Supporting all members in an inclusive environment

In my presentation on this topic at the NDT 2020 Webinar Week, I wanted to look at the responsibility of professional engineering institutes (PEI) to support all their members in an inclusive environment. A professional engineering institute is responsible for important aspects of its members’ professional experience, so it needs to represent and welcome all members and not just those in the majority groups.

BINDT supports members in their careers and professional development, notably through professional registration with the Engineering Council but also through the recognition of becoming a Member or an Associate member. As a member of BINDT’s Membership, Qualification and Education Committee (usually known as MQ&E), I help to review membership applications. It is clear that new applicants are often looking to take their careers a step further through greater involvement and increased professional development.

In terms of diversity and inclusion, this raises the question of what professional engineering institutes can do to make sure that all members and potential members have the opportunity to thrive and that they experience a sense of belonging in their appropriate institute. It does not make sense to have a situation where some members have a worse experience with their professional organisation, purely because of their characteristics or minority status.

Therefore, a compelling reason why we need to work on diversity and inclusion is: “To improve the professional experience and belonging of all engineers in their professional institute and in the engineering community.”

I identified some areas where people might not engage if they think their institute is: “not really for them”: applications for membership; nominations for prizes; upgrades to Fellow; applications for engineering registration; joining a committee; attending a conference; and getting involved with a Branch. That is a lot of things for people to be missing out on, in which case they would not be benefiting from the full advantages of membership.

We have two main approaches to address this at BINDT. First of all are the things that BINDT can do as an organisation. We are working through the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) ‘Framework’ scheme, which helps us to self-assess diversity and inclusion in all of our core activities. There are eight focus areas: governance and leadership; membership and professional registration; meetings, conferences and events; education and training; prizes, awards and grants; communications, marketing, outreach and engagement; employment; and monitoring and measuring. We are working under this framework alongside other UK professional bodies in engineering and science and it is good to note that the last benchmarking exercise put us above average in some areas.

Second are the things we can do as members of the engineering community to create a more inclusive environment. Think of diversity and inclusion as a professional competence for engineers. Members of BINDT have signed up to BINDT’s Code of Conduct, which is based on the Engineering Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Statement of Ethical Principles. Alongside honesty and integrity, respect for life, law, the environment and public good, accuracy and rigour, is leadership and communication, which includes: “promote equality, diversity and inclusion”.

It is part of BINDT’s role to help members comply with all of this; this could be through continuing professional development (CPD), to help train, update and reinforce professional attitudes. We should consider ourselves as building the engineering community of the future, with a strong sense of belonging for all groups. ‘Inclusion’ needs to be built into the professional identity of all engineers, otherwise our targets for increasing participation by under-represented groups will be very hard to achieve.

I will finish with some of the things we are working on at the moment and through into 2021:

There is a new benchmarking exercise under the Royal Academy of Engineering Framework in early 2021. We hope to see progress in our own activities and improvement across all of the PEIs.

Review of BINDT Awards. We are working to create a more inclusive awards process at BINDT to make sure we showcase our best. Awards are a high-profile activity for BINDT and a great opportunity to showcase the fantastic work people are doing.

Board diversity project. This is a very important ongoing activity to increase the representation of all parts of the non-destructive testing/condition monitoring community on our committees.

Building a more inclusive professional identity for engineers, increasing professional competence in diversity and inclusion. We are planning an event next year that is linked to the importance of diversity and inclusion in the new UK-SPEC for EngTech, IEng and CEng.

I would be very happy to hear your thoughts on these plans or any other aspects of diversity and inclusion at BINDT.

If you have any thoughts or ideas, or are interested in joining the D&I Advisory Group, please get in touch: diversity@bindt.org

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