Engineering The Future

Episode 42: Procurement Power - Fostering Diversity in Engineering

• Ontario Society of Professional Engineers • Episode 42

Share episode

Despite progress, challenges persist in achieving equity for underrepresented groups like women, racialized persons, and individuals with disabilities in engineering.

In this special episode of Engineering the Future, host Jerome James is joined by Sandro Perruzza, CEO of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, to explore the link between procurement policies and equity, diversity and inclusion in engineering services in Ontario.

Sandro shares some valuable insights from a recent OSPE research study, funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada, on the current state of EDI in engineering, including examples of effective EDI policies, such as Quality Based Selection (QBS), pay equity programs, mentorship, and sponsorship initiatives.

Read the Research Report Here:
https://ospe.on.ca/advocacy/leveraging-public-sector-procurement-policies-to-expand-opportunities-for-women-in-engineering/

Engineering the Future, Episode 42

FEMALE NARRATOR:
This podcast is brought to you by OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, the advocacy body for professional engineers in the engineering community in Ontario.

JEROME JAMES:
Welcome to a special episode of Engineering the Future, a podcast presented by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. I am your host, Jerome James. Despite progress, the engineering profession continues to face significant challenges when it comes to equity, diversity, and inclusion, including persistent underrepresentation of many groups, including women, racialized persons, and people with disabilities. On today's episode, we'll be exploring the current state of EDI in the engineering profession and the relationship between procurement policies and diversity in engineering services. Joining us today to explore this complex topic is Sandro Perruzza, CEO of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. Sandro, welcome to Engineering the Future.

SANDRO PERRUZZA
James, it's great to see you and it's great to be back.

JEROME JAMES:
Let's dive right in. What is the current state of diversity and inclusion in the engineering profession? And what are the key challenges?

SANDRO PERRUZZA:
Well, I can tell you it's getting better, but we're still not there. There's still so much to do. And based on the analysis we've done and supported by other researchers in this area, there are definitely some systemic barriers that exist for underrepresented groups. These barriers exist right from getting licensed in engineering, job promotions, and balancing work and additional life-related responsibilities that women and new arrivals in Canada have. I'm going to share some stats with you. First off, women represent about 25% of engineering undergraduate students. But right now, only about 18 to 19% of them get licensed. So we have a drop-off right there. But then when you look at the consultant engineering space, only 12% in that industry self-identify as women. So there's definitely work to be done in this area. Now, here's another recent stat that wasn't part of this project, but was shared with me just actually last week. Over the last 12 months, 80% of recently licensed engineers in the province of Ontario are internationally trained. So there are many reasons that Canadian trained engineering graduates aren't getting licensed and working in this industry. And perhaps that's a topic for a future podcast, but the reality is these engineering firms need internationally trained engineers. They need engineers from underrepresented groups, including women. So, they need to develop workplaces that are more welcoming.

JEROME JAMES:
Interesting. Why is having a diverse engineering team so important?

SANDRO PERRUZZA:
There's a tremendous amount of evidence that shows that the more diverse project team you have, the better design you come up with and also results in more effective and efficient project teams. This evidence exists in every industry from manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, health sciences, and so on. So, we need to encourage more inclusive project teams that allow for more diverse perspectives from different voices around the table, and this starts with developing policies and implementing programs to make the workplace more inclusive and welcoming. So you can go out and hire more diverse engineering teams, but then what happens is within six to 18 months, they leave, and you haven't really accomplished anything. So, the key is changing your workplace culture to be more welcoming and inclusive to a more diverse workforce.

JEROME JAMES:
That's fascinating. So based on OSPI's research, what insights were gained regarding the impact of procurement policies on diversity within engineering services?

SANDRO PERRUZZA
Well, actually, there's been a lot of work in this area already, and some jurisdictions have put programs in place, you know, community benefit agreements, supplier diversity programs, or a requirement for a more diverse project team in order to work on our project. But surprisingly, these things don't work, and they actually make the situation worse. So what our research has shown that if you look at, I'll pick one, I'll pick having a more diverse project team. Again, going back to the stat, only 12% of consultant engineers self-identify as women. So now, if that is a requirement to bid on a project, this is what happens: You get an engineering firm, a consultant engineering firm, they'll have, you know, maybe one or two women in the office. So they'll pick one of them and put them on the procurement team. So, you know, they work on their bidding process, they submit the bid, they win the bid, they start their project. Fantastic. Six to nine months into the project, they're going to go bid on another project. So that young woman gets pulled off that team, gets on the next team. Six to nine months later, the project is underway; she gets pulled off that one and put on the next project team. You know, three years into this, there's a supervisor job or manager job open. She applies for it but doesn't get it. And when she asks why, her manager, the vice president and director of the organization says, you know, you have a lot of experience, but a lot of, yeah, not a lot of depth of experience. You've never seen a project to completion. So that's why we've given it to someone else because they worked on multiple projects, but from beginning to end, and you've only worked on projects halfway through. Well, that wasn't her fault. So you can see there's an example of why those projects or those programs don't work. I'll give one more. It's the supplier diversity programs. The government of Canada right now has a policy where they want 5% of all procurement coming from indigenous owned companies. Okay. The problem is right there. Again, it's very inspirational and something we'd love to support, but only 1% of all engineers self-identifies indigenous. So it, again, they've set themselves up for failure because there aren't, you know, enough indigenous-only engineering companies to meet all their procurement demands.

