CRANBERRY TWP — Panelists, including three women with strong ties to Butler County, agreed Thursday, Oct. 13, at the Women Shaping Our Region event that the mission of advancing women in the workforce is not done.

“Men and women bring different dimensions to the table and they need to learn to work as equals on one team,” said Federal Judge Marilyn Horan, a long-time Butler County resident.

Horan, Kelly Hanna Riley and Stacey Armagost shared their thoughts alongside four other panelists at the event at the RLA Learning & Conference Center. Horan serves on the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania and previously was a Common Pleas trial judge in Butler County. Riley serves as the president of Global Relocation and Business Development for Howard Hanna Real Estate Services. Armagost is the vice president of IR Optics & Materials and Site Leader at Coherent Corp, formerly II-VI, in Saxonburg.

Also on the panel were Susan Baker Shipley, president of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Valley Region with Huntington Bank; state Rep. Donna Oberlander, R-63rd, majority whip and co-chair of the House Manufacturing Caucus; Jenna Lesker Lloyd, CFO of Kurt J. Lesker Co.; and Melissa Bizyak, partner of Grossman Yanak & Ford.

In its third year, the annual event features women leaders in the region effecting change and encouraging progress by leading together. The event is sponsored by the Butler County Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with The Pittsburgh Business Exchange and WesBanco.

County Commissioners Leslie Osche and Kim Geyer moderated the event and directed three questions to each of the panelists.

The common theme for the morning was “intentionality” — not only in how businesses develop the kind of workplace culture that attracts and retains employees, but also in how they support sustainable growth that includes women in leadership roles.

The first question focused on the challenges of recruitment and retention, and what they were doing to attract women to their respective industries.

Riley said as a real estate company, Howard Hanna works with contractors regularly who perform their tasks remotely.

“We’ve all learned how to work remotely, and we’ve gotten very good at it,” she said.

Riley gave a shout-out to women working from home who learned how to juggle the demands of their professional and personal lives under the added stress of COVID lockdowns and restrictions that had them multitasking to the extreme.

She also warned that organizations can’t expect workers to return to the way things were pre-pandemic and that those who failed to acknowledge this shift were going to fall behind more progressive businesses adapting to the change. “We can’t demand it return to the way it was because it’s never going to return to the way it was,” Riley said.

Armagost said when it comes to both recruitment and retention, organizations need to ask themselves an important question — “What has gotten us where we are, but what do we need to do to move forward?”

She said companies must not only train new employees, but also must retrain existing managers and supervisors who have been with the company long-term about the shifts in workplace culture that affect how individual generations of workers view their roles and responsibilities. Many employees demand work-life balance now, and Armagost said employers must embrace this shift in thinking.

Horan said the court system, as a service industry, experiences workplace culture and the matter of recruitment and retention differently than the corporate world. However, one thing that her industry shares with others is the need for strong leadership to set the tone.

“You need to know why you’re there. What’s your mission?” she said. “(Culture) starts with the leadership. We set the pace and it works its way down.”

She said an important component of retention in any industry is mentorship. “I see my children and what they’re valuing,” she said. “They want work-life balance. They want to be recognized. They sometimes need to be taught they have to work to get there. Mentors are what it’s all about.”

The second question for the panelists centered on how to elevate the next generation to make sure they receive recognition for their achievements.

Armagost said her company has seen the most challenges in networking with colleagues hired or working remotely. “We need to still find ways to have events, to try to find creative ways to bring people together,” she said.

One of the solutions she recommended was encouraging employees to work on different projects to increase their exposure to others in the company. She said serving on special committees — like those focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — is an effective way to help employees build relationships and earn recognition for their hard work.

Horan paralleled the isolation of remote working with the challenges the women of her generation faced as trailblazers for women in the workforce. She said women of her generation were busy trying to figure out how to juggle personal and professional lives and didn’t always ask one another for support.

“We were trying to figure it out from the grassroots,” she said. “Now, women can look to one another to bridge those gaps and work as a team.”

Riley said she was raised to believe that if you wanted recognition for your efforts, you must point them out to the higher-ups in your company. She said while that practice is slowly shifting as 100% remote and hybrid work models take to the forefront, remote workers may sometimes still need to talk about what they’re doing to ensure they’re “seen.”

The final question for panelists inquired about whether women have “arrived” in the workforce, or if there still is work to be done.

Most of the panelists said while progress has been made, women leaders can’t rest on their laurels just yet.

“Until women are receiving equal pay, our work isn’t done yet,” Riley said.

Armagost said she doesn’t want to be defined by her gender in her successes or failures. “That’s just one aspect of building my career,” she said. “Failure is OK, but you have to try. We have to continue to make that path for other people.”

Horan had a different perspective than her fellow panelists. She said her career has been defined by a series of firsts. Horan recounted when she was first elected to serve on the Butler County Common Pleas Court, and a reporter from the Butler Eagle asked her how it felt to be the first woman on the bench in the county.

“I still remember my answer to this day,” she said. “I said ‘We’d know women had arrived when reporters stopped asking that question.’”