In this episode, we chat with Jackie Rafter, Founder and President of Hire Landing Inc., about the importance of women in leadership, gender bias in the energy sector, and the challenges faced by women in Alberta.
00:01:55.400Well, I think that's a loaded question.
00:01:59.020But when it comes to female professionals specifically, I think what I've noticed is that a lot of them struggle with self-limiting beliefs, self-worth, imposter syndrome, and a lack of confidence.
00:02:11.880And and so and then the other big part of it is that they really don't know how to influence within the organization sort of without without authority, which is one of the things that I'm going to be speaking speaking about.
00:02:26.880So it's it's really a multifaceted solution, I think, that needs needs to to be taken in order to overcome that barrier for sure.
00:02:35.880Yeah. And I would assume that even just the just, you know, genetically how women are are typically taken out of the work environment for periods of time.
00:02:47.520If they do have an interest in having families and children, that's got to be an impacting factor as well.
00:02:54.120Wouldn't you think? Absolutely, Melanie.
00:02:55.980And a lot of women really struggle with reentering the workforce and and suffer prospects for advancement because of that.
00:03:05.880They suffer also post-maternity experiences.
00:03:09.400So there are a lot of barriers that women face that men do not.
00:03:15.680And those are very real challenges, I think, that require unique solutions.
00:03:29.500First of all, though, why do you think it's important to have women in leadership positions?
00:03:33.620Well, if you look at the just the labor force itself, almost half of the labor force is comprised of women and and women provide very diverse perspectives that just because of their life experiences that men simply they can't compete with.
00:03:56.440So it's really important that that we that we have their voice at the table because they represent such such a significant demographic of of the workforce.
00:04:08.660The other challenge I just wanted to mention, too, was that with within Alberta, there is a real push to move and diversify our our workforce into the Alberta recovery plan industry.
00:04:22.480So we're looking at information technology, agriculture, aviation, aerospace, there's a whole list of them.
00:04:29.320And the additional challenge that women face with entering those specific sectors and diversifying their careers in those industries where they might have no previous experience is the fact that the majority of those industries are male-dominated.
00:04:47.300So there's another another barrier. And we really need to need to have their voice at the table.
00:04:54.260Gender inequities are especially pronounced in the energy sector.
00:04:58.300And I mean, there's there's it's common knowledge that, you know, there's an industry wide culture that really promotes gender bias in favor of men.
00:05:06.760So we really have got to provide them with unique supports, flexible hours, child care support.
00:05:14.060And so there's a lot of way that many stakeholders, I think, can get involved with addressing some of these barriers.
00:05:21.080Now, I like in your in some of the information around what you're presenting to women, the sort of mid-career influence without authority, the idea to future proof your career.
00:05:35.000Well, it's important that all women, everybody, period, but especially women, equip themselves with the ability to influence all levels of an organization.
00:05:47.440And that is essential to Future Proof, I mean, everybody's career in 2022 and beyond, regardless of what job title they hold, what kind of work experience they have, or what position they currently yield within the organization.
00:06:01.620So it's really important that we provide them with the critical, not just hard skills, but more soft skills that are going to be required, not just to address those types of issues, but also that are required probably to manage our careers for the next 100 years of work.
00:06:20.700I mean, we're in a completely different playing field right now where we've we've we've hit this this paradigm shift in the workforce and that pace that has been fueled by the pace of change, which is only going to accelerate.
00:06:32.640So people really need to learn strategies to have impactful and meaningful conversations that truly matter to all stakeholders within the organization.
00:06:43.100And most and that's really uncomfortable for a lot of people.
00:06:45.420They're just not really taught those things.