JEROME JAMES
That makes a lot of sense. How can we use public procurement to enhance diversity practices within engineering?

SANDRO PERRUZZA:
So, in our research, we looked into that as well. And so we looked at what programs work for equity, diversity, and inclusion, but we also looked at what other programs work to change workplace culture. And again, that's what we're really trying to achieve. We're trying to change workplace culture so that the workplace is more welcoming and inclusive. Right, and what actually did work is occupational health and safety. Way back in 2010, the government of Ontario decided that occupational health and safety and infrastructure were vitally important. The result of that was because four workers died on a swing stage on Christmas Eve. It created a lot of media attention. So the government said, okay, things have to change. So they made a requirement that firms needed to have occupational health and safety policy, and programs to implement that policy in order for them to bid on infrastructure work. And that really was a watershed moment in Ontario where workplace culture changed in a positive way and where infrastructure, construction companies, engineering companies all took workplace health and safety seriously. Well, we wanted to say, okay, if that model works and has worked, let's use the same approach to really encourage engineering companies, incentivize, use it as a carrot so that they put in programs and policies to facilitate equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

FEMALE NARRATOR:
We hope you're enjoying this episode so far. At Auspe, we're here for you, making sure government, media, and the public are listening to the voice of engineers. You can learn more at ospe.on.ca.

JEROME JAMES:
Could you provide an overview of qualification-based selection, or QBS, and its relevance to promoting diversity in the engineering procurement landscape?

SANDRO PERRUZZA:
Sure. So again, if we want to use the procurement process and the requirement for EDI policies and programs as a requirement for bidding on these projects, we have to look at what is the actual procurement process. And one of the things that we recognize that using it, implementing a qualifications based selection model is actually very inducive to this, to achieving the results you want. So what is QBS, first off? It's a competitive, sound and fair process where procurement agents aim to select design services based on the qualifications of those doing the work rather than solely on price to ensure the success and quality of these infrastructure projects. So they look at things like the technical competency of the people there, their project experience, the certifications, and specialized skills relevant to the project requirements. And what it does is it signals to the market and to your constituencies that quality and technical competency is highly valued. This will help increase the quality and quantity of candidates that you're recruiting to this. It facilitates a more inclusive supplier base, which helps create a more supportive, collaborative, and creative project team, leading to increased innovation and productivity. It goes back to all the research I talked about earlier that shows the more diverse team you have, the better product you have in the end. So what we want to do is let's use QBS if quality is really what we're hoping to achieve with these infrastructure projects so that they last well beyond the desired timeline, the longevity of that infrastructure, and you want infrastructure that serves all of us, then all of us need to be part of that design.

JEROME JAMES:
And so this is a fairly new selection process. How has the market been reacting? Has there been uptake? What's the current thought process when it comes to QBS currently?

SANDRO PERRUZZA
So QBS, funny enough, is new to Canada. Quebec has implemented a model similar to it as a requirement under law. There are certain municipalities that have implemented it, but in the U.S., it is law. It's been law since 1970, 1972, called the Brooks Act. So, and in other jurisdictions of the world, it is a requirement as well. For some reason, Canada hasn't adopted it. They feel that price is more important than quality, but I can tell you that Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario are starting to implement this. They've used it, they've used a different name, but they've recognized that the infrastructure being built here in Ontario is some of it hasn't met the requirements. So, they're moving to a QBS model. They've called it something else, but we're, we're happy with that.

JERONE JAMES
Excellent. Can you share some examples of effective equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility policies within the engineering sector?

