According to recent studies by McKinsey & Company, PwC, and O.C. Tanner, fulfillment at the workplace takes the lead nowadays as the most important metric that most employees strive to achieve in the corporate world over benefits and pay [1,2,3]. Tailored mentorship programs are one of those powerful tools to attain fulfillment. Therefore, developing robust mentorship programs has become more important than ever due to the paradigm shift observed in employees' career aspirations.
The benefits of mentorship, specifically for women, are backed by empirical evidence from various studies and surveys. According to a report by the Lean In Foundation and McKinsey & Company, women who have mentors are more likely to be promoted, ask for more challenging assignments, and aspire to senior leadership positions than women who do not [4,5]. Another study by KPMG found that 28% of women who had mentors at the workplace became senior leaders, compared to 19% of those without mentors [6].
Mentorship programs not only provide women with the necessary tools to excel in their roles but also help bridge the gender gap in leadership roles. This was the main message of a panel discussion hosted last year by the SPE Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Committee.
The panel featured two female leaders and D&I advocates in our industry: Celina Gioja (founder and CEO of Celi Gioja and a mentor and champion of Vital Voices in the Neuquén province in Argentina) and Emily Firth (Europe market and business analyst at Halliburton, and the global mentoring chair for Halliburton’s Women Sharing Excellence Employee Resource Group).
Gioja and Firth shared their personal and professional experiences with mentorship, as well as their tips and advice for both mentors and mentees. The panelists also discussed the challenges and opportunities for women in the energy industry, and how mentorship can help create a more diverse and inclusive culture. The panel was moderated by Miral Tawfik, lead reservoir engineer at Chevron and external outreach chair of the SPE D&I Committee.
This article distills the key discussion points and adds context to the main messages shared during this SPE Live session.
A diverse and inclusive workplace is an integral part of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework. Creating a workplace where all employees feel valued and respected, regardless of their background, is a key part of the “S” in ESG [7]. This includes implementing policies and programs that promote diversity, setting diversity targets, and providing DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) training.
Implementing those practices not only ensures fulfillment and success on the employees’ side, but it has been proven to foster innovation, creativity, and employee engagement, which delivers better business results. The business case for a more diverse corporate pipeline has been backed by multiple studies and reports over the past few decades [1]. Companies with more than 30% representation of women are more likely to financially outperform those with less female representation [4].
Besides the strong business case for inclusion, adequate representation in leadership positions is very important. Another great aspect of mentorship is it helps generate role models for other women in the organization, where more junior female employees in the company can see that it is possible to reach leadership positions.
As Gioja notes, women represent only 24% of the total workforce in the energy industry and 19% of energy leadership positions. This may be a result of the barriers and challenges women face to reach and maintain those leadership positions.
Those challenges start as early as childhood. Firth shared the “dream gap” theory, which is the phenomenon of girls as young as 5 years old starting to doubt their abilities due to societal pressures. It describes the disparity between a young girl’s aspirations and her perceived ability to achieve them. The challenges persist into adulthood as Gioja points out, listing the glass ceiling, the unconscious biases, the maternity tax, the gender pay gap, and illegal harassment/discrimination workplace culture as typical experiences of female professionals [8–13].
A challenge Firth elaborates further is unconscious bias. An example was demonstrated in a 2012 study where the authors sent identical applications to multiple institutions to have them assessed for a given job opening, with the only difference between these applications being the name of the applicant. Some of the applications were submitted as the name “John,” and some were submitted as the name “Jennifer.”
Results showed that the likelihood of hiring the candidate was 18% lower when the applicant had a female name, and institutions were 12% less likely to mentor that female, and wanted to offer them 13% less in salary compared to the male counterpart despite the education, experience, and skills mentioned on the resumes being identical [14].
Those headwinds not only act as barriers of entry; they also have been shown to discourage retention among women employees.
Acknowledging that those headwinds exist is the first step towards remedying the diversity gaps in the workplace. Another step is to develop tailored mentoring programs that target women’s development, as well as programs that target employers and male allies. Training employers on bias is key to spreading awareness of the effect of metacognition on decision making.
Research has shown that mentoring helps address how to navigate challenges. It helps with talent retention, removal of cultural barriers, defending against discrimination, internal leadership development, and overall employee workplace performance [15–19].
It is important to note that most of the time women go through those challenges alone. Through mentoring programs, experienced women professionals can share their stories to normalize talking about those headwinds, support each other, and share lessons learned on how to navigate and overcome those barriers. Moreover, since many energy companies are international in nature, it is important to understand the regional differences in gender representation, and tailor the training programs accordingly [20].
As Gioja states, it’s important to make the challenges visible, take action to reduce their impact, and emphasize that the importance of DEI is not a matter of opinion, but a fact backed by several studies.
The success of mentorship programs is multifaceted. When enhanced with best practices, like strategic matching of mentor and mentee, mentor program training, and program flexibility, women mentoring programs help women to, as Firth says, “play to their strengths.” Women display strong innate abilities for effective communication, empathy, leading by example, and fostering the team towards group success.
