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SEAONC SE3 Committee is excited to be collaborating with SEAONC YMF and AIA East Bay to host a fun and engaging event mid-October to celebrate diversity and to work together to improve awareness on equity issues and inclusivity in the building design profession. SEAONC SE3 OCTOBER WORKSHOP Building an Inclusive Workplace for ALL in the 21st Century Thursday, October 17 | 5:30pm-8:00pm AIA East Bay This program features a presentation from an expert on change management, employee engagement and “tactical implementation” of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives. Participants will identify and discuss relevant issues through facilitated discussions, and will collaborate on finding solutions. The event concludes with continued conversations and networking. Appetizers and refreshments will be provided. Attendees will leave this workshop energized, empowered with the tools to augment relationships, influence change in recruiting practices at their firm, to help improve engagement and talent retention in our profession. 
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Check out SEAONC SE3’s first “Leadership in Action” Blog Post with discussions on engagement and best practices for improving talent retention, with insights and metrics from researchers and our own building design industry leaders. SE3 has launched this new blog to providing ongoing content surrounding company best practices, highlight important concepts related to the improvement of employee engagement, and encourage the sharing of ideas among members of our industry.   By Stephanie Borchers and Rachel Cohen
On a firm-by-firm basis, understanding how to encourage and maintain employee engagement is central to increasing retention. Employees of all levels contribute to forming a company culture that may or may not encourage engagement. First, what is engagement? As SEAONC SE3 #ChangeXSE3 Symposium keynote speaker Dr. Zinta Byrne noted in her presentation, engagement is not simply satisfaction or the opposite of burnout. Engagement means finding meaning in one’s work, feeling energized by one’s daily tasks, and motivated to contribute to the success of the firm and to accomplish long-term goals. Firm leaders and managers play a big role in the engagement of their less experienced employees. According to a report on retention by TINYpulse, employees who are unsatisfied with their supervisors are four times more likely to quit than those who rate their supervisors highly [1]. Leaders can encourage engagement through tangible actions - such as providing bonuses to reward performance, or investing money and resources into training employees - as well through making conscious choices around how they interact with their colleagues. The SEAONC Structural Engineering, Engagement, and Equity Project (SE3) held its 2019 Symposium on May 10th, 2019 in San Francisco entitled A Changing Workplace: How to Engage, Retain and Secure the Future of our Profession. From the inception of the symposium, the goal of this event was to broaden the discussion of engagement and equity by inviting structural engineers from all over California and outside of the state as well to participate on aspects of changing our profession for the better. The sold out symposium featured inspirational speakers and thought leaders that left the audience invigorated and committed to advancement of our structural engineering industry. Following our symposium, an overwhelming majority of post-event survey participants stated they were extremely likely to recommend a friend or colleague to attend a future SE3 symposium, rating their overall experience as excellent. For the organizers, volunteers and sponsors of this event, such statistics fuel our momentum to continue the work of SE3 for and on behalf of our engineering community. To learn more about the sessions and programming of the 2019 SE3 symposium, please go to this link. SE3 launched its Long-Term mentorship program on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at Thornton Tomasetti in San Francisco. It was a GREAT success!! The goal of the program is to create mentee-mentor pairs or groups across age, experience, and firms to encourage less experienced engineers to gain strategic guidance and career advice. Mentees had a chance to meet and mingle with their prospective mentors, and the event was a success! If you are interested in being a mentor for future mentorship events, please complete this form. A big thank you to our mentors for their willingness to participate and mentorship co-chairs, Brenna Marcoux and Sarah Sullivan and co-chairs Zahraa Saiyed and Hayley Dickson, and several other SE3 volunteers for their efforts in making this event and program a great success. The SEAONC SE3 Committee will be hosting a kick-off event for the SE3 Long-Term Mentorship Program this Tuesday, March 19 at Thorton Tomasetti's office in downtown San Francisco. Our hope is that this program will give opportunities for less-experienced engineers to gain strategic guidance and career advice from other people from the local community. Based on data collected from each of the participants, mentee-mentor pairs or groups were developed by the program co-chairs to provide alignment based on relevant experience, firms, career focus topics, and meet-up logistics. We'd like to acknowledge the many individuals who are going to be volunteering their time and insights as mentors for the coming year. We look forward to hearing how the mentoring sessions go from both perspectives, and will be soliciting feedback throughout the process. A big shout-out to our SEAONC SE3 Mentorship Committee Co-leads, Brenna Marcoux and Sarah Sullivan, and contributor, Yoshita Manne, and support from current SEAONC SE3 committee co-chairs Hayley Dickson and Zahraa Saiyed for putting so much dedicated time and thought into this program. Thank you to TT-SF for generously allowing us to use their space for this event! We appreciate it immensely! SEAONC SE3 Mentorshiop Program Mentors: See any familiar faces?
