Catalyst Award Winner: CH2M Hill

“We’ve always had an inclusive culture,” said Catherine Santee, CFO of the full-service engineering and construction leader CH2M Hill, “so we built our [goals for a more inclusive environment] on that.” Their award-winning U.S.-based initiative “Constructing Pathways for Women Through Inclusion,” includes strategic programs for the recruitment, development, retention and advancement of women. Last week, CH2M Hill was recognized for the “Constructing Pathways…” initiative at this year’s Catalyst Awards.

Santee has been with the company almost 14 years and has seen the difference made by the inclusion initiative. “When I first started [at CH2M Hill], even though we thought we were pretty good, it wasn’t comfortable to have open discussions of diversity and wanting to have more women included. That has really changed for us over the past several years. And so now it is not uncomfortable at all—it’s an open discussion—and it’s just a part of who we are.”

In the mid 2000s, Santee and some other top women at CH2M HIll gathered the more senior women (and a couple of key men in management) in the company for their first “Women’s Summit” to discuss how to increase the number of women in management in the company countrywide. This effort was met with resistance from a surprising source: some CH2M Hill women. “We had one-third of the women who were excited to be there, one-third who were sitting back and waiting [to see what happened], and one-third who really did not want to be there. [Through discussions at the summit], we learned that when you are in a male-dominated industry [like construction], a lot of the women felt as if another woman got the next position, they’d be cut out of the running. There was a lot of unspoken competition,” said Santee.

That summit was a turning point for women in the company, according to Santee. “Before that point, women felt pretty isolated in their different positions. But the permission to come together and to have two men be a part of that really [helped] everybody to feel like that was something they could be a part of. We created a very positive environment for the first women’s summit: no whining allowed. We asked ourselves how we were going to help ourselves. And the two men gave us really valuable feedback.”

In 2006, through the newly established steering committee, action plans for the development and advancement of women were created. Around the same time, additional summits were held—now attended by junior and mid-level women as well—focusing on leadership and training.

Organizational changes were made in 2007 and 2008 to include more women in the management ranks and on the board of directors. “Our very diverse board of directors really helps us make better decisions, ” says Santee.

The leaders at CH2M Hill credit the success of the summits and of the initiative in general, not only to the women, but also to the “buy in” from the men in the company. Bill Dehn, President of North American Operations and Corporate Shared Services and one of the executive CH2M Hill men involved with the initiative from the beginning talked of the value of dialogue, saying, “There was a lot of learning for men involved. Panels [at the Summits] sometimes talk about how women process things differently. I remember one of the things that I learned was women have to feel much more confident that they are ready for the next opportunity so you have to be careful not to discount women who may say they are not ready, but who are actually on par with the men.”

“With all organizations,” says Santee, “we have some business groups that have a pretty high level of women in their ranks and some that do not. There are probably a couple that we are still working on and trying to get the levels of women up in those individual groups. [But] because we are so male dominated— our whole industry is—we have to be very careful about how we [do this]. We found early on…one of the things that is really important for us is to pull people in and have them want to be a part of it rather than hitting them over the head with it.” She added, “Since our last summit, we had one of our senior men clamoring to be invited. [He] called me up right after to say he wanted to be included next year, saying ‘don’t forget!’”

The summits and CH2M Hill’s other professional development activities, as well as their recruitment, retention and advancement programs have borne impressive results: over 5 years, the number of women in executive management has increased from 3% to 18% and the number of women project managers has increased 50%. But, just as important, the perception of women and their capabilities has changed throughout the company. “Today I think there is no role in the company that woman can’t do as well or better than a man. And I don’t think that was an accepted thought until we started this,” said Dehn.