Category Archives for News & Media
Launch of the WISE Mentoring Program
The WISE mentoring program intends to help our members reach their potential – both personally and professionally – in their behaviours, industry knowledge and skills.
We are currently looking for both mentees and leaders of our industry to become mentors in this program. The 2017 Program will consist of three components and will be launched in July and run for 12 months.
The program has 3 facets -
1. Mentoring professionals/Young professionals/Students
Do you want to move your career forward? Would you like to develop skills as well as help others learn, grow and improve their skills? Or would you like to find someone who can help you do these things? You can …… through our WISE mentoring partnership. Become a mentor or mentee: a mentoring partnership can be rewarding to both people, personally and professionally. It is an opportunity to develop communication skills, expand your viewpoints and consider new ways of approaching situations. And both partner can advance their careers in the process!
2. Personal Development for Young Professionals
A series of tailored workshops and lectures; including the following topics:
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Personal Branding
- Managing Conflict
- Negotiating
- Goal setting
- Procrastination
3. Personal Development for Students
A series of tailored workshops and lectures based on feedback received from the university chapters and likely to include the following topics:
- Effective CV’s
- Networking
- Interviewing
- Teamwork
- Presentation skills
View the full program guidelines.
GET INVOLVED
Mentoring is one of the foundations of the development of individuals both professionally and personally. The process enriches both the mentor and the mentee and often forms rewarding long lasting bonds and relationships.
The contribution from a mentor can have an enormous impact on the development of less experienced professionals and by extension create a legacy to our industry.While the reasons may vary, most professionals will find need for a mentor at many stages throughout their career.
Mentees seeking career and related personal development advice benefit by accessing not only their mentor but also their wider network. This can be an invaluable resource to help provide both direction and focus to your development within the industry. Our program will pair you with the most appropriate mentor to fulfil your career development needs and we look forward to your enrolment in this year’s program.
Creating tomorrow’s Leaders
We are so excited to start our WISE mentoring program next month. The program intends to provide professional members and students with a significant industry leadership edge and aims to harness the wisdom contained in our Membership to provide support for emerging and existing leaders; and importantly it provides a platform for a successful future for our Industry.
So, what is mentoring? ....
Mentoring is intended to be a one-to-one relationship by means of which the mentor invests their time, knowledge and efforts to help the Mentee reach all their potential as a person and as a professional in their behaviours, knowledge and skills. Mentoring is a very old formula of human development whose origins lie in the Stone Age, when the artists who painted on cave-walls, the stone carvers, the medicasters who used medicinal herbs to heal sickness and others instructed the youths of their clan, in order to transmit their knowledge, thereby contributing to the evolution of civilization.
Mentoring owes its name to Greek Mythology. Mentor was Ulysses’ close friend, the protagonist of Homer’s Odyessy. Before setting off to Troy, Ulysses bade Mentor to take care of his son Telemachus and to prepare him to succeed him as the king of Ithaca. Mentor had to be like a father, a master, a model and reliable counsellor and challenge-stimulating instructor, so that Telemachus could become a wise, truthful and prudent king.
Mentoring is becoming very common in Australia. It has gone through a process of transformation as a consequence of the changes that the business world has undergone from the industrial age to the age of knowledge.
In the industrial age, the mentoring model was orientated towards the achievement of higher position in the hierarchical scale; in the age of knowledge, this orientation is turning towards the development of the individual's inner power, which originates in mental ability, persuasion, vision, creativity, capacity to solve problems, passion for the results of business activity, capacity to create teams, which turns high potential professionals into managers who contribute effectively to the growth of the business. The majority of companies in every economic sector have got flatter and leaner structures. Organisations are demanding continuously growing profits, higher quality products and services, capacity to compete in a more open and globalised market, capacity for creation and innovation in a technology changing environment, etc. Therefore, leaders and managers must perform more broad and versatile roles like the creation of new vision, the development of strategies, the direct involvement in operational issues, team building and leadership etc.... We believe this Mentor Program is an enabler in that process.
Mentoring that builds Leadership
Great leadership requires great influence. Great leaders are not born with a genetic code that dictates great leadership, nor are they self-made into great leaders. A study of any honourable effective leader will show that along the way of their development, they received many influences from relationships and events that they experienced. Emerging leaders use great influence to help them become great leaders.
The current leaders within our membership are considered as a source of great influence. Mentoring is a vehicle that taps into this great influence to build and support the current and future generation of leaders in our industry. Mentoring that builds leadership however, must be based upon an understanding of how leadership development takes place.
