How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
Dice Women in Tech whitepaper, December 2016 Dice Tel +44 (0)20 7292 3899 Web uk.dice.com
Lisha Data Scientist
How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
Participants CHAIR Louise Proddow Managing Director at Tweak UK
Fiona Capstick Business Technology Enablement Leader at EY
Rosie Warin CEO of Kin & Co
Gillian Arnold Tectre, MD & BSC Women, CEPIS WIT Taskforce, Chair
Heidi Gates Business Manager at Hays Technology
Harriet Wright Business Innovation Director, Decoded
Lucy Aspinall Government Digital Service
Paulina Sygulska Founder of GrantTree
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
Executive Summary ‘The inaugural Dice Women In Technology roundtable was held on Monday 21st November at London & Partners. The session was designed to discuss and explore the current status of women working in the technology sector. Courting opinion from both technology recruiters and women currently working within the sector, the session sought to provide recommendations as to how greater numbers of women could be recruited and retained within the tech sector. The session discussed the recruitment challenges, the ‘branding’ and ‘presentation’ of the technology industry by both those who teach and work in it and the diversity initiatives that are currently setting the industry standard. The discussion concluded with a headline recommendation that businesses should aim for a target of 30% women within their tech divisions. The group agreed that only through setting this goal could female representation within the technology sector become self-sufficient and any potential business or competitive advantage be accurately assessed and measured.’
1. Introduction The Dice Women In Technology roundtable comprised eight participants, all of whom were selected with the aim of providing a cross-section of opinion across the industry. To ensure this, participants with a mix of agency vs. in-house recruitment experience plus technology professionals were selected, to ensure a full picture of the sector challenges were addressed. At the start of the discussion, it was agreed that the round-table would be split into two sections. The first half of the discussion would focus on the challenges for those tasked with recruiting women into technology roles and would largely be driven by participants from the Government Digital Service, Hays and EY. The second half of the session would focus on the anecdotal experiences of women working in and around the technology sector, allowing small business owners such as Rosie Warin and Paulina Sygulska to come more to the fore. It was agreed that Louise Proddow, Managing Director of the marketing agency Tweak UK, would chair the discussion owning to her extensive experience holding management roles in both agencies and in-house at brands such as Nokia.
2. The Recruitment Challenge The discussion began with the Chair asking the group if ‘there are still real equality challenges for women within the technology sector and what progress has been made in driving greater inclusion?’
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
2.1 Organic Culture or Intervention? Initially, the discussion began by airing concerns about the speed at which greater opportunities are being opened up for women within technology and indeed whether progress is even still being made. Fiona Capstick of EY started the discussion by saying that ‘in some ways things are getting worse, as female participation in tech has gone down since the 1980’s.’ Gillian Arnold from Tectre, who cited industry figures showing that the proportion of women in the UK tech workforce ‘remained flat at 17% year-on-year’, echoed this view. She went on to describe the progress of getting more women into technology as ‘glacially slow’. Rosie Warin was slightly more optimistic, citing initiatives like the Geek Girl community and Ada’s List as tools that allow women working in technology ‘to create communities where they can actively support each’. This led the group to discuss whether it was time to introduce quotas to ensure women were proportionately represented in the technology sector. Capstick suggested there may be something ‘environmental’ within the tech sector that is stopping women putting themselves forwards for roles, citing another statistic that ‘half of women who work in tech leave the industry mid-career.’ The conversation then moved onto ‘how culture is shaped and women’s role in that’. Warin talked of ‘the mistake of people thinking culture is a purely organic thing’, with Harriet Wright concurring that the tech sector had ‘the perception of a progressive culture with flexible working etc.’ before asking ‘really, how inclusive is a culture of sweatshirts, beer and pizza to women?’ Wright warned against the long-term dangers of this new emergent culture being seen as too narrow and naturally unattractive to women. Heidi Gates from Hays Technology suggested that intervention should happen earlier on in the life stage, saying that the teaching of technology in schools has ‘an image problem’. She championed the idea of ‘selling what you are teaching’ in schools and conceded that those teaching in the arts and creative industries are ‘naturally more likely to be more inspiring and charismatic to children.’ Lucy Aspinall concurred, saying that the teaching of technology in schools was very ‘IT focused rather than technology focused’. Wright added to this by saying ‘The issue translates into popular culture as there are no media examples to aspire to’. ‘We haven’t had a Call The Midwife or CSI to showcase our sector like midwifery and forensic science have had’. Capstick aired her frustration at the portrayal of women in the US show The Big Bang Theory, interjecting, ‘That show annoys me as the only woman in it is a dumb blonde!’ Proddow then moved the discussion on to what employers can do in their presentation of technology roles to women.
