At Entuitive, our mission is to reflect the diversity of the societies in which we live and work. We’re focused on achieving a welcoming and inclusive place for people of different genders, orientations, ethnicities, ages and abilities, and skills throughout the company, from entry level positions to our leadership and ownership groups.   

Three years ago, our People & Culture team implemented employee resource groups (ERGs) to serve underrepresented people within Entuitive, as well as its immediate community and network. These pillars include groups dedicated to Accessibility (ENable), Multicultural & Indigenous affairs (MC&I), 2SLGBTQ+ people (ENpride), and Entuitive’s Gender Balance pillar. Each pillar is co-chaired by two employees and has a volunteer group of staff to help execute a range of initiatives, events, and outcomes. 

Below is an interview with Gender Balance co-chair and associate at Entuitive, Laura Young, who recently updated us on the pillar to reflect on its vision, progress and plans for our future. 

Hi Laura, thanks for taking the time. After nearly three years since the launch of our ERGs and the four pillars, can you tell us about the evolving goals for Gender Balance at Entuitive?   

Our goals for the group haven’t changed since we established the Gender Balance pillar: we are working to promote, retain and attract amazing women at Entuitive, and we’ve done this through advocating for women, educating our leaders, and giving women the tools to help them grow their careers.  

How do you feel the progress has been toward accomplishing these goals? 

Like any large goals we set for ourselves, the path to get there is a journey that takes time. We are on our way, but still have lots to do. 

What achievements have you and your team been most proud of so far? 

We’re very proud of our parental leave policy, which was implemented in the past few years and is available to new parents, no matter which gender they identify with. We’re also proud of our continued yearly reviews of compensation through a gender lens, which ensures that Entuitive has no gender pay-disparity. Another initiative we’re also proud of is our Entuitive Women’s Alliance (EnWA) which is a community open for women and allies to connect every second month, hold discussion groups, and provide a space to foster connection, support, and sharing. 

Your group’s achievements are clearly in service of your goals for advancing women in the industry. Are there any additional examples of this? 

We continue to work at increasing our female shareholder representation within Entuitive and pay close attention to our succession planning pipeline. Prior to the Gender Balance pillar, there was of course consideration for advancing the careers of women at Entuitive, but our pillar’s work with the People & Culture team has more recently helped to ensure that we have women identified as potential successors for all our key roles alongside men. 

This means engaging with all leaders to help foster the talent of junior engineers as they approach the associate, senior associate, and principal level at Entuitive. From a gender balance standpoint, this can result in specific training for male leaders to understand the things they may (or may not) be doing to progress the careers of women on their team. 

Do you have any upcoming initiatives you’re excited for this year?   

We’ve had good feedback from our educational sessions and have already hosted several seminars this year. Some of the topics have included Unconscious Bias and Speaking with Intention, which are both critical to examining how we speak, and the effect of unconscious speech patterns. Additional upcoming initiatives this year include more social events on behalf of EnWA, which we’re proud to be hosting across a few of our offices. 

Thanks for this update on Entuitive’s Gender Balance pillar, Laura. Lastly, as your team moves forward, are there specific areas you’re hoping to improve or put more attention toward? 

We’d like to continue to increase awareness in our leadership group about the importance of sponsorship for the careers of women at Entuitive. We’re also focused on building a better understanding of how our male leaders can make an impact in the development of our future female leaders.