In January 2017, the SEAONC Structural Engineering Engagement and Equity (SE3) Committee hosted its first symposium in San Francisco entitled LISTEN. ASSESS. CHANGE. This sold out event hosted 120 attendees who came to learn about the 2016 SE3 study and listen to the experiences and inspiring ideas of a wide variety of professionals who were featured as speakers and panelists. Our SEAONC SE3 leadership team is excited to officially announce the theme and venue of its second symposium in San Francisco, California. This half-day event, entitled A Changing Workplace - How to Engage, Retain, and Secure the Future of Our Profession, is for business owners, human resource managers, partners, and employees of all levels in the A/E/C industry who are interested in promoting discussion on engagement and equity in the structural engineering profession. Date: Friday, May 10, 2019 | 1 pm - 7:30 pm Location: SPUR, 654 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 Attendees will get a preview of the 2018 NCSEA SE3 survey findings related to satisfaction, employee engagement and retention. The event will include collaborative breakout sessions moderated by SE3 committee members, featuring special guests who will share their varied experiences and insights on workplace culture, strategic planning, career development and core values. For more info on the program, speakers and moderators, please visit the symposium event page.
The SEAONC SE3 Committee is launching a Long-Term Mentorship Program! The goal of the program is to create mentee-mentor pairs or groups across age, experience, and firms to encourage less experienced engineers to gain strategic guidance and career advice. In our 2016 survey, we found that respondents with identified mentors reported being more satisfied with career trajectory and career choice. SEAONC has long fostered a strong community among structural engineers in the Bay Area, and the SE3 mentorship program seeks to strengthen that legacy. “Having a mentor motivated me to focus on my career goals rather than just my daily tasks and assignments. I hadn’t thought about that until I had a mentor who asked me those questions and showed interest in my development.” - Tim Hart, SEAONC President “Mentorship orients us to the greater world of our profession, and helps us become the best version of ourselves.” - Taryn Williams, SEAONC Past President Mentees - Apply Today! If you are interested in participating in the first year of our long-term mentorship program, please fill out this application. The commitment involves participating in a few 1-hr mentorship sessions throughout the year, as well as a kick-off and closing event. We are looking for mentees with a range of experience levels, students welcome! Applications close March 8, 2019. If you know anyone who may be interested in being a mentee, please pass on this application. If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]. Mentors - If you'd like to participate as a mentor in a future mentoring event or program, please complete this form to be added to our database: https://tinyurl.com/ybp66pyn Thank you for your interest and continued commitment to the advancement of the structural engineering profession!  The SEAONC SE3 Committee is excited to announce the upcoming panel discussion entitled Work-Life Balance: Perspectives and Real Life Solutions Date: Thursday, October 11th, 2018. Time: 5 pm to 8 pm Location: Thornton Tomasetti, 650 California St #1400, San Francisco, CA 94108 Panelists: Abe Lynn, Ibbi Almufti, David Friedman, Gina Beretta, Lizzie Blaisdell Moderator: Ayse Hortacsu  Details This panel will open with remarks from the SE3 committee about the importance of work-life balance, highlighting findings from the 2016 SE3 survey and related preliminary results from the most recent national survey. The five panelists will discuss their personal and organizational experiences in establishing work-life balance. The event will conclude with a Q&A session and a networking happy hour, during which attendees may share their reflections or experiences, ask questions, or solicit advice from the panelists. Please go to our SE3 event page for more information on this event. Registration will open on Friday, September 14th. Note that space is limited. We highly recommend that registering early. While Angie Sommer, SE and Nick Sherrow-Groves, P.E. were chairing the SEAONC SE3 Committee in 2017, we had a small task group dedicated to refining and expanding our list of best practices, including resources for companies and individuals to help improve our industry.  Over the last couple of months, we have been working on the visual presentation of this guide. With great pride, we are delighted to share it with the professional community.
This team was lead by Rupa Garai. Other core contributors to this effort include Susan LaFore, Lauren Biscombe, Karen Vogt-Wilcox, Abhinanda Dilip, Brenna Marcoux and Sarah Sullivan, and of course, Rose McClure - for the vision, inspiration, and continuous support through this process of refinement. The link to this document is HERE. Please review, enjoy, and share with your colleagues! The Best Practices Resource Guide provides a collection of actionable steps that can be taken by engineers at all levels, from entry level to principals, to move toward the goal of engagement and equity. |
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