Creating Better Business Outcomes and Closing the Staffing Gap – A Study of Gender Diversity in U.S. AEC Industry Leadership – Hickey
Abstract:
With staffing shortages of 650,000 openings in AEC and growing client demand for more efficiency, faster delivery, and tighter cost controls, how will firms fulfil current contract requirements? Compounded by an aging workforce, how can companies survive in the future? Simply stated, expand beyond the traditional male-centric culture to identify new candidate pools. Further, research confirms that organizations comprised of varying voices and perspectives deliver business outcomes and higher client satisfaction.
Anecdotally, men dominate AEC. This study quantified the gender composition of the C-suite, identified differences in career paths between women and men, and gathered in-depth information on women engineering executives’ professional stories. Using the industry-recognized Engineering News-Record (ENR) Top 400 largest companies, the initial phase of this research found women filled 3.9% of engineering executive positions in 2019, reducing to 3.5% in 2021. Exploring further into individual and collective career paths, researchers applied web scraping algorithms to extract LinkedIn data for 2,857 industry leaders. Data found that women work for more companies (+56%), hold more positions (+19%), earn more advanced degrees (53.9% to 31.2%), assemble larger professional networks (+14%), yet remain significantly underrepresented (-83%). The final stage of research incorporated interviews with women engineering executives, seeking to learn about pathways and barriers in their respective and collective professional journeys and test the findings from the initial two phases of this study.
Key takeaways:
- Different backgrounds offer new perspectives and ideas, proven to improve business performance and increase client satisfaction.
- Widening staffing shortages cannot be covered with only traditional recruiting and retention methods.
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