Career prospects for women in oil and gas are looking up as the industry looks to shed its chauvinistic reputation.
And BP said yesterday that more are climbing the ladder to senior roles than ever before.
In the inaugural Global Diversity and Inclusion Report – commissioned by the super-major – researchers at Rigzone record that, while more than 70% of respondents said oil and gas remains a male-dominated industry, the majority of energy professionals stated that it was “quite or very important” to ensure the industry is attractive to women.
According to Kirsty Bashforth, group head of organisational effectiveness at BP, this finding is particularly relevant given nearly nine out of ten of the more than 3,000 survey respondents were male.
More than 60% said they expect the greatest increases in female representation to be among professionals just entering the industry and those early in their career.
“We want women to know that the oil and gas industry has made tremendous strides in recent years and that it offers opportunities not provided by other sectors,” said Ms Bashforth. “While the industry acknowledges it still has work to do in terms of a gender balanced pool of talent, the results of this survey demonstrate that industry initiatives and programs to engage women about careers in oil and gas are making an impact and we need to keep focused for them to continue to do so.”
Ms Bashforth said that there had been significant change in the gender balance of the sector worldwide and that women represented nearly 32% of BP’s hires last year.
“For BP, diversity and inclusion is not a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a ‘must have’.”
Ms Bashforth pointed out that there is a competition for talent under way and that women represent half of that pool. So why would industry not engage?
“You only have to look at the amount of press, conversations, panels, events … everybody’s actually engaged in this because it’s a talent conversation. Companies are looking everywhere for talent,” she said.
Ms Bashforth admitted that the UK lags behind Norway where women are commonplace in the offshore industry; even the US boasts a scatter of females in top roles. “But the numbers are improving,” she told the Press and Journal.
“On the BP side, if you look back 20 years, I would say they were very few and far between at senior leadership level; and by 10-12 years ago we had about 9% at the most senior levels.
“We’ve now got about 17.5% at the most senior levels – the top 500 out of a company of about 85,000 people. It’s been a slow and steady rise. One woman is in the top 10 on the executive team and two on the board. But in the top 5,000 out of 85,000, we have about 19%.”
Turning to BP’s peer group, she claimed progress “all-round”.
Ms Bashforth warned: “People might be expectant of massive breakthrough numbers. But there’s no silver bullet. It’s not a quick fix. Everyone is around that 15-20% area and heading towards a more like 20-25%.”
More however needs to be done. The survey uncovered barriers and challenges, as well as potential solutions for increasing female representation.
One in five (20%) of those surveyed strongly agreed gender based discrimination occurs within the industry and respondents cited societal conditioning, a lack of qualified candidates and family care responsibilities as most significant barriers to increasing the proportion of women in the industry.
