4 Ways Tech Companies Can Help Women Succeed

The hottest topics facing Silicon Valley go well beyond simply the latest tech gadgets and newest devices. It is an issue of social matters and gender equality. The representation of women in technology, or lack there-

by Patrick W. Dunne of, has been a heated talking point for years. Everyone from Hillary Clinton to Sheryl Sandberg has chastised the Bay Area’s technology central for being an exclusive “boy’s club” where its denizens are overwhelmingly White or Asian.

Having diversity isn’t just great for the women of Silicon Valley; it can be great for the companies as well. Here are a few ways that both technology companies and female workers can benefit from added diversity:

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1. They could adopt better parental leave policies

Part of the reason that technology jobs have trouble retaining women is that the maternity leave policies in place are often incredibly inflexible and make it difficult for working women to be full-time employees and care for their children.

Textio co-founder and CEO Kieran Snyder conducted a study wherein she interviewed 716 women who had left the tech industry. Snyder reported that 484 of the women she surveyed had cited motherhood as a factor in their decision to leave, with 85 of them saying it was a “major factor” in their decision. Others said that it wasn’t the lack of maternity leave that caused them to abandon their jobs, but rather inflexible hours, lack of suitable pay, and other related factors.

Google is one of the few major tech companies that offers paid maternity leave. Even in its early years, when it didn’t have revenue, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page decided that they should extend maternity leave to Susan Wojcicki, the current CEO of YouTube. In an op-ed for Wall Street Journal, Wojcicki cited a study that showed that 91 percent of companies who have instated maternity leave had reported that it either had a positive effect or no effect at all on their profits. Additionally, Wojcicki said that when Google extended their maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, the turnover rate for working mothers was reduced by half. Paying for maternity leave was a smart move on Google’s part because replacing an employee costs more than paying for maternity leave.

In short, maternity leave not only benefits its female recipients, but benefits the company as well. It’s a winwin situation that any wise company ought to start reaping the benefits of.

2. Tech companies who can better accommodate women would reduce turnover.

According to an article from ERE Media, replacing any employee often costs the company a fraction of that employee’s salary. Replacing an entry-level employee costs the company about 30 percent to 50 percent of that employee’s salary. Mid-level employees cost the company about 150 percent of their annual salary, and highlevel and executive employees cost a staggering 400 percent of their annual salary to replace. The cumulative costs of posting a job ad, searching for new candidates, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training add up.

With all these crazy costs in mind, it’s fair to say that keeping an employee is much more cost efficient than replacing them. Unfortunately, many tech companies simply aren’t doing enough to retain their female workers. In fact, women who have STEM jobs are 45 percent more likely to leave their job within a year when compared to their male counterparts, according to an article from Fast Company. When Nadya Fouad, a psychologist at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, surveyed 5,300 women who earned engineering degrees within the past 60 years, she found that only 62 percent of them were still in their field. She claimed that the hostile attitudes toward women was one of the main reasons that engineering has one of the highest turnover rates for women.

3. Changing the culture would benefit everyone.

The “boy’s club” mentality might not be everywhere in Silicon Valley, but many have certainly claimed to have experienced it. Just take the example of Isis Anchalee, the engineer who started the #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag in order to combat some of the sexism she says she had faced. (In one of her most egregious examples, someone tried stuffing dollar bills down her shirt.) Similarly, Pinterest engineer Tracey Chou has also reported several examples of sexism in her lifetime consisting of things like male co-workers doubting her technical abilities.

Any company with an inclusive and welcoming culture is certain to thrive. Workers who feel comfortable are quite obviously more productive and therefore more profitable for the company. It should go without saying that workers who genuinely love and enjoy their job will work harder and are less likely to quit. Workers who are demotivated are less likely to come in on time or be productive, and more likely to take sick days off or leave their job for another one.

4. Women in leadership roles make for more productive companies.

According to data from Pew Research Center, most Americans see no difference between men and women when it comes to their leadership capabilities in business and politics. Those who did perceive a difference were more likely to say that women were better at being honest, mentoring employees, and working out compromises. On the other hand, men were more likely to be seen as good negotiators and better risk takers.

One study by Credit Suisse observed the stocks of companies with a market cap of over $10 billion and found that those with at least one woman on board performed much better than companies with no women on board. The average difference in profits between the two types of companies was 26 percent. European companies with female board members had an average of 18 percent higher stock prices when compared to male-dominated companies. American companies with at least three women on board had an average of 20 percent better returns, while Asian-Pacific companies had an average of 55 percent better stock prices.

A study conducted by Catalyst, a market research firm, found that companies with at least three woman on board experienced a 53 percent better return on equity, a 66 percent superior return on invested capital, and a 42 percent greater return on sales, when compared to companies with fewer than three women on board.

