Engineers band together for clear picture on female graduates

Consulting engineering firms know they have a challenge recruiting women into their highly male-dominated industry.

While firms compete for a limited pool of female talent, understanding the gender balance of the graduate intake across the industry is important for developing and tracking recruitment strategies.

Members of Consult Australia’s Male Champions of Change group realised that differences in the way their organisations were interpreting some employee categories in the WGEA reporting questionnaire was undermining the value of industry benchmark data. 

“Each organisation was putting its own interpretation on how they classified graduates, for example around length of time with the company or participation in a formal program,” said Megan Motto, Chief Executive Officer Consult Australia.

“It meant that the benchmark data was not giving a true picture of each firm’s performance or the progress of the industry as a whole.”

As a result, firms represented on Consult Australia’s MCC group have agreed to consistent interpretations of employee categories including graduates to ensure they will be better able to compare data, benchmark the industry and map their own organisations’ performance. This will result in improved insights to continue to drive for gender balance.