TOPIC: Career Opacity: The Hidden Promotion Bias Quietly Costing AEC Firms Their Best Engineers
Engineers don't leave jobs, they leave unclear paths to the next one, and most firms can't see it happening until it's too late.
This webinar looks at "career opacity," the gap between what a firm believes its promotion path looks like and what employees actually experience. Drawing on retention data and direct work with AEC organizations, the session breaks down what career opacity looks like inside a typical engineering org chart, why top performers are often at the most at risk of leaving because of it, and how leaders can build a visibility framework without a large HR budget or outside consultants.
About the speaker, Michele Heyward:
Michele Heyward is a civil engineer by training. She spent nearly 15 years as an engineer and project manager on large energy capital programs. She worked at Washington Group International, URS, and AECOM. In 2018, she founded PositiveHire. It uses people analytics to help employers retain and promote Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women in STEM. She also created PH Balanced, a workforce intelligence platform for AEC firms. She serves on ASCE’s Committee on Workforce and Education and on MOSAIC. She recently published the 2026 AEC Talent Retention Executive Roundtable Findings. She holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Industrial Management from Clemson University. She is an EIT for life and a certified ISO-30415 Diversity and Inclusion Professional.