Studies of great leaders have shown 3 common experiences from which these great leaders learned how to lead:
- Trial & Error
- Observation of Others
- Education
These 3 leadership learning experiences suggest 3 services that mentors can provide for the development of emerging leaders!
I am looking forward to sharing more with you about our upcoming mentoring program, watch this space!
Frances Eaton
Executive Officer
Subsea Energy Australia
SEA's Executive Officer, Frances Eaton, joined SEA three months ago. She brings with her a wealth of experience around coaching executives, managers and cross-functional groups, her passion is about developing the leadership qualities of those around her. Connect with her via LinkedIn
The five common traits of life-changing mentors
SEA's Executive Officer, Frances Eaton, joined SEA just two months ago. She brings with her a wealth of experience around coaching executives, managers and cross-functional groups, her passion is about developing the leadership qualities of those around her. Below she shares with us some of her insights on what it takes to be a great mentor.
Have you ever had a life changing moment when someone did or said something that completely changed your perception about life?
I had one a couple of years ago while I was sipping a steaming hot coffee in my mentor’s office. I asked my mentor how she dealt with unexpected life and business challenges and she said:
“You can’t control what happens in life but you can control how you look at it. Change your perception and you change your life.”
I still think of that advice every time I’m going through challenges (or as she calls them, life lessons).
Perhaps you’ve felt a similar shift when a kind stranger said something inspiring to you in passing that made you realise things could be different? Or you heard a brave speaker talk about their emotionally gruelling battles which made you realise you could beat your own!
We’ve all likely felt a shift in our lives from encountering people who’ve helped lift us up. It’s very likely they have the following traits in common:
1. They Focus On Service
Mentors focus on the statement “How Can I Help?” They have a genuine passion for helping others largely because they want to give back to the community and also helping others makes them feel great.
When people focus their attention on someone else’s wellbeing, it actually reduces their own stress levels. Giving back can also make people feel like they have a deeper purpose in life making them feel happier. Everyone wins with mentorship.
2. They Believe In Abundance
A mentor once told me: “Never believe in lack. There’s enough abundance in business for everyone”. Smart mentors understand that sharing knowledge and contacts doesn’t take anything away from them. In fact, realistically, the more they share, the more likely they are to receive.
For example, think of the last time a person you met helped you in business. Wouldn’t you be more likely to help this person in return compared to someone who didn’t help you?
3. They See Your Strengths
An inspiring mentor focuses on your strengths, not your weaknesses. If you focus on your strengths, you are more likely to feel happy because you feel competent you can carry out tasks.
For example if your strengths lie in writing but not in accounting, your mentor may suggest that you continue writing in your business blog, but leave the accounting to an expert. Focusing on your strengths is likely to boost your confidence helping your business.
4. They Feel Complete
Life changing mentors see themselves as complete and don’t expect anything from you in return for their help. (Although they will graciously receive your help if you offer.) Why is this great? Well, as you may have experienced in life or business, giving with expectation feels pretty awful for both people involved.
Conversely, those that give without expectation tend to serendipitously meet the right people at the right time and have a huge amount of luck because of their positive and helpful attitudes – a pretty cool side effect from a not-so-common state of being.
5. They Are Charismatic
Have you ever noticed inspiring mentors are usually interesting and engaging people? It’s likely they have many intriguing life stories involving challenges and struggles they’ve overcome to make them the people they are today.
Don’t believe me? The next time you are in a meeting with a coach or mentor, gently ask them about their history. It’s likely they’ll have a lot of interesting stories to share that you would never have imagined…
Be the mentor you want to see in the world!
So there you have it! Those are the five common traits of life-changing mentors. If you looked at some of these traits and thought, wow that’s me, or if you’ve been searching for ways to give back to our Industry than watch this space!
WISE Framework
Framework aiming to increase gender parity within the Australian subsea industry
As proposed and accepted by Subsea Energy Australia
26 April 2017
Introduction
Subsea Energy Australia (SEA) is a not-for-profit industry association. Its aims are to promote Australian subsea capabilities to local, regional and global markets. Over the organisation’s ten-year history, SEA has had a small but strong contingent of female board members and yet the overall participation of women in networking and industry events across the subsea sector remains comparatively low.
The 2015 Committee for Perth report “Filling the Pool” outlines the economic importance and strategic benefits for the retention and progression of professional women in Western Australia. The report highlights that <15% of engineering graduates are female, which translates into an even lower percentage within the subsea industry. At the entry level, participation is estimated to be <10% and at technical leadership levels, participation is even lower. Furthermore, these participation rates are showing a declining trend.
SEA has an important role to play as enablers to increasing gender diversity and parity within the Australian subsea industry. This will be achieved via communication of strategic and economic benefits, providing education on the issues, development of inclusive environments, establishment of meaningful networks and the provision of access to professional development and mentoring opportunities.
