Energy Workforce & Technology Council was honored by the Houston Business Journal with an Outstanding Diversity Helping Hand Diversity in Business Award on June 23. The honor recognizes for-profit and nonprofit organizations that have shown dedication to promoting and championing diversity and inclusion in the business community or are supplying diversity-related resources, such as job sites, diversity training programs and e-learning. Energy Workforce CEO Leslie Beyer, COO Molly Determan, and SVP Government Affairs Tim Tarpley accepted the award on behalf of the Association.
“I am proud the Houston Business Journal is recognizing the Energy Workforce as a leader in diversity. Inclusion and diversity are imperative for the energy technology and services sector as it continues to develop new and innovative technologies to lead us into a lower carbon future. Our organization is dedicated to building a diverse workforce internally and across our industry.”
Leslie Beyer, CEO, Energy Workforce & Technology Council
Energy Workforce has long been committed to diversity and inclusion in the energy service industry. It provides thought leadership in DEI and regularly contributes op-eds on specific issues such as flexibility, parental leave, pay equity, psychological safety and upskilling.
Additionally, Energy Workforce has an Inclusion and Diversity Committee solely focused on fostering inclusion and diversity within the association, its 450 Member Companies and in the industry. The committee collaborates on ways to strategically empower qualified women and underrepresented groups in leadership positions.
Energy Workforce also provides training and workforce development programs around DEI at an organizational level and for individual contributors, advocates for workplace policies that will foster inclusive cultures and provides networking opportunities to discuss DEI initiatives.
In 2021, Energy Workforce renewed its groundbreaking study of diversity in the OFS sector to determine progress since the 2018 benchmarking survey and develop recommendations for the sector. The survey also expanded to include race, which established a benchmark and allowed for greater consistency and transparency in reporting across the sector.
Last week, Energy Workforce released its latest Workforce Diversity toolkit. Research shows, companies with a higher percentage of women in executive positions have a 34% higher total return to shareholders than those that do not and companies with ethnic diversity on their executive team are 25% more likely to have above average profitability and 27% likelihood of outperforming peers in value creation.
In 2020, Energy Workforce launched the first Inclusion and Diversity Business Champion Program. The program provided tools for leaders across functions to affect internal change, focusing on building internal organization capability of inclusion and diversity. Participants worked with mentors, coaches, executive sponsors and peers to learn how to have inclusive teams.
Energy Workforce also added best practice sharing sessions for current I&D Business Champion Program participants to discuss ways to move inclusion and diversity forward and overcome possible obstacles with graduates of the program. This allows graduates to continue their learnings and pass along what they learned to future cohorts.
In additional to the Energy Workforce & Technology Council, the Houston Business Journal also recognized Member Companies Baker Hughes and Aris Water Solutions.
Corry Schiermeyer, Senior Director Communications, writes about governmental policies for the Energy Workforce & Technology Council. Click here to subscribe to the Energy Workforce newsletter, which highlights sector-specific issues, best practices, activities and more.
