International Women’s Day at Precise

March 8 – #BalanceforBetter

This International Women’s Day, we thought we’d turn the spotlight on ourselves. It’s always easier to say what others should be doing, while perhaps glossing over what we need to do. As a recruitment company in the offshore energy sector, we’ve seen significant change in the make-up of our team but there is still a way to go.

“I’d say in the day-to-day operations, there’s equality among the team. But that isn’t yet the case for our management layer,” says Rhoss Williams, Associate Director. “And it’s important to add ‘yet’ because we’re conscious of both the need to change that and the benefit we will gain from doing that”.

“When we started, the team – Pete, Adam, Tom and I – we’re obviously all guys. The management was all-male. It was symptomatic of the industry.  And gradually, we’ve changed that to broaden the range of skill sets and backgrounds, to balance the company”.

“There has been a huge waste of potential because of gender bias. Women in the workforce have been discriminated against, and it’s still happening. As a society we should move to address this especially when we have so many problems facing not just women but all of us, mankind en-masse. The current political, economic and environmental issues won’t be solved by men alone but by the sexes working together”.

“We saw ourselves the impact a woman at senior level has in a firm. Because we were so small, when Derya Aydoğan became a key decision-maker in the management team, she changed the dynamic straight away. It became much more inclusive and comfortable. We’ve got a better working environment and the decisions we make are sounder.”

Derya joined the firm straight out of university when she was 20 years old. Now, 4 years later, she works as our Operations and Marketing Manager and is the most senior woman on the team.

“To me a diverse work place means an innovative one. When you have diversity, you get creativity of thinking. It’s important to bring together people of different backgrounds, life experiences, education, countries, and when you do, you can often generate perspectives that others wouldn’t have considered”.

“So, yes, it’s disappointing to see how few women are promoted to senior positions in firms across the world. Only 11% of the top global O&G companies have female executives. There is no balance there, it’s ridiculous! There is countless research proving the benefit of having women at every level within an organisation: we are more ethical, nurturing, and empathetic, and in order to lead people, emotions are very important. Emotions get people lined up behind ideas.

“Within Precise, the management team’s lack of balance is acknowledged which I find very supportive and encouraging. I am confident that we are moving in the right direction because although we’re missing female representation on the management on the technical side, they’re actively changing that. The way we’re tackling that is through promotions and training so the women who are working on survey are being given opportunities to make technical decisions along with Pete, Rhoss and Tom. When I came in four years ago, I had no experience, but I was given all the opportunities I needed to get to my position now”.

“That to me is one of the most important aspects about International Women’s Day: the way everyone is encouraged to stand up for women’s rights. It can never only be women who participate in this fight: it requires everyone. In order to build a more collaborative world, women and men need to work together. Change can only really be made by the people in power and right now, the vast majority of those people are male. So, our female advocates in companies have to lead the changes.”

The importance of advocates is key for Emma Phipps too. “To me, women make up 50% of the world. It is strange that half of the population with pretty much the same brains are potentially limited solely because of their sex. Men who are in the most senior positions need to look around and see the sea of typically white male faces looking back at them and realise that this in fact isn’t good for their business. It might be comfortable as it’s the status quo but we know it holds businesses back”.

“The annual study of the 400 largest public companies in California shows that among the 25 firms with the highest percentage of women execs and board members, median returns on assets and equity in 2015 were at least 74% higher than among the overall group of companies surveyed.”

More young women are moving into the profession, both as freelancers and in the recruitment side. For Chloe Price, Account Manager, there’s a sense of pride that they’re actively changing the industry.

“More of my generation simply don’t accept what’s gone before. We’ve not been brought up to expect that there are differences between men and women professionally or in any other way. We’re told to reach up and expect more. So, we do”.

“Take the gender pay gap. It might well be the smallest it’s ever been but as far as I am concerned it shouldn’t exist at all. For me it’s more about how there aren’t enough women on the boards who can balance things out and ensure that we collectively aren’t limited in achieving our potential – as a society”.

“I’ve grown a lot in this position and feel more confident about knowing what should be happening. At first, I was a little intimidated and scared of not being taken seriously. Not so much by the people I was working with but the freelancers and clients. They’re used to working with others who’ve been in the industry for a long time – and those people tend to be male”.

“I’ve come across guys who aren’t as receptive to women in the team here as they are to the guys on the team. That’s a reflection of their characters, not mine. What drives me is knowing the guys on my team won’t stand for that”.

“I have heard a number of times from freelancers how great it is that there are more women here: they like it. They deal with other men all the time and they see it as very positive to have more women coming into the industry. They like to see that we’re developing more technical skills as well – to know that we’re committed. I respect that – the job we do is hugely important, and I’d expect anyone in this to take it seriously. It makes me feel very proud and determined”.

“I think sometimes we hold ourselves back – maybe unconsciously. There is without a doubt a sense that if women fail, you’re letting the whole female side down – whereas if a man fails, that’s ok – he can just move on. And that’s when it’s important to have people above us who can encourage us to go for it. Even though I’m quite new to the team, they know I am ambitious to move into a senior leadership position in the technical side, and I am being fully supported. We need to develop our confidence to believe that we can just as much as we ask others to help us. Our success here is a two-way street.”