The mid-career challenge
Work and family pressures
Negotiating gender disparities is important at any stage of a woman’s career, but the stakes rise significantly when she is in her 30s and 40s, and potential impacts on advancement and professional goals are at their most critical.
The decision to have children can result in diverging responsibilities. Mid-career is the point at which ‘limiting beliefs’ and imposter syndrome sometimes take hold as a return to work after caring for children, or an unsupportive working culture, undermines confidence and stalls career progression.
Females comprise just 26.1% of the energy and utilities sector workforce, well below the 48% cross-sector average, according to a 2023 report for Energy & Utility Skills. Their numbers dwindle further the more senior the position.
Mid-career women report finding it harder to get their voices heard in meetings and to gain equal access to professional development opportunities. They experience more unconscious bias, bullying or harassment. Women from ethnic minority backgrounds or who are disabled are likely to experience these issues to an even greater degree.
As a result of these factors, women’s careers can stagnate. They may move to other sectors or leave the workforce entirely. This is a major contributor to overall female attrition from the workforce, which increased from 25% in 2021 to 28.2% in 2022 (figures from Energy & Utility Skills), raising serious questions over diversity in the industry.
Clearly more needs to be done to give women an equal role. Some organisations are rising to this challenge with programmes to support and encourage mid-career women through improved working policies such as flexible working hours, progression structures and mentoring. Networking groups and initiatives such as the Women’s Utilities Network (WUN) and POWERful Women are also playing a key role in helping break down barriers and increase opportunities.
Workplace culture is an area still in need of urgent reform, explains Jo Butlin, chief executive of Energy Bridge, a co-founder and board member of WUN: “Most organisations now have a diversity and inclusion policy and there's some flexible working, but it almost feels like companies think that that's ‘job done’. The big thing that still needs to change is the culture and making the environment in which people work much more inclusive. Women can't solve this by themselves; it has to be a whole-workplace issue.”
Half time
Attracting more women into entry-level and senior leadership roles is important to address gender balance, but mid-career challenges are acknowledged to be especially knotty. A 2022 report by Harvard Business Review asked over 100 senior executive women from around the world at what stage in their careers they faced the most gender bias or discrimination. Roughly half said mid-career was the most problematic period, with the three main obstacles encountered identified as ‘unfair assumptions’, ‘unhelpful attention’ and ‘unequal access’.
Unfair assumptions are rooted in gender stereotypes, such as that women, who are often actively parenting, are less committed to their careers than men. Unhelpful attention came in the form of hyper-scrutiny and scepticism, and having to clear a higher bar to be rewarded. Unequal access singles out exclusionary working networks, in which men have superior access to senior leaders and often prioritise relationships with male over female colleagues.
The barriers encountered by women in energy middle management were uncovered in pioneering research carried out by POWERful Women and Bain & Co in 2022, based on a survey of some 4,700 people. The Cultivating Female Talent study found that while companies often have commitments to diversity and inclusion, workplace policies and initiatives, such as flexible working, are not consistently delivering.
Women reported unequal access to effective professional development, a failure to implement flexible working in practice, a lack of visible and relatable senior female role models, and failure to implement a supportive and inclusive culture. Over half of women in energy (58%) said their company has a formal sponsorship programme but only 12% were benefiting from it.
A follow up study by POWERful Women, Women We Are Losing, captured the stories of a handful of women who either recently left, or were about to leave, their roles in the UK energy sector.
Triggers that made them exit roles they loved included feeling undervalued, with limited options to progress or contribute in ways that aligned with their values, and an unmanageable work-life balance, with not enough flexibility in terms of both location and working pattern. They also blamed an unsupportive, and sometimes ‘toxic’ working environment, characterised by a macho culture, age bias and bullying, with no genuine commitment to diversity and inclusion from leadership.
“What came through in both these pieces of research was the passion that women have for working on the energy transition and finding positive solutions to the climate challenge,” explains Katie Jackson, chair of POWERful Women. ”It’s well known that the sector needs to attract talent at this critical time to build the net zero workforce, but it also can’t afford to lose talented and committed people because of poor company culture, something that often impacts men as well.”
This is particularly concerning at a time when the fight to tackle climate change, energy security and energy affordability requires a more diverse workforce that reflects and understands the needs of customers.