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
2.2 Should HR be a marketing function?
In terms of how roles are advertised, the group agreed that the top of the funnel needed to be widened to attract more women into the industry. There was consensus that the industry needed to reach out beyond its traditional recruitment processes, mapping tech roles against soft skills and characteristics that would naturally be attractive to women as a common-sense first step. Nursing and the creative industries were cited as two industries with which technology needs to compete for talent. One route to this, suggested Proddow, was that women’s earning potential is generally greater in technology than in other traditionally female-orientated sectors and ‘This is something that needs to be promoted.’ Capstick cited a journalist friend who ‘was inspired to go into news by Kate Adie’ and bemoaned the lack of similar female tech role models. The group then discussed how HR teams could market technology roles to women to drive inclusion and what good is being done. Lucy Aspinall said the Government Digital Service ‘actively look for where people go online when we recruit’ suggesting diversity is something that needs to be actively sought through a recruitment strategy. Warin cited General Assembly as a business that ‘have a really strong take-up of women, offering two week, intense user experience courses as they have their imagery and advertising right.’ Harriet Wright went on to mention the CEO of Decoded, Kathryn Parsons who has ‘become an icon and put herself forward as a champion of women in technology’. This has led to Decoded adopting a ‘50:50 gender equality policy across all parts of the business.’ Wright said ‘we need a Spice Girls of technology’ who can inspire women and give them icons to aspire to. Warin said a solution could be to take a ‘communications-led attitude to recruitment’. She expands that ‘we need people to identify the elements of the culture that would be attractive to women and put them in the job description!’ Arnold agreed with this view, but said it was absolutely vital that organisational culture backs up what is promised in the job description. Arnold said that ‘you have to walk the walk. It’ll be more damaging for the tech sector if women start to leave roles after 3-6 months when they realise the culture isn’t what they were promised’.
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
2.3 Do corporates have the will? Proddow then moved the conversation on to discuss the role of corporates in recruiting women into technology roles and whether there was a genuine will to address the gender imbalance - or if female hires are largely carried out with one eye on quotas? Paulina Sygulska, founder of GrantTree said she was currently hiring for an Account Manager to her 30-strong SME: ‘I am desperate to get more women into my business’. However, she did concede that ‘hiring a woman into a technology role takes around three times as long as it does a man’. She said often, business demands dictate that she hires a man after a certain time window has elapsed, even when she’s specifically set out to hire a woman. Aspinall suggested that this challenge is likely a result of how the industry has only recently actively marketed tech roles to women. She suggests ‘as advertising to women is only a new thing, those most switched on to these new messages probably aren’t in the workforce yet’. Arnold said that studies show women are naturally more loyal to their employers, so it is in corporates’ interest to market to them. Warin suggests that it comes back to traditional marketing. She suggests corporates need to adopt a marketing approach, by ‘going to where women are, with messages about the culture of the organisation, the teams you are going to work in, with images that they can relate to’. Capstick expands on this and discusses the semantics of the words used to advertise technology roles to women. Proddow said ‘employer branding’ had a role to do as HR is often a separate work-stream from communications and marketing and are often staffed by very different types of people. Arnold said that the creation and tone of a job description is critical to ensure more women come into the industry. She said that ‘there’s no point working really hard to provide a list of quality female candidates if they are only going to de-select when they get into the role description.’ The group concluded that the financial and competitive advantage firms can derive from ensuring true gender equality in their workforce need to be articulated and put forward as a driver of this change. Sygulska also called for less formal forums for women to enquire about tech roles, even over an informal coffee, and believes this would help bring down barriers.
