New report supports gender balance in oil and gas industry

A new report, prepared by the World Petroleum Council and The Boston Consulting Group, aims to promote gender balance in the oil and gas industry today. The report examines gender balance at three stages of career development and draws on different perspectives to provide new insights into the challenges that women and companies interested in advancing gender balance face at each stage.

The report’s findings are based on substantial proprietary research that included detailed personal interviews with more than 60 male and female senior industry executives worldwide, a survey of approximately 2,000 male and female industry professionals from a wide range of companies and countries, and primary quantitative data provided confidentially by all major international oil companies and several national oil companies.

The World Petroleum Council and BCG hope that this report makes a major contribution to oil and gas companies’ efforts to boost women’s representation in the industry.

Report Highlights

• The percentage of women in the industry’s workforce drops over time and falls particularly sharply—from 25% to 17%—between the middle-management and senior-leadership career stages. This trend won’t change unless CEOs make gender diversity a higher strategic priority.
• Although men and women start out on an equal footing, women rarely reach the top of the organization.
• There are wide gaps in perception between men and women regarding the gender-related challenges that women face.
• Unless companies develop a critical mass of women across all roles, meaningful progress toward gender balance in the industry will not occur.
• There are many actions the industry can take to increase the number of female employees and accelerate its progress toward gender balance.
• Greater gender balance is a worthwhile and attainable goal for the industry, and one that it has the means to achieve.

The report further suggests that the industry should also take specific actions centered on three critical career stages:

1. At the entry level, the industry can expand the talent pool it draws from by taking steps to increase women’s participation in STEM programs. It can enhance its attractiveness to women as a career choice by promoting the wide range of jobs available and making career paths more flexible, working with governments to remove structural barriers that make it difficult for women to work in the industry, and increasing the number and visibility of senior female role models.
2. At the midcareer level, the industry can work to ensure that women have the same career opportunities as men, that each woman has a sponsor who can offer career guidance, and that work-life-balance policies are available and applied equally to male and female employees.
3. At the senior-leadership level, the industry can provide stretch goals for women and the necessary support to help them succeed, broaden the range of career paths from which senior leaders are picked, and ensure that standards for promotion are applied equally to men and women.