These are just a few ways tech companies can help women and vice versa. It’s true that Silicon Valley still has quite a long way to go before true gender equality can be achieved, but the important thing is that progress is being made. Silicon Valley has already seen the rise of several prominent women like Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Meyer, and Susan Wojcicki. Several San Francisco-based companies founded by women, such as Premier Staffing and Revel Systems, have made huge impacts on the surrounding culture, and their effects can only continue to grow. With these facts in mind, the tech scene may one day see true gender equality.

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Continued from page 3 Active listening means taking the time to engage with people at multiple levels, including individual and organizational, on a regular and structured basis.

Active listening means taking the time to engage with people at multiple levels, including individual and organizational, on a regular and structured basis. From employee surveys to 360-degree reviews, active listening tools are commonplace, but these need to be far more engaging and acted upon if firms are to make sustainable culture changes.

For active listening to be successful, organizations must create a trusted environment in which staff members feel comfortable speaking up. Feedback must be followed up with a highly visible response and clear communication about the next steps. Most important, firms should attempt to understand why people behave in certain ways to make reasonable and feasible changes to culture.

Some of the tools or methods we use to help firms actively listen include: • Virtual focus groups, which are real-time, facilitated, online chatroom discussions in which 40-70 anonymous participants take part in a structured conversation. Live polling and analytics spot trends and generate insights from the discussion. • Peer-to-peer sharing, in which interactive groups share their challenges and work experiences, then offer feedback as a group. • Millennial boards, consisting of young, diverse professionals who discuss how to tackle the same issues facing their board of directors, including strategic, operational, and cultural challenges.

Here are some quotes pulled from our interviews with employees across a range of firms that show how cultural improvements can be made possible by active listening. Embedding Inclusivity Into Operating Models “They want me to collaborate with other teams, but that is not how I am measured.”

There’s little point telling employees to be more inclusive if these sentiments are not reflected in operating models. This means rethinking everything from processes to metrics, skills, technology use, rewards and communication to support the behaviors you want to see. Importantly, organizations should focus not just on what they would like to see in performance models, but also how these goals are to be achieved, with the right behaviors being visibly rewarded. Tools and nudges could be used to guide how to listen, demonstrate empathy, display appreciation and develop self-awareness.

Take yearly reviews. We worked with a firm to overhaul its performance management system and to equip its 20,000 staff on how to hold effective performance conversations. The firm trained employees on how to observe behavior, hold conversations based on hard evidence and provide constructive advice, such as improving collaboration with

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colleagues across departments. Embedding a focus on continuous feedback resulted in a completely new way of working together, learning and output. Most important, managers and employees alike were held to account. Inclusion Efforts Concern and Benefit Everyone “It doesn’t really affect me; I am just your typical white, middle-aged man.”

Whether gender, ethnicity, age, flexible working, disability, mental health or sexual orientation, don’t let inclusion be about “labelling” or “fixing” a particular category. Even where targets and metrics are needed, it’s often helpful to flip the script and talk about the 70% of men rather than the 30% of women. Diversity groups are important, but it’s easy to slip into a “them and us” culture by reprimanding certain groups, such as men. Inclusion should be perceived as a collective endeavor that concerns and benefits everyone. Communication channels should share experiences, equipping employees with the skills to have open conversations.

One client’s virtual focus group of more than 1,000 employees revealed that less than half of participants believed their line manager was comfortable discussing inclusion-related topics. The organization subsequently introduced a monthly reverse mentoring scheme to learn and share experiences. This increased awareness of commonplace experiences. Their impact gave line managers the language and “permission” to hold these conversations more informally with their teams. Modeling the Behavior “She gave a great speech about showing each other better respect, but that wasn’t what I saw in the meeting with her this morning.”

Many organizations want a more inclusive culture, but the everyday behavior of managers creates a different impression. Firms must define and map the behaviors needed to deliver the organization’s strategy, which leaders must visibly model.

One solution could be identifying critical moments that matter and committing to simple, yet effective, actions. For example, firms invest a lot of

The most important task for leaders is to actively listen and pay attention to everyday behaviors, which will help to shape better communication and steer change in the right direction.

effort into personalized communication with clients, but rarely apply the same bespoke approach to staff at important moments like returning from a leave of absence. Simple gestures, such as hand-writing welcome and thank you notes, or reminding managers to rate themselves on how considerate they have been to their team members and each other, can make a surprisingly big difference. Final Thoughts

An organization’s culture is continuously evolving and changing, and embedding inclusivity is incredibly complex. Rather than working toward one, final inclusivity goal or target, the most important task for leaders is to actively listen and pay attention to everyday behaviors, the beliefs held by different groups, and their drivers. This will help to shape better communication and steer change in the right direction.

Active listening means delving deeper with individuals within a trusted environment to understand what is impacting them then offering datadriven quantitative and qualitative feedback on what matters. It is often the small actions that make the biggest difference — who you talk to, who you connect with and who you praise. Acting on this valuable feedback will influence employee beliefs and affect their behaviors to start to shift the organization’s culture to one of more inclusion and belonging.

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