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
3. Female experience of working in the tech sector Proddow then moved the discussion onto the second section, designed to focus more on the participant’s individual experiences and anecdotal examples of the opportunities and barriers to drive greater diversity within technology.
3.1 What behaviour needs to change? As well as corporates having to evolve their behaviour, Paulina Sygulska called for granting businesses and award bodies to do more to reach out to women and ‘hero’ their work in the tech space. She cited a recent event she held dedicated to female tech entrepreneurs and the lack of awareness of the funding opportunities available. Arnold also said the funding available to women is always significantly less than men which in itself projects a ‘Calm Down Dear’ mentality and message. The conversation then moved on to what old fashioned attitudes still pervade the industry that act as barriers to women being more empowered. Capstick cited the recent story of Theresa May needing to reprimand male colleagues for their tone and said ‘I’ve been in so many meetings like that’. Capstick said it is important that organisational cultures have a zero tolerance approach to such behaviour. Heidi Gates said the industry should get to a stage where women ‘can be women and feminine and still get on and not have to act like a bloke’, before Warin added ‘it should be understood that this culture drives better performance’. Harriet Wright discussed frequent ‘micro inequalities’ and all the ‘little everyday things’ that reinforce gender inequality. Wright says that the ‘generic use of guys to describe large groups of people’ is one such example and Decoded made a conscious effort to eradicate this in line with their gender parity policy. Wright said it is only through raising awareness and education that these often-innocent generalisations can be overcome. Warin said one route around this is to not have an isolated ‘diversity policy’ but for businesses to take steps to ‘enshrine equality as one of their core values’ around a mantra such as ‘everyone together’. She said this allows organisations to develop codes of conduct and sets of expectations so that inclusion becomes ‘an inherent part of the culture’. She added ‘it is critical that businesses then walk the talk though’ as she believes it is more damaging to project inclusion as a core value only for it to fall down in the culture when women join the business. Arnold cited a recent story of a .NET developer who moved away from the area as the ‘culture was too blokey’.
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
3.2 What good initiatives exist? Where and how can this be developed?
Proddow then invited participants to volunteer anecdotes of companies that are doing well. Warin cited Sygulska’s company GrantTree as an organisation that runs equality and diversity throughout its entire operations. Sygulska said ‘all employees can be as involved as they want to be’ in key business decisions as well as setting their own salaries and their culture is borne out of ‘trust in individuals’ which cuts across racial, cultural or gender variables. Wright cited KPMG as a business that was truly innovating around inclusivity and diversity. Wright said Decoded work with KPMG and set micro-tasks around technology for their graduate recruitment days, allowing applicants to gain first hand experience of coding. She said KPMG understand ‘the value of candidates learning something on the day even if they come away having not got the job’. Arnold mentioned free evening courses in technology that are being offered to women by Sky across Yorkshire, which offer the chance to get a full time job. Whilst these initiatives are welcome, Arnold goes on to say ‘if we can reach teachers or university lecturers with these messages then our impact is going to be much bigger.’ Arnold went on to say she expects to look for assistance from trade bodies and the private sector to help fund a mass school outreach programme. Capstick highlighted the importance of a ‘joined-up approach’ between industry and schools, with Gates going one step further and calling for tech opportunities to be ‘part of the OFSTED analysis so schools are asked ‘are you doing this?’ Gates said she believes that creating opportunities at the university stage ‘might be too late’. She cited her own experience of being one of six girls on a university course of 100 and Arnold said the creation of role models is key to ‘creating a pipeline down to primary school level’. Capstick highlights the challenges of girls deselecting from tech at secondary school as ‘often when subjects get to their hardest, girls confidence is at its lowest.’ She talks about her own daughter, who left to her own devices would have given up on maths by now.’ Capstick went on to highlight India and China as economies that have more women in technology as they don’t allow girls to opt out within the school system.
