“When we started her mentoring, she was too scared to even answer the phone. She’s now controlling a fleet of 50-plus vehicles. She is a dynamo and just 24 years old,” says Perram-Fisk, a group manager at mining services and transport company Ostwald Bros.

Not all stories are so dramatic but mentoring is about showing what is possible.

This article appears in the May edition of Queensland Business Monthly

The former Telstra Business Woman of the Year previously ran a mentoring program across several State Government departments that saw 1200 women graduate.

Perram-Fisk says both men and women need mentors but with so far still to go for women to achieve equality in pay and position, the incentives for females is far greater.

 

She says mentoring plays a big part in helping women to be promoted into senior roles and to be confident they can do the job once they get there. With a background in transport and logistics, Perram-Fisk, 47, became the only woman among the 12 senior executives at Ostwald Bros 10 months ago and the first in the company’s 25 year history.

In the IT industry, the imbalance is even greater.

Managing director of Brisbane IT company InfoView Technologies Sue Colclough, 52, says women aren’t choosing IT and part of the problem is not having the role models.

“You have to show the way,” Colclough says. “I advertised for a developer role recently and had more than 100 male applicants and no women.”

Colclough, who has a few mentors of her own, is a member of Women in Technology, an advocacy and support group for women that runs formal mentoring programs as well as courses in board readiness and leadership training.

Digital media design specialist Tracey Porst, 45, applied for WIT’s mentoring program when she returned to work after having children and chose Colclough as her mentor.

“I was starting my own business and I wanted to know how to build networks,” she says. “Sue had done what I was doing – the kids, the career with the juggling balls in the air so had similar life experience,” says Porst, who now runs her own company Bespoke Interactive.

“Women often want to know how another woman got to that spot in their career,” Colclough says. “I realised that if I didn’t reach out and do a couple of things that stretch me – other women might not.”

Margaret Lawson, 36, and her former boss Kate Farrar, 47, meet once a month to jog a 7km circuit around the city. As they pound the pavement, Farrar, who is managing director of QEnergy asks tough questions and acts as a sounding board for Lawson who runs her own communications consultancy Cole Lawson. Every month Lawson also shares a meal and her early career experience with 23-year-old Anjali Nazarenko – a senior marketing and communications executive at the Urban Development Institute of Australia.

QEnergy asks tough questions and acts as a sounding board for Lawson who runs her own communications consultancy Cole Lawson. Every month Lawson also shares a meal and her early career experience with 23-year-old Anjali Nazarenko – a senior marketing and communications executive at the Urban Development Institute of Australia.

Lawson runs a formal mentoring and intern program in her business in partnership with Queensland University of Technology but with Farrar and Nazarenko it’s more informal. Nazarenko’s boss knew Lawson through her network and thought the pair would get along. She was right.

Nazarenko says from the first meeting Lawson asked her where she wanted to be in five years and then from that five year point worked backwards.

“Now I know where I want to go but also was able to fill in the details of how to get there,” Nazarenko says.

Diane Smith-Gander, president of Chief Executive Women (CEW) who is a passionate advocate for gender equity says anyone can be your mentor – even your mother.

“My mother was my mentor – she has the best moral compass around conflict of interest than anyone I know because she was in member-based organisations for years,” says Smith-Gander, who is also Transfield Services chairman.

Colclough mentored two other women through WIT’s program and says it is hugely satisfying.

“One of the women was in a big professional service company and I encouraged her to find a sponsor and she got promoted,” Colclough says. “A sponsor is someone who will speak for you when you are not in the room.”

In fact, while mentors are essential for career progression, Smith-Gander puts even more importance on sponsors – these are champions or supporters within the organisation.

Smith-Gander says mentors fill skill gaps and prepare you for the next job and but they won’t deliver it.

“Generally women will seek mentors and study and make themselves more prepared and better able to do the job and men will spend their time getting exposure to the senior people who they believe are going to make them recommendations to allow them to be promoted,” she says.

“There is nothing wrong with being prepared but it’s a great shame if you are well prepared and you don’t get the next role.”

Since Perram-Fisk joined Ostwald Bros, she has had women in the organisation seek her out to tell her she has inspired them to follow in her footsteps.

Perram-Fisk has become a champion and supporter of two young executives Laura Pearce, 29 and Hannah Milford, 24. Both women manage men in an industry not used to seeing women – especially young women in high vis gear — in a position of authority.

Milford says before she was given support and encouragement it was not uncommon to have confrontations with male colleagues more than twice her age.

“Every day was a struggle and you could get yelled at or sworn at by men,” Milford says. “Louise gave me faith in my ability and knowledge and gave me a voice.”

Before Lawson and Fararr began their monthly 7km mentor run, Farrar was her sponsor when they worked together at Ergon Energy. Lawson was a young executive and Farrar the chief operating officer.

Lawson says because of her age, she felt she was being held back from promotion.

“Kate saw the potential in me and pushed me forward to apply for promotions and gave me honest, constructive and critical feedback,” she says.

Smith-Gander, who is based in Perth, was recently in Brisbane for a meeting of new CEW members. The organisation does advocacy, mentoring and has a $400,000 scholarship program.

“We see gaps in women being given access mentors and sponsors so we are trying to fill the gaps,” Smith-Gander says. “That’s the sort of conversations we have. How do you ask for equal pay? How do you be assertive without being aggressive? How do you identify a supporter rather than a mentor and if you have a mentor how do you manage that relationship?

“We have a very strong advocacy program now and we try to role model what we think women should do.”

She says CEW, which is comprises of 320 senior female leaders in the country, provides peers support but the bigger opportunity is “to support women who are knocking on the door of the organisation”.

“If women look to the top of their organisations and don’t see anybody like them, it is more likely they will opt out.”

GENDER DIVIDE

● Full-time male workers earn 18.3 per cent more than their female counterparts. This rises to more than 27 per cent in senior management roles

● Women represent 39.8 per cent of managers, 26 per cent of key management personnel and just 17.3 per cent of CEOs

● 31.3 per cent of employers have no other executives or general managers who are women

● There are just six female CEOs of ASX 200 companies

Source: Workplace Gender Equality Agency and Australian Bureau of Statistics

 

This article was originally published on The Australian 27th April. Read the original article here.