The «[in] Visible force» Leadership Program for Women
Rosatom Group
Year of incorporation: 2007
Number of staff: 335 000
Company details
A diversified holding company owning assets in the energy, mechanical engineering, and construction industries. Its strategy is low-carbon energy generation development, including wind energy.
Rosatom State Corporation is a national leader in electricity generation (about 20% of total output) and has the world's largest portfolio of NPP construction orders: 33 power units in 10 countries are at various stages of implementation. The State Corporation unites more than 400 enterprises and organizations.
Values
- One step ahead
We strive to lead the global markets. We are always one step ahead in technology, knowledge, and expertise of our employees. We see what is coming tomorrow, and we stand ready for it today. We are constantly developing and learning. Every day we try to work harder than the day before.
- Accountability
Each of us is personally accountable for the result and quality of our work to the state, industry, colleagues, and customers. When it comes to work, we place the highest demands on ourselves. What matters is the result achieved, not the efforts spent. Success is the basis for our new achievements.
- Efficiency
We always find the best solutions. We are effective in everything we do – when pursuing our goals, we use the company's resources as efficiently as possible and constantly improve our work processes. There is nothing that can stop us from finding the most effective solutions.
- United team
Rosatom is all of us. We have common goals. Working in a team of like-minded people allows one to achieve extraordinary results. Together we are stronger and can achieve the most ambitious goals. The success of the employees is the success of the company.
- Respect
We respect our customers, partners, and suppliers. We always listen to and hear each other, regardless of our positions and jobs. We respect the history and traditions of the industry. The achievements of the past inspire us to new victories.
- Safety
Safety is our top priority. Complete safety of people and the environment always comes first. There are no trifles when it comes to security – we know the safety regulations and follow them, preventing violations.
Vision
The achievements of nuclear science and cutting-edge technologies are for the good of people.
The «[in] Visible Force» is an educational ecosystem-based support and development program for Rosatom female employees. The program targets female top executives and is aimed at identifying the development-impeding barriers specific to the women in the industry, developing comprehensive tools to eliminate these barriers and leveraging leadership potential of female professionals in the nuclear industry.
The nuclear industry, like many other high-tech industries, is considered "male-dominated": despite the fact that women make up 32-33% of Rosatom employees, Rosatom female employees still point out a number of barriers they face at work.
According to the 2022 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency study that Rosatom took part in, the key career development obstacles are gender stereotypes (reported by 57% of respondents), corporate culture specifics (53%), the impossibility to achieve a proper work-life balance (63%), as well as unfeasibility of using social connections as a tool for career development (45%), as is customary for men working in the nuclear industry.
The OECD NEA study was the key impetus for Rosatom to develop a female professional support program; but the study is far from being the only thing corroborating the importance of ensuring gender balance in any company: for example, according to a McKinsey study, gender balanced teams have 15-25% higher rates of financial performance compared to teams with a prevailing gender.
The project team was the first in the industry to attempt to tackle gender imbalance, understand its causes, and begin the development of industry-wide support systems for Rosatom female professionals. This has become a challenging task due to the longstanding industry characterizing specialties and skills as "female" and "male", as well as the need to transform the established social conventions.
Project time frame: December 2022-April 2023 (pilot launch), October 2023-December 2023 (first operational launch)
Number of employees involved: 335 000
Project target audience:
Rosatom female employees (approximately 88 000);
Female top executives (approximately 3 000).
The aim of the project is to create a support system for female leaders working in the nuclear industry.
Project objectives:
Identify the development-impeding barriers specific to the women in the industry;
Develop tools to eliminate these barriers;
Create a community supporting the professional and personal development of women in the industry;
Demonstrate the importance of tackling gender imbalance in the industry.
The pilot program lasted four months (December 2022 - April 2023), engaging 38 female employees from 15 industry organizations. The approach we chose was based on the idea that successful leadership comes from the leader's resilience, their ability to achieve balance, take control of their emotional and mental health, which subsequently helps channel their resourcefulness into the environment and the team. The project engaged both Rosatom experts and external specialists: the "Women of the Nuclear Industry" Foundation, the "Culture of Happiness" project, and the International Coaching Academy.
The program consisted of three levels – individual, communication, and professional:
Level 1: "Me and my relationship with myself." The level addresses the subjects of achieving balance, increasing personal stability, and resilience.
Level 2: "Me and my relationship with those around me." The level touches upon the development of communication skills and the power of networking.
Level 3: "Me and my job." The level delves into project acceleration, searching, securing, and building a project support ecosystem around yourself.
Program implementation tools and the challenges they addressed
1. Three-day offline off-premise module: the participants of the program get to know each other and shape a common vision and goals of the program;
2. Private Telegram chat: information about activities and a safe communication space for participants;
3. Weekly webinars with experts: delving into various aspects of female leadership and gender balance;
4. Individual coaching sessions: working through personal or professional problems, finding a balance, and sorting out priorities;
5. Individual mentoring sessions: professional analysis of project-related issues;
6. Weekly film club: searching for role models of leadership in feature films;
7. Masterminds: group discussion of the problems and questions raised by the participants of the program;
8. "Resilience marathon": diving into the theory of and practicing positive psychology.
The program activities took up to 8 hours per week on average. The fast pace of the program caught some participants off guard, and it took some time for them to adapt to the process. Therefore, we developed trekking support programs to help the people falling behind on news and updates catch up and returns to the program.
Seeing the results of the pilot, we decided to introduce the program on the industry-scale, using the pilot participants' feedback to choose the most effective elements and adapt them to new tasks. It stands to mention that more than half of the pilot participants were willing to participate in the development of the program, became ambassadors, experts, mastermind hosts, etc. When designing the first full-scale launch of the program, we focused on ensuring that the program was accessible to participants anywhere, took place after hours, and was as flexible as possible so to accommodate any participant.
Outcome
The project results not only helped us introduce gender imbalance and female professional support agenda on the industry level, but also prove its viability in terms of business indicators, thus ensuring the development and expansion of the program to reach 1 500 women in the industry by the end of 2023.
1. Establishment of a participant community for solving various tasks, and an ambassador community for promoting the program.
2. The subjective self-confidence level assessed by participants increased by 40 pp.
3. 4 career transitions (vertical and horizontal). And the women transitioning credited the program as one of the decisive factors in career switching.
4. The program served a framework for more than 15 joint and individual projects that were presented to the HR Vice President of Rosatom. The projects will be integrated into Rosatom's initiatives concerned with the territories of presence development.
5. The program will be scaled to reach 1 500 female employees of Rosatom.
6. The gender balance agenda is a persistent item discussed in the Rosatom community, at internal and external events.
7. Methodological outcomes include the justification of the hypothesis that there are career development aspects specific to gender. The educational program helps counter-balance these aspects: give women confidence in their competencies and skills, take into account their emotional needs, and teach them to recognize and be candid about their achievements.
D.A. Kalenbet: «The [in]Visible Force program is not just an educational program for women who want to develop their leadership skills. It is an ecosystem of knowledge, support, and exchange of experience that helps participants not only build their professional strategy, but also understand themselves, understand that they are not alone, and that they can achieve anything they want. And, most importantly, this is the first step towards introducing a gender lens at all stages of the HR process so that women in the industry feel comfortable, involved, and safe.»
«Developing the "[in]Visible Force" project, we sought to test various tools and techniques to support women in the industry, assess their impact, and understand exactly what kind of support female managers need», Tatyana Terentyeva, Deputy HR Director, Rosatom State Corporation. «As a result, we established a set of tools that allow us to be more effective in unlocking the leadership and creative potential of our leaders. The set will make part of our leadership programs».