One tip that Firth offered is to make sure there are clear objectives to the mentorship program, following the SMART approach. More importantly, mentees should reflect on what they want to get from the program by identifying the skills that they wish to develop in the short and long term, while maintaining some flexibility to adjust the goals as necessary.
A few questions a mentee needs to answer are:
- What skills do I need to achieve my objectives?
- What is my current level of mastery in these skills?
- How do I develop those skills?
In response to how to measure the success of women mentorship programs, Gioja offered several methods.
- Practice due diligence in identifying specific skills that women usually don’t get a chance to hone.
- Structure programs to guarantee consistent touch points between mentors and mentees.
- Measure well-defined KPIs to assess the program’s success, such as tracking the number of promotions, number of women in leadership positions, and female attrition rates.
- Solicit feedback continually after the program to incorporate necessary changes and improvements to the program.
Both Firth and Gioja emphasized the significant role that male allies play in the success of those programs. Fostering a safe space for everyone to ask questions and better understand the data on this issue is crucial.
Firth added, “We want them to be conscious about hiring women, building teams that include women, and inviting women to the table … We want our male role models to be advocates for women, and not just when they are in the room, but pulling up their name when looking for people who are interested in getting involved in other projects or careers or training opportunities. And we want to see men included on panels and at events that relate to women’s issues. We want to see that active allyship.”
For Further Reading
[1]Diversity Matters Even More: The Case for Holistic Impact by Dame Vivian Hunt, Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, Celia Huber, et al., McKinsey & Company.
[2] Help Your Employees Find Purpose—or Watch Them Leave by Naina Dhingra, Andrew Samo, Bill Schaninger, et al., McKinsey & Company.
[3] Four Ways To Help Your Employees Feel More Fulfilled (and Why You Need To) by Kathy Caprino, Forbes.
[4] 2022 Global Culture Report, O.C. Tanner Institute.
[5] Women in the Workplace 2024: Key Findings & Takeaways, Lean In.
[6] KPMG’s Women’s Leadership Study. Moving Women Forward Into Leadership Roles, KPMG.
[7] Data & Insights: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion. The State of Social in ESG. ESG Global Advisors.
[8]2018 Gender Diversity Study. Petroleum Equipment & Services Association, Energy Workforce & Technology Council.
[9] Challenging the Gendered Rhetoric of Success? The Limitations of Women-Only Mentoring for Tackling Gender Inequality in the Workplace by K. Dashper, Leeds Beckett University. Journal of Gender, Work & Organization.
[10] Influence of Female Managers on Gender Wage Gap and Returns to Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills by J. Balcar, University of Ostrava (Czech Republic), and V. Hedija, College of Polytechnics Jihlava (Czech Republic). Journal of Gender, Work & Organization.
[11] Doing Gender in Energy Communities: A Gendered Perspective on Barriers and Motivators by M. Vogel, C. Kacperski, M. Bielig, and F. Kutzner, Seeburg Castle University, Austria. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.
[12] We Are Strong and We Are Resilient: Career Experiences of Women Engineers by S. Khilji and K. Pumroy, The George Washington University. Journal of Gender, Work & Organization.
[13] Women Leaders, Self-Body-Care and Corporate Moderate Feminism: An (Im)Perfect Place for Feminism by S. Mavin, Newcastle University, and G. Grandy, University of Regina. Journal of Gender, Work & Organization.
[14] Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students by C.A. Moss-Racusin, J.F. Dovidio, V.L. Brescoll, et al., Yale University. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
[15] Diversity and Power in Mentoring Relationships by C.A. Hansman, Cleveland State University. Critical Perspectives on Mentoring: Trends and Issues.
[16] Mentoring and Women’s Career Development by C.A. Hansman, Cleveland State University. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education: Volume 1998, Issue 80 (Wiley).
[17] Harnessing Demographic Differences in Organizations: What Moderates the Effects of Workplace Diversity? by Y.R.F. Guillaume, Aston University; J.F. Dawson, University of Sheffield; and L. Otaye-Ebede, John Moores University, Liverpool, et al. Journal of Organizational Behavior.
[18] A Better Approach to Mentorship by C.J. Gross, Harvard Business Review.
[19] What Great Mentorship Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace by M. Tu and M. Li, Harvard Business Review.
[20] Gender-Based Opportunity Structure in the Energy Sector: A Literature Review on Women’s Networking and Mentoring by D. Lazoroska, J. Palm, and A.R. Kojonsaari, Lund University (Sweden). Energy, Sustainability and Society.
Miral Tawfik, SPE, is a lead reservoir engineer at Chevron. Her technical expertise encompasses a variety of topics including mechanistic modeling, enhanced oil recovery, heavy oil resource development, and subsurface asphaltene risk assessment. As an SPE member, she holds various regional and international roles including serving as a deputy chair of the D&I Standing Committee. She holds a PhD in energy and mineral engineering from Penn State University and a BSc in petroleum and energy engineering from the American University in Cairo.
Antonio Cuesta, SPE, is an environmental specialist at Chevron Renewable Energy Group. His fields of expertise include environmental engineering, CCUS technologies, and sustainable energy policies and practices. As an SPE member, he attends professional networking events and functions. He holds an MSc in energy and mineral engineering from Penn State University and a BSc in earth and environmental engineering from Columbia University.