The Diversity Agenda: More women into engineering and architecture
We are delighted to get behind the Diversity Agenda – an industry-wide campaign that is galvanising scores of Kiwi companies around one common goal: 20 percent more women engineers and architects by 2021.
The campaign will address critical issues like retaining and promoting women to leadership roles and ensuring pay equity.
The Diversity Agenda started as a collaboration between Engineering New Zealand, the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) and the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ). It already has more than 50 other organisations signed up as Founding Partners and Change Makers.
Our Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jan Evans-Freeman, says she believes it’s critically important for leaders in the education and industry to collectively commit to the campaign for change.
“There are so many good reasons to change the status quo. Not only do we want a more gender-balanced workforce and greater diversity of thought, but it also makes good financial sense to do so. Research shows that companies that had more women on staff were 15 percent more likely to financially outperform their industry, while those that had women on their boards were 26 percent more profitable than those that had all male boards. We can only reach these targets by training a larger number of female students to fill the positions in industry. There is also strong evidence that more females in the engineering workforce improves the awareness of Health and Safety issue. As an organisation, we’re not only lending our voice to the cause, but we’re committed to real, actionable change. In January 2019 we will hold our first WiE CAN residential event which will invite 60 students to join us at UC to find out more about studying engineering and to connect with like-minded students from around the country.”
The Diversity Agenda works by getting organisations to commit to adopting more inclusive practices. It’s backed up by a hard-hitting social media campaign featuring the stories of women working in architecture and engineering.
Learn more about the Diversity Agenda and how you can influence change here:www.diversityagenda.org