Waste disposal and waste-to-energy is typically a male-dominated industry, but Wheelebrator Technologies in Hampton is trying to change that through a six-year-old program aimed at advancing female employees. Such an effort is vital, given that of Wheelabrator's 1,000 employees across the country, only 110 are women, and of those, only 40 are in salaried positions.
Wheelebrator is hardly alone in recognizing the need to support women in leadership roles. Women comprise 47 percent of NH's workforce, yet only account for a small percentage of corporate leadership, according to a report released by the NH Women's Policy Institute earlier this year.
Women represent 9 percent of directors of publicly held corporations in NH, 21 percent of financial institution directors and 25 percent of hospital trustees. In its report, the Institute recommends companies increase the visibility for executive women and help connect them to networks that lead to board service; increase mentoring for women and educate companies about the business benefits of having women in leadership; and change corporate culture to encourage and increase female advancement.
Waste Management started its Women's Professional Network in 2002 to further the personal and professional development of women throughout the company, and to tap into a talented pool of workers to help enable its growth. Its subsidiary, Wheelabrator Technologies, adopted the program a year later.
Carrie Griffiths, now director of corporate communications for Waste Management, was one of the first women to be part of Wheelabrator's leadership team. Then-president Drennan Lowell put her in charge of getting the Women's Professional Network off the ground at Wheelabrator. The program is now offered to salaried women at all 22 Wheelabrator facilities nationwide and the program has new leaders: Michelle Turcotte, manager of shared services at Wheelabrator's Hampton headquarters, and Kathy Perkowski, controller at Wheelabrator Lisbon in Connecticut.
The network creates opportunities for women to network with each other internally as well as providing leadership seminars covering such topics as effective communication, conflict resolution and mentoring. The most recent session featured Trudy Bourgeois, president of The Center for Workforce Excellence in Texas, and author of The Hybrid Leader: Blending the Best of the Male and Female Leadership Styles to Transform Corporate America. Bourgeois facilitated a full-day session about growing as a leader and becoming a hybrid leader, Perkowski says.
The Women's Professional Network also keeps senior management informed of session topics and the progress of the program. The program is open to women in salaried positions within the company and currently has 40 women participating. It's important that we have a strong support structure for new people coming in, Perkowski says of the program. It is important to have this employee resource going forward.
Turcotte says the Women's Professional Network has not only been a great resource for women in the company, but also an effective recruiting tool. It is a big goal for us to recruit more professionally skilled, women leaders and to promote from within. It [WPN] helps to develop people in the organization and build on their strengths, says Turcotte, who has been with the company for 16 years and was recently promoted to her current position, overseeing the centralized accounts payable and receivable for the entire company. She now manages 12 employees in a position that has high visibility in the company and says the program has boosted her confidence.
Turcotte says the program has the full support of President Mark Weidman and the leadership team, and the company also offers mentoring to hourly employees to help them develop their skills. [Wheelabrator] wants to be a company with inclusion and diversity as part of its underlying goals and to engage employees, Turcotte says. N
About NHBSR
If you want to learn more about the topics featured in this column, visit www.nhbsr.org. New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility is holding webinars with the companies featured in The Give Back. Go to www.NHBSR.org for dates and times. NHBSR fosters socially and environmentally responsible business in NH, recognizing that people, principles and profits must be linked.
It provides a variety of programs that highlight corporate responsibility, including its Go On Tour series that allows people to get an inside look at socially responsible businesses and their best practices.
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