Today is International Women’s day (IWD) a global celebration and recognition of women’s achievements. It is also a time to reflect upon the challenges for women and the interesting and diverse ways in which these are being addressed, through a range of initiatives. One of these initiatives is the alta mentoring scheme, an on-line, free to use, mentoring platform set up to offer mentoring support to professional women across the aviation, aerospace and space industry. Launched on IWD in 2019, alta has continued to grow, offering mentoring support to more women and has recently been awarded a prize by the Economic and Social Research Council, for outstanding impact in business and enterprise.
The IWD campaign theme for 2023 is ‘Embrace Equity’. According to internationalwomensday.com ‘Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Equity can be defined as giving everyone what they need to be successful. In other words, it’s not giving everyone the exact same thing. If we give everyone the exact same thing, expecting that will make people equal, it assumes that everyone started out in the same place – and this can be vastly inaccurate because everyone isn’t the same’. The concept of ‘equity’ does not replace ‘equality’, instead, equality is the goal and equity is the means to achieve this.
What is alta?
This resonates with the ethos of the alta mentoring platform. Whilst our aim is to achieve gender equality across the industry, we recognise that women are not all the same and that mentees will require different support from their mentors. For example, while one mentee may be looking for mentoring support to manage work-life balance, another may be looking for technical advice, while another may be looking for general career support. This means that not all of our mentors are the same and the nature of the alta mentoring platform (global, reaching across the industry and outside of the mentee/mentor’s organisation) means that our mentors are drawn from a range of backgrounds, roles and professions and can therefore offer a diverse range of support, depending upon the needs of their mentees. We also offer networking and mentoring events throughout the year to help mentors and mentees meet face to face or online, as well as provide insights into career development and management. Alta aims to empower women to be themselves and to progress their careers with the support of other, more experienced women.
The alta mentoring platform was designed with women in mind (it is the first global mentoring platform of its kind in the industry, designed ‘for women/by women’ and is free to individual women to sign up). It was designed on the back of industry research that asked women, ‘what they wanted and needed’ from a mentoring programme. We also enjoy support from a number of high profile organisations in the industry, whose donations help us to reach out to even more women and to improve our services (the likes of GKN, Boeing UK, Raytheon, Collins Aerospace, Vistair, Signature Flight Support).
The founding members of alta (the Royal Aeronautical Society, the University of the West of England, Airbus, the Royal Air Force and Little Blue Private Jets Limited) came together with a common purpose: to tackle the inherent gender inequalities in the industry and offer mentoring support to women working in a male dominated industry. We were funded partly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the founding partners. The platform is hosted by the Royal Aeronautical Society and is part of the Society’s commitment to delivering on the pledges it made as a supporter of the Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter, which was signed by government and industry at the Farnborough Airshow.
Who can join alta?
Alta is open to professional women working in the industry who are looking for mentoring support and to women who wish to become mentors and connect with other women throughout the industry. It is free to join and you do not need to be a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society or an employee of any of the founding/supporting partners. The scheme looks to change the way females are perceived in male-dominated industries and aims to put an end to gender inequality.
How do I join alta?
The on-line platform is easy to sign up to and both mentors and mentees are required to answer a series of matching questions that then enables the platform’s algorithm to suggest the most suitable matches. After initial contact, both parties are free to arrange when, where, and how often they meet. All meetings and correspondence can be planned through the platform, providing a place for both parties to maintain their mentoring relationship in a safe, secure, and confidential online environment. Online training and support is also provided through the platform, including videos and factsheets, a dedicated handbook with in-depth advice and guidance as well access to other mentoring materials which are reviewed and updated regularly.
While alta is free to individual women to join, organisations wishing to become more involved in alta can also join as alta supporters by making a small donation. This enables us to further develop alta and to reach out to even more women across the industry.
If you are a professional woman in the industry and would like to join alta, you can sign up to the alta mentoring platform for free here: https://alta.onpld.com/. If you are an organisation and would like to get involved in alta and support us going forward, please contact our EDI team (diversity@aerosociety.com)
Also to hear more about the benefits of mentoring, the alta platform and the experiences from our users, listen to our latest podcast episode here.
