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.
