Special Technical Committees

Women of AIRAH

AIRAH created the Women of AIRAH STG to help promote diversity, representation, and inclusion within the ranks of HVAC&R.

Established in 2016, the Women of AIRAH (WOA) group works to develop AIRAH’s strategy for supporting women and increasing their participation in both AIRAH and the HVAC&R industry at large. Since 2019, AIRAH's Divisions and STGs have been invited to nominate a diversity champion to expand on the work of the founding committee.

About this topic

Diverse teams are proven to be more effective, producing better financial results and better results in innovation. These results show that having a diverse organisation is a business imperative. While diversity is a vast umbrella, gender diversity is an area with great potential for growth within HVAC&R.

Workplace gender equality is associated with improved national productivity and economic growth; increased organisational performance; enhanced ability of companies to attract talent and retain employees; and enhanced organisational reputation (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2016). This can also be considered an industry imperative, as AIRAH represents an industry body that seeks to continue to grow and innovate.

Unfortunately, the gender gap remains wide, and women are still significantly and visibly under-represented in the HVAC&R industry.

The Women of AIRAH STG seeks gender equality and representation in the workplace, with the intent of making the group redundant by achieving critical mass within the HVAC&R industry (30 per cent – Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firm Performance: What Exactly Constitutes a “Critical Mass?”, 2012).

The Committee welcomes and encourages all advocates working toward gender equality and representation in the workplace and will engage in any constructive dialogue toward that end.

Diversity champions

AIRAH's diversity champions will work with their Divisions/Committees to:

• Actively encourage of female participation.
• Actively encourage and seek female speakers for their Committee-organised events
• Include events that focus on interpersonal skills (e.g. unconscious bias, negotiation skills, leadership, etc.)
• Promote stories and achievements of female or diversity champion individuals/companies from each Division/Committee.
• Support the WOA committee in organising WOA events prior to major events in their state.

Purpose and aims

This group is the national steering Committee which will develop and drive initiatives to improve the entry and subsequent engagement and retention of women in the HVAC&R industry.

The committee aims to:

• Increase the number of female members in AIRAH to 30 per cent.
• Increase female participation in the AIRAH Committees to 30 per cent at all levels.
• Promote industry leadership in the following key areas:
• Attracting female graduates and apprentices into HVAC&R.
• Providing networking and support opportunities for women during all stages of their careers.
• Encouraging employers to create a diverse workplace through recruitment, career development, and cultural transformations.
• Assisting women to feel engaged in our industry and part of the HVAC&R community.
• Improving retention of women in the HVAC&R industry.
• Highlighting the female role models within the industry and celebrating their achievements and contributions.
• Communicate the business case for diversity within AIRAH and the wider community.
• Provide guidance to the HVAC&R industry to develop a considered, integrated approach to gender diversity and improving representation.

To formalise and track progress toward these aims, the Committee will establish a rolling list of projects/outcomes to be accomplished for the calendar year. The list will be updated yearly with interim reviews as appropriate.

The committee aims to provide:

• Best practice guidelines
• Best practice training
• Recommendations for changes to Australian Standards

National Sponsors