Background
SEA undertook a survey in 2016 aimed at understanding the drivers for entry into the subsea industry and to identify barriers to participation.
The survey uncovered the predominant motivation for joining the subsea industry is that is presents interesting, exciting and challenging work. The survey also highlighted consistent themes for women in the workplace. All the participants identified as having experienced discrimination of some kind throughout their career, many referenced the glass ceiling or suggested the effects of unconscious bias. Some had experienced either explicit or passive sexual harassment in the workplace. Women also reported a lack of opportunities for fulfilling and challenging part time work, to enable them to contribute to the industry whilst maintaining a family.
Following this survey and review of the Committee for Perth’s “Filling the Pool” report, SEA established the Women in Subsea Engineering (WISE) Task Group.
Vision
The vision for WISE is to achieve gender parity in the engineering field within the subsea industry.
Governance
This framework is developed and monitored by the WISE Task Group under the guidance of the SEA Participation Committee, which reports to the SEA Board. Contribution to the WISE Task Group is on an in-kind basis, with the exception of SEA executive and communication officers.
Membership
WISE membership is open to any individual, irrespective of gender, who supports the WISE vision. Membership is free via an on-line LINKEDIN Group. WISE membership does not require SEA membership. Members from any location are welcome to join and access free online resources and forums.
The active membership base is currently in Perth, Western Australia. WISE is able to support activities in other locations however; financial funding is accessible only for activities within Australia.
Framework in Brief
This developmental framework recognises the following key requirements to achieving gender parity:
Attracting female engineers into the subsea industry. In Australia, <15% of engineering graduates are female and these graduates are spread across all industries. It is estimated that <10% of engineers within the subsea industry are female. There are therefore, drivers to encourage female high school students to study engineering at university and secondly, to encourage female university engineering students to choose a career pathway within the subsea industry.
Retaining female engineers in the subsea industry. Statistics indicate that participation levels decrease with increasing seniority within organisations. The possible contributors to this are similar to those outlined by the Filling the Pool report and include accessibility to flexible work arrangements, barriers to re-entering the work place following maternity leave, and the like. Activities that support female engineers throughout their career journey would assist with retention.
Developing female engineers in the subsea industry. Professional development and mentoring opportunities will be made available to develop and “upskill” female students and engineers. This improves the individuals’ employment and career advancement opportunities through demonstrating enhanced capabilities. Amongst the challenges that women face are being overlooked for development opportunities, remaining upskilled whilst on maternity leave and gaining the right skills to be “industry ready” when graduating from universities.
Promoting female engineers in the subsea industry. Promoting the achievements of female engineers within the industry provides positive role models that will attract others into the industry. It also “normalises” that females are able to have successful careers in roles that are traditionally perceived as suited to men. Increasing visibility has been shown to have a direct, positive impact on improving diversity,
Framework Strategies
SEA has identified 6 strategies as priority areas. Many of these strategies are inter-related and act to positively contribute to addressing the requirements for achieving gender parity.
1. Research
WISE plans to initiate the first benchmark research study on gender parity within the subsea industry as there is currently, very little available information. The objective of the research will be to establish a benchmark for the Australian industry and to compare it to other regions such as Scandinavia, which has higher participation rates and greater gender parity. The factors that may be investigated include cultural, governmental and organisational.
2. Networking
WISE will create opportunities for individuals to meet, exchange, connect and educate each other; whilst providing access to professional expertise and support. All events shall focus on inclusivity and accessibility (e.g. availability of online resources, family friendly events, etc.). Networking opportunities will be made available to connect female engineering students to professional role models and mentors to attract students into the subsea industry.
Where opportunities exist, collaboration with other industry associations and the wider industry will be explored. WISE will engage with other industry organisations (e.g. Society for Underwater Technology, Women in Engineering WA, Women in Oil and Gas), as well as existing groups within companies (e.g. Women of Woodside, INPEX Women) to explore opportunities to collaborate, share information and optimise resources. Activities will be targeted at increasing the reach of WISE membership and ability to achieve more through collaboration.
3. Mentoring and Leadership Development
WISE will make available mentoring programs as professional development support to individuals with a focus on developing female engineers into leadership roles (technical or managerial), guiding university students into the workforce, and supporting graduate and professional engineers.
Leadership development will be aimed at middle management level female engineers with the potential to be elevated into more senior roles within the industry. This may include mentoring programs, leadership conferences or training programs.
