Where are the women in tech?
The million dollar question everyone likes to ask but nobody wants the real answer to.
A few weeks ago I made a post on Linkedin which summarizes an issue but I would like to take the chance to dive deeper into some of the things I mentioned there, and perhaps format this as a call for action.
As some of the readers know, a few years back I got myself surprised to hear there were over 200 women applying for Software Engineering positions I had opened at unico as part of a program called “Moms in Engineering”.
That was a moment of distinction in my mind with regards to focus on fixing gender issues in the workplace, in particular for women that are part of the technical workforce in the companies.
I am now convinced that the number of women leaving technical positions and companies to work elsewhere won't stop going down until the industry does something substantially different. Our value proposition needs to be attractive to the women if we want to keep them.
In order to keep the agenda positive here, I will focus on what I believe are things leaders can focus on to increase women participation in their technical teams.
Ensure you have a gender balanced leadership team in the company and in the technical team. This will require you to be able to convince some pretty senior women they want to work with you and for you. It isn't going to be easy.
Work to close the gender pay gap in your company. This is a very sensitive topic, and one that directly influences women's take home pay across the industry. Start by having an analyst in your company run a detailed analysis of your current situation and then you will know what needs to be done. If you think you do not have a gender pay gap issue, you're wrong.
Allow women to ramp up to full time slowly after maternity leave. This will allow women to find the balance they need between the early days of motherhood and their job. Trust me, this is no indication of women not caring for their jobs. Becoming a mother is such a huge change and the adaptation can be very hard. I can totally see why some women just decide to leave after being overwhelmed trying to do both at full speed.
Consider offering job share positions. Women want this option. Some people argue that offering this is getting women stuck in the position of being the main caregiver for children instead of forcing a change in the balance for chilcare in couples. I respectfully disagree. We need to adapt the work conditions to the reality of the world we live in and accepting this reality will make it easier for women to keep their jobs.
Offer paternity leave so fathers also leave their job temporarily when they become parents. This will lift off the stigma on women in their reproductive years for being “at risk of going on extended leave”. There's an organized group in Brazil lobbying for this with legislative politicians.
In Brazil, a study from Fundação Getúlio Vargas revealed that 50% of women are fired from their jobs up to two years after they return from maternity leave. Changing this will require the whole society to change and adapt to the reality of moms being more and more career active.
Companies who want to be inclusive need to go beyond happy hours and pink swag on March 8th in order to attract and keep their women employees.
Diverse teams leads to better team performance. Wake up, and please do something to ensure you follow suit.