SANDRO PERRUZZA
Sure. So again, we've researched to see what sort of programs have worked. We've talked to a number of engineering firms as well to see what they put in place and the results and the impact, and here are just a few examples. Now, there are so many; again, I encourage the listeners to go on the OSPE website and download the research reports and it has all of them listed, but some of the things that we think are key are pay equity programs. Mentorship and sponsorship programs for your employees as they're coming up the ranks, income support during maternity and paternity leave, establishing internal published goals or objectives, and then measuring and reporting on progress towards these goals. That's key. Supporting advocacy for EDIA-related causes, internal and external language review for recruitment and announcements, and another key one is senior leaders speaking publicly about their challenges and their successes in implementing these policies and programs. So again, our research shows all of these, but what's really key is you can't just go down a list and start picking and choosing them. You really need to work internally with your staff to figure out What is, you know, what will work for them, what won't work for them, because there is no set, you know, put in these 12 ones and, and it's going to be guaranteed success. You've got to look at all of them and say, okay, what's going to work for us, what's not going to work for us, and really consultation and working with your staff is key.

JEROME JAMES
Great. That was very interesting insight on this topic. Would you say that these policies we've been discussing today would work to foster inclusion in, say, some other industries?

SANDRO PERRUZZA
Absolutely. So, you know, when we did the research report and we submitted our project to Women and Gender Equity Canada for funding, we looked at actually all underrepresented groups, all equity seeking groups, and, and it was an all encompassing project. WAGE pushed back and said, we think that you're being overly aggressive, and the scope is too big. So, pick one group. So we picked women. And why? Because we had done a lot of work on looking at the obstacles and barriers for women in engineering. And to be honest, there were a lot of statistics available to us because we've been measuring this progress for many decades now. So that's why we picked women, but the solutions we're proposing work for all equity-seeking groups, first off. And second off, we think that you know, governments procure not just for engineering services, they procure for materials, they procure for other types of services, accounting services, legal services, et cetera. So we think it will work. And when we put together our project team, we had a group of advisors around there. And, so we reached out to, you know, I call them the usual suspects, you know, Engineers Canada, Society of Women Engineers. Uh, Social Procurement Canada was part of this as well. We had the Association of Consultant Engineering Companies of Ontario and a representative from the Association of Consultant Engineering Companies of Canada on that advisory group. Just make sure that if this is something that we're going to promote, will the engineering community support it, right? Will the industry support it? And we did, but then we had some other organizations that were very interested because they want to see if this works for their industries. And from what we've heard. They do support this. So, one is the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario, which is an association made up of 19 different associations, all in the infrastructure space. So they're looking at this because they don't support the other social procurement ideas that were floated that we talked about earlier, like community benefit agreements or supplier diversity programs. So they're seeing, could this be a viable solution? But the other two that were really interesting was the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce that represents businesses at large in all industries. And they were very happy and surprised to hear what we'd come up with and were supportive of it.

JEROME JAMES:
That sounds excellent. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Do you have any final thoughts to share with our audience today?

SANDRO PERRUZZA:
Yeah, I think I'll end it with this. And that is this is a project that was a three-year project that we've come to the conclusion of, but that doesn't mean we're not going to continue to advocate for this. In fact, we are. Our next stop is we're having a parliament-held lobby day in Ottawa. So, this is going to be one of our key planks of that day to encourage the government to move forward with this. Governments are spending billions and billions of dollars on infrastructure. We all pay into it, so we should all benefit from that. And second, I think in engineering firms, and it's not just consultant engineering firms if you look at every firm, every engineering employer, they're all desperate for talent. And we're trying to figure out, you know, where are all the engineers going? So again, something, you know, of a future podcast, a topic for future podcasts, but all engineering firms are desperate for engineers, regardless of what industry they are in. So they need talent and they need to start looking outside their usual areas where they've usually recruited to find that talent. So they need to make the workplace more welcoming in order to not only attract the talent but retain that talent. So again, we're starting to not now, you know, we had been focusing our out-of-PC efforts with governments to push the procurement angle. We're now refocusing and starting to work with engineering firms so that they start to put these programs in place as well.

JEROME JAMES:
Sandro, thank you for joining us today and sharing your insights. It's been a fascinating conversation on the transformative potential of procurement policies within engineering in Ontario.

SANDRO PERRUZZA
Well, thanks Jerome for inviting me and including me. This is fantastic, as usual.

JEROME JAMES:
And as always, thank you to our audience. Your continued support is what makes this podcast possible. And remember, whether you're listening to us on YouTube or your favourite podcast app, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. We've been talking today with Sandro Parousa, CEO of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. I'm your host, Jerome James. You've been listening to Engineering the Future, and we'll see you next time.

FEMALE NARRATOR
From all of us at OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, thanks for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.