4. Outreach
WISE endeavours to support other industry associations in the promotion of STEM careers, as well as the promotion of STEM careers to primary and secondary school students. WISE is open to working with organisations, schools or universities as opportunities arise and resources are available. The focus of an outreach program to primary and secondary school students will be to provide role models to the next generation of students, demonstrating that females can have successful STEM careers.
5. Skills Development
The subsea sector requires ongoing skill development for existing and new practitioners. WISE will develop and facilitate access to a variety of training and professional development opportunities. Skill development opportunities will focus on both technical and professional skills development. Various formats will be used including:
- On-line resources for individuals and organisations
- Professional development and training opportunities
- Development of educational resources for individuals and organisations
- Online presence and communication.
6. Communication
WISE will also develop communication packages to:
- Exhibit the available careers within the subsea sector. The package will focus on providing examples of successful career pathways that have been experienced by female engineers.
- Communicate on methods and strategies to improve gender parity within the industry. The package will focus on providing individuals and organisations with practical solutions for achieving change.
- Promote the achievements of female engineers to students, the industry and the public.
The communication package includes a WISE website portal (www.subseaenergy.com/WISE) and LinkedIn Group (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7064273). The communication strategy and online presence will be continually developed over time as it is required.
Accessibility
Accessibility to WISE programs and services is a key focus of the program. The guiding principles are:
- a) WISE membership is free and fully inclusive.
- b) WISE members can access programs and services at no cost, or at a subsidised rate.
- c) Events include consideration to maximum accessibility e.g. family friendly events, suitable event times.
- d) Accessibility to some WISE programs may be limited to female engineers or engineering students.
- e) Online resources and tools will be used to maximise accessibility to members.
Locations
The WISE network will be centrally focussed in Perth, Western Australia where it was established and exists under the governance of Subsea Energy Australia. The WISE network is open to activity in other locations within Australia and internationally; however funding is currently available only to activities in Australia.
Audience Development and Participation
The intention of this framework is to facilitate the development of links with new audiences to ensure that more individuals and organisations understand the challenges, barriers and solutions to achieving gender parity, with a focus on the engineering (and other technical) field; as well as the benefits that can be gained by achieving gender parity. This strategy should encourage and initiate change within individuals and organisations.
Profile
WISE aims to grow the profile of female engineers that successfully contribute to economic development of the subsea industry, celebrate this important resource and explore promote strategies and initiatives to capitalise on and develop women’s skills and capabilities as a resource for the benefit of the subsea industry as a whole.
Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship Grant Recipient
Subsea Energy Australia is very pleased to announce that we are the recipients of a Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship Grant.
The grant was awarded based upon a plan proposed by SEA, which kicked off with the recent launch of our Women In Subsea Engineering network and is aimed at improving participation rates of women in engineering roles in the subsea industry.
As outlined by the Department of Innovation, Industry and Science, the project involves availing a series of workshops and networking events, as well as the creation of education materials and development programs, specific to the subsea sector and engineering for women.
The grant scheme will extend over two years. Planned program activities will include establishing an international professional network, professional development activities, scholarship fund, mentoring programmes and a communication plan that will promote the achievements of the women in the industry.
Allison Selman, SEA Board member and Asset & Integrity Management Business Manager for Atteris, is elated at the encouragement and support the grant will provide for members of the WISE network and the benefits to the wider subsea community.
“We are so excited to receive this boost! The program involves constructive activities targeted at improving gender diversity in engineering within the subsea sector. We know from the survey that we undertook that there are already so many amazing women working in the sector, the challenge will be in supporting and engaging them by delivering a range of activities in flexible formats.”
The WISE Network currently connects through LinkedIn and is open to anyone interested in increasing the level of participation of female engineers in the subsea industry. We welcome new members and look forward to sharing more about where the grant will take us over 2017 and 2018.
Allison Selman of Atteris, Board Member for SEA, hosted the first WISE networking event and official launch on Tuesday 29 Nov. Jeremy Wray, GE Oil & Gas spoke about the importance of inclusion and diversity in supporting the sector and Julissa Shrewsbury, New Work Consulting continued to share knowledge regarding networking and having a visible professional presence.
25 WISE Members joined us last Tuesday to network and celebrate the launch of WISE. One of the learnings from our survey was that no specific time is a good time for the female engineers working in subsea. WISE will make sure our events run at different times of the day and week to enable as wide an involvement as possible.
Julissa spent time with attendees on their LinkedIn profile offering one-on-one advice carrying on from the webinar we held last month. If you missed the webinar you may like to have a look at how Julissa examines Allison’s own profile, you can find it here.
