How We’re Empowering Career Success at Siemens

While it can be challenging to be a woman in STEM, that certainly isn't the case at Siemens. We’re a diverse team and recognize the strength in that. I’ve never felt limited by my gender and always had great support from my colleagues and management.

We work collaboratively to bring together the digital and physical worlds to create innovative solutions for different sectors, especially for the discrete and process industries.. No matter who you are, you always feel valued at Siemens and that your work is making a valuable contribution to Siemens’ mission. 

I’m lucky to say that at Siemens, there’s a true culture of inclusion for women with clear, transparent and supportive recruitment, training, coaching and career paths. This kind of structural support helps women to make themselves visible, progress as far as possible and be fairly evaluated in terms of talents and contributions. 

Siemens is committed to offering the same opportunities, career growth, professional development opportunities, authority and level of trust, no matter your gender. It is a truly inclusive workplace.

While women are certainly still outnumbered in security, the gender imbalance is fast fixing itself. I’d like to think that I’ve played a small part in helping that happen, and I look forward to guiding the next generation of women through the field. 

Siemens has been a supportive environment for me to grow in since I first joined. The empowerment I receive from leaders and my network is extremely valuable. Siemens strongly encourages a mentorship culture, which has helped me gain business knowledge and aided in my personal development. Through the people I’ve met, I’m being exposed to new skills and experiences, and progressing in my career quickly.

Since joining Siemens on their engineering graduate program in 2009, I’ve been given wide exposure to the global business. This gave me a solid understanding of the business, as well as a strong internal network.

Siemens also places strong focus on professional development and provides various continuous learning resources and opportunities. When I came to the end of a major project in 2017, I was given the perfect opportunity to develop my career further with a role in Singapore, which is the role I still have today – leading the project management department for Siemens Smart Infrastructure. 

Siemens offers really powerful training that has been created specifically for each area and role. They map out your professional development journey while taking your learning curve into account. The training teaches you how to be successful, how to help partners and clients win, and in turn, enable both you and Siemens to win too.

When you’re fortunate enough to have a supportive employer, they will help you develop the competencies you need.

When I first started, I was worried about some gaps in my skills. I wasn’t confident that I could manage a process improvement project as I had no previous experience with it. I was previously working for HR in the first 4 years of my career. However, after an open discussion with my manager, I was given a variety of hard skills training, including Lean and Six Sigma Green Belt, Tableau and Power BI. I was also given the opportunity to manage a smaller scale process improvement project, so I could learn the ropes before moving on to bigger scale projects. I’m now certified in Scaled Agile Framework, with ability to drive process improvement projects in ASEAN, and global scale projects.

I have had the opportunity to work in various sales roles with Siemens all over Asia, and for nearly a year in the Middle East as well. Developing my career and exploring new paths while experiencing the excitement of new countries has been a huge benefit of working with Siemens.

Siemens has really supported my career all along. When I asked for a new challenge as a project manager, they gave it to me and they helped me to develop the skills I needed in this entirely new role. That’s very typical of the culture here. 

At Siemens, we encourage open and honest communication among team members. Our ‘Speak Up’ culture widens the scope, pushes the boundaries of change and leads to better results for everyone.

We form groups of up to 10 people per business unit/hierarchy to brainstorm new, innovative ideas, and within these groups, team members feel free to express their thoughts. Everyone can be confident that their ideas will be heard and recognized by a leader who truly values their input. 

Because everyone is made to feel equally responsible for targets at Siemens, they become more motivated to share their ideas and knowledge, which then increases organizational competency and competitiveness.