Women In Public Works Leadership Program

Monica Robertson Senior Manager, Events & Marketing

We were delighted to welcome 12 women to the inaugural Women in Public Works Leadership Program (WPWLP) at our facilities in Eagle Farm, 24 February 2022. The Program provides continuing professional development (CPD), tools, resources and support enabling female engineers to advance their careers. Across 10 sessions, the program will address key challenges identified in a recent survey of women in our sector. In addition to these sessions, the participants receive up to 50 complimentary CPD Hours with access to the Professional Development program as well as complimentary registration to their local Branch conference and to the Annual Conference, Brisbane, 11-13 October 2022.

Our first session addressed the issue of managing career breaks, part-time work and work-life-family balance. Delia Atkinson, Acting Manager (Safer Roads), Department of Transport and Main Roads shared her experiences from graduation to full-time mother to her return to full-time work after a 15year career break. Delia’s story resonated with participants and entertained with anecdotes and an honest and humorous reflection of occasions when not everything worked as planned.

Mike Roddy, Managing Director, Technology People and Anita Dorwald, former Group CEO at Lorna Jane, discussed the options for women in today’s workforce including transitional

Jo O’Brien, Anita Dorwald, Mike Roddy and Delia Atkinson

Leadership Program in action

Renukha Nadarajah and Catherine Molnar WLPWP Bags

arrangements, work from home arrangements and the challenges of both with a young family. They encouraged manager-to-employee conversations and following a career break, generating robust and insightful conversations within a group with shared interests and experiences such as the WPWLP. Ultimately, speakers and participants agreed that there is no one way to achieve a successful work-life-family balance but open, transparent conversations with colleagues and management was critical. Thank you to our Partners and Sponsors who donated items for our WPWLP satchels: • McCullough Robertson •Asphalt Joint Tape • Fulton Hogan • Huesker • Retex Pavement Services • Tonkin

We look forward to our next session, 23 March on existing and advancing in a male dominated environment and environments with poor culture. Speakers include, Jane Zeng, Distribution Design Manager South East, EnergyQ and Suzanne Brown, Senior Engineer, Bundaberg Regional Council.