If you have any questions about any of the above please feel free to contact
Jessica Pietsch
Executive Officer
Subsea Energy Australia
jessica@subseaenergy.org.au
08 6500 6877
Wise Words
Advice for young women thinking about getting into subsea engineering. Are you a female subsea engineer? You can add your own comments below.
Women In Subsea Engineering – Survey Results
In April 2016, Subsea Energy Australia announced the undertaking of an industry survey aimed to capture an overview of women currently working in the subsea sector. The aim was to help us understand the core issues and barriers to participation. Here is the response of what it has shown us and what our next steps will be…
When I began as Executive Officer back in October last year, part of the remit handed over to me by the former EO was to reinvigorate the beginnings of a Women’s program that had launched with a Women’s Networking Breakfast earlier in 2015. All of the feedback from that event was very positive, however the committee members involved noted it had been very hard to fill the seats, this made me think that we may need to rethink our approach a bit.
I was at a bit of a loss for a next step, until AOG2016 when I met Allison Selman, Subsea Engineer from SEA member organisation Atteris. Allison is an active member of the subsea community having built and developed the Engineers Australia’s EngTalk program, she was also instrumental in the development of AGPA’s Pipeline Competencies. We both discussed our desire to support women in the subsea sector in a way that would be sustainable rather than tokenistic. We determined that the best thing to do would be to ask the subsea community: Where are all the women? What do they think? What do they need? So in April of this year we launched two surveys, one aimed at companies to look at their overall information practices, and the other focussing on the individual woman’s experience working subsea.
We were amazed to get such a large response from the women in subsea engineering! 38 women working in the field of subsea engineering responded to the call, they provided helpful insight into the demographic we want to support.
***Full disclosure*** This was Allison’s and my first attempt at creating a survey like this, we realise now that there were many other key questions we should have asked.
Findings from the Survey for Individual Response
- 50% of participants were trained in Western Australia, with the other 50% varying across Europe, America, Canada and New Zealand.
- 65% of participants graduated after 1992, with 42.1% of the respondents having less than 5 years of experience.
- The predominant themes for motivation in joining the subsea industry were around seeking out interesting, exciting and challenging work.
- 34% of participants identified as having taken a career break the majority of these were as part of having children, whilst several were for other purposes. The biggest challenge to re-entering the workforce was adjusting to part-time work and often the lack of interesting work available in part-time positions.
- Very few of the participants (5.4%) identified as being interested in owning their own business, conclusions we can only attempt to understand being around the risks of small business and the statistics that show us that small business ownership can be both emotionally and financially difficult. The women in subsea engineering instead are opting for a different pathway to avoid such risk, the majority of respondents (77.8%) are working in large international organisations with over 200 employees. There could perhaps be a space for some training here, as self-contracting is often the most lucrative means of employment and could go some way towards closing the 17.5% gender pay gap.
- All of the participants identified as having experienced discrimination of some kind throughout their career, many referenced the glass ceiling or alluded to the effects of unconscious bias.
- The women in subsea engineering are already very active in the wider professional sector, participating in a variety of different networks and industry associations including – Society for Underwater Technology, Engineers Australia, Women In Energy, Toastmasters International, Society if Petroleum Engineers The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA), International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), Engineers Without Borders Australia, Women in Engineering – Western Australia, Women in Oil and Gas (WIOG) group, The Australian Corrosion Society, Australasian Hydrographic Society
- In seeking timing that would suit the majority for some kind of meetup or training it seems there is no unified time for which all the participants are happily available, the preferences leaning towards after work or during lunchtime.
- In terms of communication, all the women are registered on LinkedIn.
So how we can contribute without encroaching on the established work of other networks and associations? Obviously the lowest hanging fruit is to enable a network for connecting everyone together via a LinkedIn or by email distribution, enabling the sharing of existing knowledge, networks and activities. This is an easily achievable goal and one we can begin straight away by building a communication hub.
The development of networks and peer-to-peer support was outlined in the Committee for Perth’s recent report on female workforce participation ‘Filling the Pool’ , as is, creating inclusive environment’s for networking, sponsorship and mentor programs, all of these are easily achievable goals for WISE to work towards.
There is clearly a real appetite for positive action, not just by Allison anymore, but from the other participants in the survey who would like to be involved in the ongoing engagement of women in the subsea sector. We must find ways to build the skills of the women in subsea engineering and increase the level of participation, delivered in a flexible format. If you have ideas and suggestions, or would like to be involved in a task group for WISE we would love to hear from you.
*We did also put out a call for organisations to fill in a survey about their employment and retainment of subsea engineers, unfortunately there was not enough information to make any accurate assumptions. A huge thankyou to the companies who took part and we hope that you will continue supporting the WISE network in future endeavours.