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
3.3 The ‘branding’ of technology and how it can change As the conversation turned to schools, the group started to explore the various routes into technology for young people and the impact this might have on the ‘branding’ of technology. Capstick cited a colleague who said she ‘wouldn’t be any good in tech as she studied French’, but feels a job needs to be done on demystifying the language around tech. She said people need to understand technology is just like any other ‘a rule-set to follow’ to help draw better parallels with languages and the other creative disciplines. There was consensus in the group that technology had to be brought into other sectors through education and not siloed. Harriet Wright said that both industry and educators had to consider ‘the branding of technology’ and that it should be positioned as ‘creative tech’ or ‘technology within business’ to generate interest amongst a more diverse range of people. Wright cited her own creative background, where she studied for a degree in drama, as a non-traditional route into the tech sector. She says the tech start-up she worked for ‘was actually the most creative place I’ve ever worked’. Proddow then invited all participants to share their non-traditional skills that they believe have helped them become successful women in technology. Gates said she works in a team with 19 men and realizes ‘I have softer skills that provide me with a uniqueness’. Wright says the only difference she sees between male and female novice coders at Decoded is that ‘guys are just more confident, but women just need to be encouraged to take that first step.’ Warin concluded by saying that the industry has to do more to help women come back to work after having children. She described a ‘massive untapped pool of talent’ and a lack of understanding in tech start-ups as ‘they are predominantly run by young men.’ General Assembly and EY’s own programme were both cited as businesses actively looking to return women to work in tech post-childbirth. Aspinall went on to say ‘creating awareness of the opportunities in tech’ is the first step in solving all the issues raised so young girls don’t just ‘go down a pure maths or science route’ and raising awareness that tech ‘isn’t just about coding or hacking’. Capstick expanded ‘if we agree there is a shortage of skill in the sector, it probably makes sense to try and get more of the people we haven’t got that many of into the sector and that is women.’ Proddow concluded that the environmental issue may be caused by the fact that it ‘is mainly women attending events like this and talking about these subjects.’
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How can the UK tech sector create more opportunities for women
4. Conclusion Proddow them moved to sum up the session and bring the group towards a set of recommendations. The group agreed to challenge the sector to make moves to drive greater inclusion across the industry with a set of clear measurable objectives. Arnold led the calls for a measurable target and claimed that all businesses within the tech sector should do a gap analysis and aspire to have 30% of their tech teams comprised of women. She expanded that ‘at that size it becomes self-sufficient and easier to track real business impact’. Warin also said there should be a financial incentive to motivate companies, with the message to business being that there is a competitive advantage to be gained by ensuring diversity throughout the workforce. Sygulska went one step further and wanted to call for tax breaks to companies that hit their quotas saying ‘it might be radical but it would make a real statement’. As a first step, Gates called for companies to at least commit to driving greater diversity even if they weren’t in a position to place a target to it, whilst Warin said ensuring at least one woman is media trained in every tech business was a very simple objective that could be achieved quickly and set the tone. In terms of what companies can be doing, the group also called for marketing & communications teams to work more closely with HR teams to take a ‘marketing-led’ approach to attracting women into tech roles. The group collectively agreed that the industry needs to do more to reach out to girls and women at school, universities and in-businesses to drive relevancy of technology as a viable industry within which for women to build careers. The sector needs to understand the barriers to women engaging with the sector and actively seek out a strategy to remedy these. To do this, the industry needs to look at how it refers to itself, the language it uses and what adjustments are required to make the industry at large more attractive to women.
Key Recommendations • Call for quotas in tech recruitment to increase female representation from 17% to 30% • Target schools to change the perception around technology as a career option and ask OFSTED to track success • Industry needs to accelerate the speed of hiring women by making fundamental changes • Call for tax breaks to encourage corporates to attract female staff • Whatever initiatives are proposed, ensure organisations ‘Walk the Talk’ and avoid decisions driven by ‘tokenism’
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