00:06:46.800so give me some of the idea some of the ideas behind soft skills that you're talking about
00:06:53.640give me some examples so hard skills are traditionally what what people have used to
00:07:00.420get their next next job or get a promotion and because of the shelf life of hard skills
00:07:06.820diminishing so quickly due to the due to this accelerated pace of change that we're we're
00:07:12.280facing in the economy um the shelf life of those hard skills have has shrunk i was just reading
00:07:17.700some research recently from about 30 years in alberta to less than six so what that means is
00:07:22.680that anything that you would have gone to school to learn say from a technical perspective has got
00:07:28.060about a six-year shelf life maximum i think it's probably closer to three or four so um so what is
00:07:34.280what what is replacing that i mean we can't be going to school every every few months just to
00:07:39.380continuously upskill. I mean, from a practical perspective, it's near impossible. But what is
00:07:48.000replacing that are soft skills. So I always tell our clients that we might get our foot in the door
00:07:54.420for our next opportunity or promotion because of our hard skills, but it's our soft skills that
00:07:59.760are really going to get us noticed and hired. So soft skills are part of our personality that
00:08:05.000that has always been have always been with us. You know, a job can be ripped away from us in a
00:08:09.640second, but your soft skills stay with you for life. And so whether that's, you know, a great
00:08:14.800sense of humor, your ability to nurture, nurture someone, your ability to make somebody feel feel
00:08:20.480better about themselves. I mean, these are really underrated skills that are going to empathy and
00:08:27.540emotional intelligence are probably two of the most important soft skills for the next 100 years
00:08:32.500of work. So unless we are learning how to build those skills, we're going to be really putting
00:08:38.180our ourselves and our careers and our futures at risk. Well, and it's interesting you say that
00:08:42.640because I would agree with you. Those are very critical skills. And I think even going as far
00:08:48.480back in our education as elementary, junior high, high school, I feel like those things are really
00:08:55.800sort of glossed over i know in in my education growing up um you know i i really didn't learn
00:09:02.760those skills um to any kind of extent through uh education channels in high school and you would
00:09:10.200think that at this stage those interpersonal skills would be so much more um you know highlighted
00:09:18.760and and curriculum built around it for sure and i think the biggest challenge melanie that that
00:09:24.600people have is trying to interpret or translate what they've done in school what their last job
00:09:31.080titles were um what roles they've held into okay well how will that provide value to somebody else
00:09:38.760if suddenly my job became redundant tomorrow morning that doesn't mean to say you're going
00:09:42.360to become redundant but what else would you do how else would you apply that and that's where
00:09:47.640the self-discovery the really digging deep work comes into play um with respect to trying to
00:09:53.800understand, okay, well, what are my soft skills? And it's just because the reason that it's so
00:09:57.880hard is because it's a new way of having to think about ourselves and our careers, because
00:10:02.440traditionally, we've just had to, you know, throw our hard skills on a resume along with our job
00:10:08.480titles, and then put the resume out there, distribute our resume, and then boom, boom,
00:10:13.280the next thing we would be, we would be hired. Now, that's, that's completely shifted. And so
00:10:19.420So we are now being paid not just for our hard skills, but of our soft and of the value
00:10:25.540that we're going to provide to somebody, regardless of what industry that is.
00:10:29.900Looking at the leadership forum schedule, it looks like there's some incredible speakers,
00:10:47.560Well, I'm going to be sharing some powerful and very practical strategies that will show participants how to have impactful and meaningful conversations that truly matter to everyone in the organization.
00:11:05.160And so we're going to be doing some exercises.
00:11:08.400There will be some group work that will be included as well.
00:11:12.100But a successful outcome will be that women will have an ability to very confidently have a conversation and or provide influence, whether that's in person or in a different way, with somebody that really matters to them, that is going to demonstrate their value and get them noticed at different levels of the organization, potentially even promoted, who knows.
00:11:39.300Right. Now, a little off the beaten track, because this is a woman's forum, because, you know, this is really the goal to empower and encourage women, you know, all of the controversy lately as of the definition of a woman, does anyone fear the pushback for this strong focus and targeting on empowering women in this climate?
00:12:03.900Well, you know, it's not really empowering women, it's empowering people. It's just that women have been a very sort of visible or an invisible group where there's been a lot more lobbying to get them that essential visibility.
00:12:21.920And that's because of those gender equalities being so pronounced in certain sectors, especially within the Alberta workforce.
00:12:32.180So we have no choice. But, I mean, if you just look at the stats, there are like a lot of the Alberta recovery plant industries, including energy, are male dominated.
00:12:43.840And is that really what success looks like to the province? I don't think so.
