date, five of the students who undertook work experience in the program have returned to the business as full-time employees. 

In the ‘Most Encouraging Student Group’ category, the winner was the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Women in Engineering Program. UNSW’s recruitment events include visits to schools, on-campus engineering days for girls and a week-long ‘women in engineering’ camp for girls in Years 11 and 12, and outreach programs aimed at teacher engagement. The University of Technology Sydney was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ for its many outreach programs, such as Hands on Day and Collabor8.

Gender diversity is not only important from an equity standpoint, as it has also been proven to make good business sense. Every year since the inception of the Gender Diversity Awards in 2014, the WIENC has continued to receive a large number of high quality applicants from organisations who strive to achieve gender diversity through innovative policies and strategies.

Congratulations to the 2016 winners and those recognised as highly commended and to all applicants for their continued efforts towards gender diversity.

I would like to extend thanks to the WIENC judging panel and the Women in Engineering Committees for their tireless work in the areas of attracting, retaining, supporting and celebrating women in engineering. I would also like to thank Women in Engineering Sydney for hosting the Gender Diversity Awards as part of their Winter Gala celebration.

Photo: Left to right, Alex Bannigan from UNSW with Most Encouraging Student Group award, Louise Anderson from Transurban with Most Ambitious Company in Gender Diversity award, Lara Poloni from AECOM with Most Outstanding Company in Gender Diversity Award, Chair of Women in Engineering National Committee Jo Kirby FIEAust CPEng, Deputy Chair of Women in Engineering National Committee Melissa Jovic FIEAust CPEng, Bronwyn Holland and Irene Hsieh from UTS with their Highly Commended award.