Advance Women in Engineering: Closing the gender gap

Image licensed from Adobe Stock Photo.

On June 20, Canadian Consulting Engineer hosted its second annual Advance Women in Engineering virtual summit, in advance of International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) on June 23. The event, which drew more than 180 live viewers, was sponsored by Reliable Controls, the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI), Ainley Group, McElhanney and Rheem.

Building on the foundation of the inaugural 2023 edition, which discussed welcoming women to the profession and different paths to career satisfaction, this year’s expanded event focused on breaking down barriers to inclusion, enhancing educational opportunities, supporting mental health in the workplace and achieving parity in governance.

Breaking down barriers to inclusion
The summit kicked off with a keynote presentation by Professional Engineers Ontario’s (PEO’s) CEO and registrar, Jennifer Quaglietta, P.Eng. As the first woman to hold the dual role in the organization’s 100-plus-year history, she spoke about her past experiences and the work her organization is doing now “to help create a more inclusive engineering profession.”

“In engineering we use stress tests, subjecting bridges and buildings to an extra-heavy load beyond what they would normally face, to make sure they will stand up to all the demands we place on them,” said Quaglietta. “When I started in engineering, I faced a series of personal stress tests, including comments about the clothes I wore and my ethnic background and questions about why I chose my career path. They’re becoming less common, but they’re still out there.”

She praised industry peers for persevering through these tests, which she acknowledged as “unfair obstacles that should come down,” as even growing numbers of women engineers have proven slow to approach Engineers Canada’s ‘30 by 30’ goal—i.e. to have women comprise 30% of all newly licensed engineers across the country by 2030. In Ontario, Quaglietta reported, only 20.5% of newly licensed engineers in 2022 identified as women.

“I’m determined we will do better,” she said. “We should expand our thinking to include people from underrepresented and marginalized groups. Indigenous, trans and immigrant women will face different challenges from those I confronted and we need to take that into account.”

PEO conducted a gender audit of its own licensing process, which found women take longer than men to get licensed and report higher intentions to quit the process, as they find the experience requirement challenging, particularly if they have young children. They also cited a lack of support from educational institutions.

“Progress starts in schools,” said Quaglietta. “With more women in the profession—and more people from our generation moving into teaching—the education of engineers is changing for the better.”

By way of example, she cited increasing numbers of women deans and the enrolment successes of schools like University of Toronto (U of T), where more than 40% of first-year electrical engineering students are women.

Speakers in the first half of the event included (left to right) Jennifer Quaglietta, Erika Ryter, Karen Callery, Marcia Friesen and Ilana Danzig. Photos courtesy respective speakers.

Enhancing educational opportunities
On that note, the first of two panel discussions delved further into areas of improvement for educating women engineers in Canada.

Education is a lifelong process. Along the way, there are key opportunities to draw girls and women to engineering, give them a strong foundation in the profession, provide valuable support and encourage them to stay and thrive in the industry for the long term.

The panel was moderated by Erika Ryter, P.Eng., an environmental engineer, managing principal and business centre operations leader for Stantec.

“The number of women enrolled in post-secondary engineering programs has risen over historical numbers, but just 13% of practising engineers are women,” she said. “We’re still a long way from parity, both in education and in the workplace.”

Karen Callery, P.Eng., a station services specialist with Ontario utility Hydro One, spoke about her experience volunteering as director of logistics for Camp Engies, a not-for-profit that introduces girls to engineering.

“When Camp Engies was founded, there weren’t many opportunities to encourage elementary-school girls in engineering before they start to develop self-doubt in high school,” she explained. “The camp shows girls in Grades 5 through 8 how engineering is fun and interesting. At that age, they’re like sponges—they soak up ideas, embrace challenges and want to participate.”

“The ‘early and often’ approach to introducing girls to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education is really powerful,” agreed Marcia Friesen, P.Eng., professor and dean of the Price Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba. “On our campus, we have a K-12 outreach program that makes 50,000 youth contacts per year through school curriculum workshops and STEM camps. It’s important to start early. It’s a lot harder to change self-perceptions after Grade 6.”

Once women are licensed as engineers, there can be new challenges in the workplace, as pointed out by Ilana Danzig, P.Eng., managing principal of the Vancouver office for Aspect Structural Engineers.

“Women leave the field if they don’t have champions helping them get to the next level of their careers,” she said. “I’d love to see the culture shift so we can support women through this career, instead of leaving it to the individual to figure out.”