00:12:48.040Mm-hmm. Well, and speaking of women in general, but then you're right. As soon as you move into
00:12:53.720some of the statistics here, women of color hold only 6.2% of women held board executive
00:13:00.040senior management positions. Black women, indigenous women, LGBTQ women, and women with
00:13:07.700disabilities hold less than 1% of women held senior leadership and pipeline positions. So,
00:13:13.900I mean, you know, when you start getting into even more marginalized areas for women, you know,
00:13:20.080it just drops considerably. Well, and I think that there's a real perception problem that's
00:13:24.860happening. You know, there's a lot of, you know, traditional mindsets that just assume women can
00:13:30.180only do certain types of roles, and that has got to be corrected. And that is why women have to
00:13:35.000become comfortable in advocating for themselves. So the other side of this, so it's not just about
00:13:41.540other people's perception but more importantly it's about our perception of ourselves and so
00:13:47.620many of us feel that you know we we feed our minds with oh i can't do that oh they'll never hire me
00:13:54.420you know so there's a lot of negative self-talk and um this like i said this feeling of imposter
00:13:59.460syndrome that happens and and only we can fix that and that's also something that that i'm
00:14:05.060going to be speaking about um at this talk so it's it's not only educating others on our value
00:14:10.900but it's also getting out of our own ways um so our own way so that our own we can unleash our
00:14:18.340confidence to feel good enough about ourselves to be able to be those advocates so if nobody
00:14:23.540else is going to advocate for us we have to be able to do it ourselves and that does not mean
00:14:27.620pushing ourselves into uh you know onto other people by any stretch it's about being smart
00:14:33.700strategic and proactive um in terms of how we do that okay and then when it comes to um sort of uh
00:14:41.300the the idea behind getting a suitable candidate versus the the best candidate versus you know
00:14:46.900making sure that we're we're meeting some sort of a quota what are your thoughts around that
00:14:51.220when it comes to i think that's very very dated and rather than employer employers um look at
00:14:58.260at hiring for those reasons. We should all be looking to hire on the basis of value. So how
00:15:03.520will my company or my life or my organization be different if I hire you? And that is where
00:15:09.520the onus now, it never used to be, is far more on the candidate side, being able to explain what
00:15:18.700their value is going to be to somebody. And like I said, that's just out of the comfort zone of so
00:15:23.820many people because they've never had to do it before so this is a new way of of thinking about
00:15:29.260your yourselves um and managing your career in general what's in it for somebody else and if you
00:15:34.700do if you're able to provide solutions to pain points for instance that somebody else is hiring
00:15:40.700or is experiencing does it really matter what gender or race you are no absolutely now alberta
00:15:47.660has seen female premiers in the past, first being Alison Redford in 2011, Rachel Notley in 2015. Now
00:15:54.380we have Danielle Smith. So when it comes to this level of leadership, what do you see the strengths
00:16:00.020that women bring to the table when, say, running a province? I would say visibility is, you know,
00:16:06.720and really shining the spotlight on some of these underrepresented groups. And it's not that, you
00:16:12.920know, it's a men are better than women or vice versa. I just think that, you know, we come from
00:16:17.900a very unique place, that perspective that others don't. So we see things differently. And I think
00:16:24.400it's that perspective that really needs to be exposed to the masses to be able to better
00:16:32.240understand and open our minds to the value that, say, a woman, a professional woman can provide to
00:16:40.660any organization regardless of her work history regardless of of of her credentials or her
00:16:46.020profession because that's the reality going going forward we are all going to be changing careers
00:16:51.540you're going to be changing changing your career um whether whether we want to or whether we want
00:16:56.660to or not it might not happen happen right away but we are all going to have multiple careers
00:17:02.500in our lifetime and that is the the reality of the new future of work certainly and gone
00:17:08.740are the days where you are you know 35 years in the same career right no no interesting
00:17:15.780how many careers have you had at this too many too many too many too uh too many to count over
00:17:22.580a dozen it well rounds you right i think uh i think it contributes to that for sure well and
00:17:28.260it's about getting out of outdated thinking and you know and looking at you know well what is
00:17:34.340possible for you rather than than what is not and and you know so many people get stuck in
00:17:40.420well i've done the same thing the same way in the same job for for so many decades okay well it's
00:17:45.220too late to change it is never too late to change so what if you're 50 some years old you've you
00:17:50.580know you're the sole provider of your family and suddenly your job becomes permanently redundant
00:17:55.140and there's no need for what you did for the past three decades does that mean that you're
00:17:58.980just going to pack up and and and go on ei for the rest of your days or years no you have to be
00:18:05.540able to to to trend transition trend identify what those transferable skills are and more importantly
00:18:13.060understand how you can add value to somebody's life or someone's company what are the pain points
00:18:18.580you can solve you take something like like a soft skill like relationship building for instance you
00:18:23.220You know, whether you're a geologist or, you know, an accountant, if you have good relationship building skills, those are very transferable to all kind, any industry for that matter.
00:18:35.120And so it's really getting out of this very narrow minded view of how we should, what we should be doing next and really looking at the possibilities and really going with the times.
00:18:46.820And I think that that's something that our new premier can do, too, is really educate our population on where the opportunities are, you know, what is possible for Alberta.
00:18:59.840I mean, this is a really exciting time to be in the workforce and learnability, too.