There are many reasons why women are underrepresented in the world’s tech workforce. But here are two that HR can do something about.
Last year Google had a diversity scandal. A man felt the tech giant’s diversity policies were sexist, and that they privileged women in a way that harmed men. Which is another way of saying that the tech sector’s gender imbalance isn’t just skin deep.
Indeed culture is one of the barriers preventing women from considering a career inside a technology-focused company, says Christy Forest, non-executive director at LiveHire. Episodes like the Google memo act as a kind of red flag to potential female candidates, telling them that they might be entering an industry that doesn’t welcome them.
Ready for the job
Looking to the future, the expectation is that most roles will have at least some tech component. So it’s imperative that women feel enabled to chase after positions with such a requirement today. Key to that is having organisations become sensitive to the cultural differences between potential job candidates.
For instance, research shows that – compared with women – men are more willing to go for roles where they don’t fulfil some of the criteria. The reasons for this are complex, but from an HR perspective the solution is fairly simple.
Watch the video to find out more.
Maybe some organisation should develop a quota system!
Gender diversity is definitely a hot topic for 2018. Luckily, women are starting to have some really incredible role models in male dominated industries like IT. Australia has a number of inspirational women entrepreneurs who have founded, co-founded and who run tech companies like Annie Parker, co-founder of muru-D, Elaine Stead of Blue Sky Funds and Cyan Ta’eed co-founder of Envato. Hopefully, with more and more women like these 3 examples, younger women may feel some hope that there is a place for them in the tech world and that true gender diversity is possible.
Women are leaders in tech industry – Pamela Maynard (New CEO for Avanade), Julie Sweet (Accenture). Unsure why we are debating, I am a women too.
I disagree with quota system , it just implies we are given a previlege.
We have to provide equal opportunities and strive hard to reach these positions, implies equality.
You know truth hurts, And when you have to continually learn and apply said knowledge that you cant get spoon fed to you to begin with is why there is not more women in tech. They treat it as a fad because of the nice pay packet but don’t want to do actual work. An example from University would be 2 students getting the same qualification, but the end year projects would be baking cakes vs synthesizing crude oil components with a 3 stage synthesis using chemicals that are as dangerous as chemical weapons. One is alot harder than the… Read more »
I can only imagine that there would be a myriad of reasons as to why women don’t seek positions within tech jobs? One simple reason could be that women simply don’t aspire to technical positions? If the recruitment process is fair and equitable, does it really matter if we have less women applying for tech jobs?