“School is essentially a solo endeavour, but in the workplace, the metrics change,” Friesen added. “Being technically strong is not the only thing needed for advancement. Women also need access to professional skill development.”

“It’s impossible to succeed without some kind of mentorship,” Danzig agreed. “I’ve learned from a career coach, architects I’ve worked with and my peers. They’ve all helped me build confidence, make decisions and go for promotions. The network of support is really critical.”

Speakers in the second half of the event included (left to right) Lidia Pawlikowski, Jeanette Southwood, Caroline Codsi, Karen Freund and Allyson Desgroseilliers.

Achieving parity in governance
The first panel discussion was followed by a second keynote presentation, with Lidia Pawlikowski of Hub International discussing how to support mental health in the workplace (her article will be posted separately), and finally by a second panel discussion, addressing the issue of gender parity at the governance level. It was moderated by Jeanette Southwood, P.Eng., vice-president (VP) of corporate affairs and strategic partnerships for Engineers Canada.

Beyond targets for licensing more women engineers, such as Engineers Canada’s aforementioned ‘30 by 30,’ another important goal is to increase the number of women in positions of leadership. Closing the gender gap at the governance level is significant not only for providing a path to success that breaks through the ‘glass ceiling,’ but also in ensuring Canada’s consulting engineering firms have viable succession plans in place.

One of the panelists was Montreal-based Caroline Codsi, who founded Women in Governance in 2010 and developed North America’s first parity certification in 2017. Today, nearly one million employees work for parity-certified organizations, including consulting engineering firms like AtkinsRéalis, CIMA+ and EXP.

“Closing the gender gap is important in all industries, but there are some where we’ve heard more excuses,” said Codsi. “Today, I see a huge difference in the rhetoric from consulting engineering firms. Everybody understands the value and positive impact of having more women at every level. It’s a question of fixing the workplace culture.”

It was this goal that drove Codsi to develop parity certification, where organizations answer questions about themselves to discover where they have gaps.

“For a long time, in the engineering field, we would be told, ‘Oh forget it, we’re not going to bother because we’re never going to make it,’ but on the contrary, these are the organizations that need the most help!” she explained. “Those that have trouble attracting women in the first place are the ones that need a roadmap with recommendations, best practices and benchmarking.”

“We’re a traditional firm with more men than women, although we do have a majority-women board of directors,” said Karen Freund, Ontario regional executive VP (EVP) for CIMA+, which was the first of the aforementioned firms to achieve Women in Governance’s Parity certification, earning bronze in 2023 and silver in 2024. “Before we embarked on this process, we didn’t have a comprehensive understanding of the unique needs, strengths and values of women in the workplace. You get a lot more innovation with a more diverse workforce. And it’s been proven time and again, firms that have a gender-balanced workforce with deliver better financial results.”

An independent review helped CIMA+ understand opportunities for improvement. The firm implemented new initiatives and saw positive results, but also undertook a continuous challenge to improve its certification ranking.

“This year, we’re aiming for gold!” said Freund.

The third panelist was Allyson Desgroseilliers, P.Eng. In her roles as a VP for WSP and only the second woman to chair ACEC-Canada, she has addressed the relationship between the governance gap and succession planning and how to make improvements.

“We can’t expect to close the gap without being very deliberate with succession planning,” she said. “It starts with our schools and making sure girls understand how engineering provides opportunities and benefits society. And we need to promote the fact that once they get into the engineering workforce, there are women leaders to learn from. Talent development and retention mean mentoring and sponsoring women who have joined our teams and ensuring their voices are heard at the table.”

By way of example, she explained how WSP has introduced a global mentorship program to help close its governance gap.

As for ACEC-Canada, its board comprises member nominees from each province, so Desgrolliers and her colleagues cannot control its gender parity, but they can influence and encourage the provincial organizations to select a diversity of people.

“We recently reviewed our bylaws, policies and governance to ensure we are not putting up any barriers,” she said. “We also have a future leaders network, which helps drive women in our sector to gain professional development experience from industry leaders.”

Other actions the panelists recommended included setting realistic targets in firms’ strategies (and making them public, for purposes of accountability), being more proactive in retention of high-performing women and continually evaluating metrics like pay equity.

“What gets measured gets managed,” said Codsi. “At the end of the day, that’s the key to everything!”

To view full video recordings of the virtual summit, including Q&A with those who viewed it live, visit www.ccemag.com/virtual-events/advance-women-in-engineering-2024.