Neeta Murthy is a corporate executive with 20 years of experience. Founder of Rekindle, helping businesses develop their female pipeline.
As a young engineer, I was truly excited to work in extreme conditions! On an oil rig 30 miles off the Egyptian coast, with temperatures over 115 degrees, I saw dolphins jumping in the Red Sea alongside the rig. Months earlier, working in three feet of snow in Canada, I spotted moose in the wild more than once.
Not everything was rosy, though. Oilfield conditions were harsh. We often worked for more than 50 hours at a stretch, and the risk of explosions and toxic gas leaks was real. And as a sole woman on an offshore rig, things often got a lot harsher. I slept in cabins alongside men who were strangers. I had to pass men at urinals on my way to toilet stalls in community bathrooms. And on remote land jobs, I had no access to restrooms for hours.
I thrive on challenges and accepted these unpleasant conditions as just that. But it’s no surprise that research by the United Nations shows that the energy industry has one of the lowest levels of gender diversity among employers.
Gender diversity remains an issue across many industries today.
As a field engineer, I went above and beyond what was expected of me. Unlike my peers, I ran both “open hole” and “cased hole” jobs and did both generalist and high-technology specialist jobs. Assessments at this stage of my career were purely technical and performance-based, and after years of zero technical failures, I earned a massive promotion—a role working with the company’s executive board.
Over the next year, working with top management, I noticed a strong commitment to improving their pipeline of female talent. At one point, the company invited women employees from across the world to a two-day launch event, and all the senior executives joined the event. At a roundtable, I gathered the courage to ask a question that had been on my mind.
I asked, “Is the company’s position that, yes, oilfield conditions are hard, so women can either brave it or leave? Or do you think we should ensure basic standards to accommodate women’s specific needs?”
I knew the executive was absolutely passionate about the gender cause. That’s why it surprised me and hundreds of the other women in the room when he responded that women weren’t made to work in conditions like that. The entire room resonated with a drawn-out “nooooo.”
Here was a very well-intentioned leader who was unaware of the reality that I had experienced for five years, as had many other women in the room. Over the next 20 minutes, we opened up about the hardships we had faced working in the oil fields.
The company immediately set up an executive committee to look deeper into these issues. They came out with a list of minimum requirements that oil rigs and facilities needed to meet for women. Using this list, the company worked with clients to ensure basic, humane working conditions for women. This was a major step in an industry that had been so male-centric.
This taught me a big lesson: Companies mean well.
Many company leaders want to do the right things to retain their female talent. And they want to have an equal number of women at all levels, something that is sorely lacking now. But they need help.
My later experience as a senior executive showed me that hurdles women face are not restricted to the field. Women in corporate offices brave unique challenges that their male peers often don’t face.
The most obvious issue is the pay gap. According to the International Energy Agency, women working in the energy sector earn 19% less than men.
Research also shows that women run up against societal expectations routinely in workplace interactions. For example, assertive women are often perceived as aggressive, but non-assertive women are seen as lacking leadership potential: a double bind indeed. The “Women in the Workplace 2022” report by Lean In and McKinsey shows that women leaders are more likely to have their judgment questioned or to be mistaken for someone more junior.
These persistent social expectations and judgments make it much harder for women to be effective leaders. Solutions like unconscious bias training can help but are far too slow to have an impact.
So what can we do?
The solution lies in leadership training that addresses women’s specific needs and shows them how to navigate these challenges. With the right skills and mindsets, women can be much more effective performers.
Companies have focused largely on policy changes such as working from home, extended maternity leave, etc. Research has shown that such efforts have limited impact and often result in women being penalized for using these benefits.
Instead, companies should focus on building the skills that women employees need to thrive. For instance, women employees can benefit from learning how to be more effective participants in meetings, handling interruptions and making their voice heard. They can also benefit from learning how to build alliances across the organization to get buy-in for their ideas. These are essential skills for success.
On the other hand, companies also need to focus on making mindset changes to help women become more effective. For instance, women don’t delegate work as much as their male peers do, but not because they lack delegation skills. In many cases, this is linked to a greater need for perfection and because many women feel it’s their responsibility to actually do the work themselves.
Lastly, such changes cannot be accomplished in workshops lasting a few days. They are best achieved over a longer timeframe (several months at least) and in the context of their work, where each participant learns a new skill or about a mindset change and then gets to practice that at her workplace immediately. Behavioral science has shown that such an approach creates a lasting impact.
When women are in an environment where they can reach their potential, they are more engaged. It’s the key to inspiring a sense of belonging and building a healthy pipeline of women at all levels!
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