While there are no magic strategies through which an IT Department could track and convince women to enter the field, there are several tools that can be useful for the average recruiter. The male-dominated business tech culture is now starting to lose its grip. According to Trustradius, there has been a pushed shift of interest of women in the STEM field in recent years, with 2 out of 3 tech professionals affirming that they’ve seen more women joining the industry. However, women might need further motivation and leading examples to change their profession and feel less of a minority in this career field.
Today, we will discuss some of the smartest ways in which you could help involve more women in your business tech department. Check them out and let us know what you think, especially if you’re already a woman in the tech industry!
1. Be honest and transparent about the status quo
It’s important to acknowledge the status quo if you want women to be empowered to join your tech department. If you’re ignorant about the challenges and barriers that women in tech are facing, you’re never going to be one step closer to determining them to join forces. Sexism and racism have been present in the lives of many women in this industry, so acknowledging their struggles is a good way to start making a real change.
Make sure you make a public statement about the goals of the company (e.g. adding more women to the tech department and closing the gender gap) and keep track of performance. Motivate your teams to be inclusive and strive for continuous improvement. Make sure your new employees are aware of your company’s goals and culture and make them feel included in the new setting.
2. Promote diversity in the workplace
Promoting diversity in the workplace is one of the most important things to do if you want to be successful at attracting more women towards your tech department. Since women are usually a minority in this setting, these next strategies could help keep your company diverse and thus, non-discriminatory:
- Improve workplace culture. Have your employees attend diversity training and establish a culture that sticks out. Have real-life conversations with those who need further explanation of the concepts presented and have your door open for any questions.
- Promote diverse role models. You cannot have a non-discriminatory organization focused solely on a specific gender role model; it’s important to bring women leaders in the workplace as well to serve as models for the promotion of diverse voices.
- Create events that foster cultural awareness and cheer all genders. Encourage individuals to speak out on how they feel about cultural diversity and promote perspectives and views that stick out to you.
3. Offer paid parental leave for both genders
Women will look for companies that respect their needs and want, so make sure that you are aware of how important women are to the household even today. On top of all the career-related activities that they are involving in, they are also responsible for most of the childcare and household-related duties.
This is why you should consider offering paid parental leave for both genders. Unfortunately, omitting to do so can promote gender inequality and leave women wondering whether they would receive the same treatment once they accept your company’s offer. Make sure that you make your business policies clear from the start and argue why paid parental leave is so important. This is a critical point for attracting both men and women to your company!
4. Offer them the ability to have a flexible schedule
Offering workplace flexibility to your employees is another way to attract more women to the tech industry. That’s because they would be more incentivized to enter this field if they see that they have the availability to handle personal events and work from home at the same time. Schedule flexibility would create happier and more involved women employees, improve productivity, and maximize performance. Instead of pushing through dead-hour slumps, they would be able to choose when and how they want to work, or whether they want to handle their tasks (childcare, household duties) later or not.
Many companies’ policies work best if they offer employees a flexible schedule anyways, especially in the tech industry. An online environment allows for a better and clearer distribution of tasks and responsibilities and more thorough goal-setting sessions, especially during the pandemic (but also in general). There are more jobs today that can be done remotely, so flexible schedules become a must in this era.
5. Promote equal pay
The gender pay gap has been a problem for decades, so choosing to pretend it doesn’t exist does nothing but accentuates the problem. As of 2016, full-time employed women made 20% less on average than their male counterparts, writes CNBC. While the gender pay gap has been slowly decreasing since the year 1970, we are not even close to closing it. Experts estimate that his gap will not be normal until after the year 2100, which can be quite scary, especially for women. While scientists and professionals are trying to find the cure to the problem, companies should also try to play their part in minimizing these differences in pay between genders. One of the best ways in which your company could play an important role in this equation is by promoting equal pay. To do that, your business ought to:
- Involve in civic engagement by challenging legislation on the local, state, and federal levels
- Host events and forums that promote equal pay
- Have your social media managers share related content on your company’s website and social media platforms
- Have successful women lead important talks within your company and promote confidence
6. Empower the women in your workplace
Put to empower the women in your workplace by considering the following:
- Amplifying the female voice by listening to what women have to say and offering them equal opportunities to be heard and speak out.
- Hiring women and men from diverse backgrounds to enable women to feel more confident about hire diversity in the workplace.
- Promoting an efficient pay structure by conducting pay audits and actively examining discrepancies.
- Staying on top of your policies to keep up with how the world’s changing& ensuring better performance by promoting workplace attributes that would determine women to join forces with your company.
- Showing respect towards women in your workplace and making them understand how valuable they are to the community.
Conclusion
The road to empowering women to join the tech industry can be bumpy but it is worth it. Make sure your company actively contributes to changing the world for the better and making the workplace a safer environment for women. Give equal chances and opportunities to everyone and help women stand out! Good luck!
James Murphy is an essay writer and full-time content creator at custom paper writing service. James writes about a wide range of other topics such as social media, digital marketing, and provide assignment help. James is a father of two lovely toddlers and a dedicated supporter of the New York Yankees.
