Under-representation of women in business and the subsequent under-utilisation of female talent in the workforce has been a much discussed and long debated topic in many organisations across all industries.

Whilst most organisations want to increase opportunities and numbers of women in their workplaces, the reality continues to be far from the dream.

Women at Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global project delivery and engineering company, have realised that to engage and encourage women at all levels within the organisation, leadership must start with them in order to place diversity firmly on the agenda.

By leading diversity within SKM, women have inspired SKM business leaders to think differently about the future possibilities of tapping into a broader and more dynamic workforce.

SKM is an employee-owned organisation that embraces shared values, an open culture, a commitment to service and quality, high standards of safety and business ethics and a leading-edge approach to delivering a sustainable future.

These key elements, as well as a strategic vision to further expand into new markets and geographies, has resulted in SKM making a serious commitment to encourage diversity and equality in the workplace.

SKM has recognised that diversity within all levels of the business is not just good business but a financial imperative for the continued growth of the organisation, as labour markets become tighter, and the demand for high quality talent increases.

The company has acknowledged that all staff must see career opportunity and long-term possibilities within the business to ensure that it can recruit, promote and retain the best skills. SKM is certainly not the first to acknowledge this, as substantial research has shown that successful businesses encourage a broad cross-section of the community within an organisation at all levels.

Research by global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company has shown that there is causal link between those companies achieving better corporate outcomes and the number of women within their senior and leadership ranks¹.

SKM has encouraged diversity in its business in a variety of ways for many years, through senior management as well as employee-led initiatives. The greatest success in recent times has been through the establishment of a funded employee-led initiative that identifies, recommends and reviews opportunities for diversity and equality within the business, known as Women in Consulting (WiC).

The SKM WiC initiative drives review of diversity policies and cultural change, promotes staff education and awareness, as well as monitoring consistent execution of these. WiC seeks to identify, recommend and review opportunities for diversity and equality, specifically related to gender, in all areas of the business.

Diversity at SKM prior to Women in Consulting (WiC)

Prior to the founding of WiC in 2006, SKM had already recognised the need for diversity to help support many of its business goals. Great People, Great Teams has been a cornerstone strategy of SKM’s business plan for many years, as the importance of attracting and retaining staff is paramount to SKM’s success, particularly in the increasing talent shortage within the engineering sector.

Diversity was also considered critical to SKM’s Strategic Global Positioning strategy, in order to grow clients and attract staff outside of Australia. SKM has always been very proud of its shared values which are very visible across the organisation.

In 2004 and 2005, SKM implemented a number of policies relating to diversity, good working relations and grievance procedures. SKM also created a Diversity Committee focussing primarily on age-related issues. In Australia, a paid maternity leave policy was already in place, with a maximum of six weeks’ paid leave, and employment for part-time, casual and contract arrangements were easily accessible. What was clear, however, was that the policies were Australian-centric and had limited relevance in attracting and retaining staff with cultural and gender-diverse backgrounds. SKM’s language continued to be Australian and "male-centric", despite the shift towards expanding internationally. Specifically, retention and progression of mid-level female staff continued to be an increasing problem, which resulted in very few eligible female candidates for senior roles.

History of WiC

In 2006, two senior female staff members from SKM’s Melbourne office met with regional management to discuss their concern regarding the small percentage of women in senior leadership roles and in the private shareholding arrangements within the organisation. This discussion led to the creation of a small working group focussed on addressing the need for greater representation of females within management and leadership roles, strategic recruitment and retention of female staff as well as the provision of better mentoring and networking opportunities for current employees.

Consequently, the WiC initiative was created as an internal working group by women in the business, whose mission was to engage females at all levels within the company and provide opportunities for staff development and career progression. Key to the success and visibility of this initiative with senior management was active CEO and regional manager sponsorship. Fundamentally, WiC represented SKM’s acknowledgement that diversity and equality were not just about providing a better workplace for all staff, but was a useful vehicle for serious cultural change within the organisation.

Key to the Melbourne WiC Steering Committee’s success was the formal establishment of a Business Plan aligned to SKM’s four core business strategies, a formal reporting process to the regional management team and a designated budget for the Steering Committee to manage. The Steering Committee also agreed on a vision statement for WiC “to advance and support women at SKM by promoting the value of women in consulting environments.” Both the vision and the business plan have continued to shape the focus of WiC and to prioritise initiatives.

Initiatives, achievements and successes

WiC has had a number of successes in the past five years and continues to gain momentum in the organisation. Key initiatives have been driven by females in the business, most of which support staff from both genders. As an agent for change in the organisation, WiC has become an important driver of initiatives which align with and support SKM’s strategic initiatives, particularly those related to the attraction and retention of staff, and global growth.

Impact and results

The impact of all the diversity initiatives including WiC, have achieved some outstanding results for SKM. Whilst the number of females entering the industries in which SKM is involved remains low, particularly with only 13.9% of professional engineering graduates in Australia in 2008 being female², SKM is proud that, within the company, the attraction and retention of female staff has improved, with 32% of all new hires being female.

Despite the global financial crisis in late 2008 and throughout 2009, SKM’s diversity initiatives have gone from strength to strength, with the percentage of female staff increasing during this time.

In May 2008, prior to the global financial crisis and arguably at the height of the industry’s talent shortage, 25% of SKM’s global staff was female; by February 2011, this percentage had increased to 27.4%, with overall staff numbers remaining stagnant. The percentage of part-time staff, a key indicator of flexible working practices, has increased globally from 4.6% to 5.3%, including sixteen part-time managers. Attrition of female staff has also slowed, with a significant reduction in variance of attrition rates between female and male staff to 1.4% in February 2011, down from 5% at the end of the 2005/06 financial year when WiC was instigated.

As at February 2011, 15% of management roles globally are held by women, including one female leadership team appointment as a direct report to the CEO in 2010. More crucially, 23% of team leader roles, which are considered the feeder roles to management level, are held by women globally. SKM’s board consists of three female directors (two executives and one non-executive), representing 37.5% of board membership.

Cultural diversity has also improved over the same period, despite Australia remaining the strength of SKM’s financial success. In May 2008, 25.8% of SKM’s staff was located outside of Australia; by February 2011, this had increased to 28.1%, with entities having been established during this time in countries including Kenya, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Oman, Ireland and the Czech Republic.

SKM runs a bi-annual global employee engagement survey which is administered by Towers Watson, with diversity as a key measure. In the October 2010 survey, with two thirds of all staff responding to the survey, the diversity category had statistically significantly increased by two percentage points versus the August 2008 survey, and five percentage points versus the August 2006 survey. Even more significantly, SKM’s overall diversity score was seven percentage points higher than Towers Watsons’ Global Professional Services Norm and nine percentage points higher than Towers Watsons’ Global Engineering and Construction Norm, which are two key external benchmarks for SKM.

Key learnings

SKM has learned that there are some key factors to the success of WiC and diversity in the organisation. SKM will continue to strive to promote and raise awareness of diversity issues inside and outside SKM’s business.

This is a condensed version of the paper Women leading diversity at SKM, delivered at the ICWES15 Conference in Adelaide. For a full copy please contact Lucy Griffin.

¹ Desvaux, G, Devillard-Hoellinger S & Meaney, M A (2008), Business Case for Women, McKinsey.

² Engineers Australia (2010), The Engineering Profession, A Statistical Overview, Seventh Edition.

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