Four years on from its launch in 2019, the innovative alta scheme enables the Royal Aeronautical Society to deliver an online mentoring scheme to address the lack of mentoring support for women in the aerospace industry. Ahead of International Women’s Day STELLA WARREN – Research Fellow at University of West England and member of the RAeS alta Steering Group – looks at the scheme and its achievements.
Achieving gender balance and offering opportunities for the industry workforce to achieve its full potential is viewed as a key strategic focus by partners across the aerospace sector.
This is why the RAeS formed a partnership between with Airbus, the RAF, Little Blue Private Jets Ltd and the University of the West of England in Bristol to design and deliver an online mentoring scheme to address the lack of mentoring support for women in the industry.
Membership is free and women from more than 150 organisations are currently registered as alta mentors, mentees, or both.
This joint venture between academia and industry is helping to address the current skills shortage in various professions across the industry as well as the retention of key talent. It is a unique woman-to-woman online mentoring platform with global reach that sets out to help professional women working in the aerospace and aviation industry to build their careers by connecting them with female mentors in a traditionally male-dominated profession.
Alta was officially launched to the industry on 8 March 2019 (International Women’s Day) and is built upon a knowledge exchange network that draws upon the knowledge and expertise of academics, professionals, senior managers and female professionals across the industry. It is underpinned by academic research led by the University of the West of England. The research was conducted to ascertain the mentoring needs of women across the industry and how best those needs could be met. The research told us that there was a need for a woman-only mentoring scheme, based upon systematic matching and supported by bespoke training. The key objectives of alta are to support women across the industry, through an online mentoring platform that was designed based upon women’s expressed needs; to provide career and social support to women across the industry; to provide mentor/mentee training to alta members; to hold regular networking events; and to continue to work together as the alta Steering Group, to enable us to monitor progress, measure impact and to further develop alta to meet future needs.
The platform is part of the alta mentoring scheme, which was designed as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded knowledge exchange research project which began in 2015 by investigating what women in the sector wanted and needed from a mentoring programme.
The story so far
Left-right: Professor Sue Durbin, University of the West of England, Judith Milne, Managing Director of Little Blue Private Jets and Alessandra Badino, Head of Sustainability & Environment for Airbus in the UK
Alta has brought about significant change in the industry due to its uniqueness in being the only global mentoring scheme of its kind, for women. It brings together competitor companies who have joined forces to offer scarce mentoring support to female professionals that complement already existing in-company mentoring schemes. It has thus provided a cultural shift within the industry, with a number of high-profile companies including GKN, Boeing UK, Raytheon, Collins Aerospace, Signature and Vistair) officially supporting alta through donations which help us connect with even more women and to improve the services on offer.
Impact for women in the industry is also evident as alta enables women to access otherwise unavailable mentoring support. A growing critical mass of women became involved in the design of alta, which was grounded in research and evidence base. To date, around 500 women from a range of organisations across the industry have become alta members with experienced mentors predominantly from management roles who can offer support to women. The membership is predicted to grow significantly and globally to offer access to women anywhere in the world.
Working with mentoring platform specialists, Perform Learn Develop (PLD) we have created a new, easy-to-use online system that is accessible to women across the industry. In addition to the platform, alta networking events are held regularly for alta members. We also continue to monitor the impact of alta across the industry and to work together to develop alta to ensure it fulfils the requirements of its members.
Late last year, the alta mentoring scheme and the team behind it were recognised by the ESRC, winning the £10,000 Outstanding Business and Enterprise Impact prize at the prestigious ESRC Celebrating Impact Awards event.
The ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioural and human data science. This was the tenth year of the competition which recognises and rewards ESRC-funded researchers who have achieved impact through exceptional research, knowledge exchange activities, collaborative partnerships and engagement with different communities.
Sue Durbin, Professor in Human Resource Management at UWE, who led the academic team said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been awarded the ESRC Outstanding Business and Enterprise Impact Award, on behalf of the alta team, in recognition of the impact of our work across academia and industry,”.
Judith Milne, Managing Director at Little Blue Private Jets and co-founder of alta reflected on her experience in the industry: “As an industry executive with many years of having experienced lack of support for women and barriers to progressing their careers, I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight these issues and provide practical support led by requests from women in the industry. I am excited to see alta go from strength to strength.”.
Commenting on the award, alta co-founder, Alessandra Badino, Head of Sustainability & Environment for Airbus in the UK said: “alta has been an invaluable aid to women in the aerospace and aviation sector to connect, share and support each other especially during the recent pandemic crisis. It is such a pleasure for me to see its value recognised by the ESRC and this prize will have a significant impact in driving alta development further and empowering women in the industry.”
Education, Skills & Diversity Manager at RAeS, Nicholas Davis said: “We hope to continue building the alta platform so that many more women in the industry can feel empowered in their careers.”
To find out more about joining the alta mentoring platform as a professional woman in aviation and aerospace, or an industry supporter, visit: https://www.aerosociety.com/get-involved/alta-mentoring/
Special recognition
