I wanted to start off the year with a clear focus and strategy for how TribalScale could continue to contribute to our Women in Tech initiative, but more importantly focusing on how we can influence and bring awareness to other employers building their own women in tech initiatives. Not only does diversity in the workplace lead to better decision-making, problem-solving, and innovation, but studies have shown that teams with a diverse range of perspectives and backgrounds outperform homogenous teams. Why would employers not want to help create a more inclusive and equitable workplace which can improve employee satisfaction and retention? It leads to better representation of the population in the technology industry, which helps to ensure that the products and services developed are more inclusive and accessible to all—a win-win.
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
The Effects of the Pandemic and Remote Work
One positive impact that the recent pandemic has had on our way of life was the overnight shotgun adoption of a work from home policy in almost every company. The tech world as a whole was familiar with this concept as many of the leading companies across different sectors already had various work from home schemes in place, TribalScale itself had been fully remote from the onset of 2020. Work from home policies continue to remain in place for the most part but we are seeing some curtailment of these privileges and we can expect to see further policy sunset beginning in 2023. Tech companies are starting to prepare for a recession on the horizon and we have seen large scale layoffs across the industry further hampering employees' efforts to cement their new found work from home privileges.
One of the key groups to benefit from work from home was women with young families or who were looking to start a family but were understandably put off by all-to-common policy shortfalls such as lower pay, lack of family friendly leave, and worries around the risk of career stagnation after returning. Now that life is returning back to normal, we need to ensure that opportunities awarded to women do not end. A focus on women in tech is more important now than ever, even if diversity quotas for hiring women do their job and get women in the door, we also need to ensure that we can retain women and accommodate their unique needs across the board.
Better Representation for Women in Tech
Women in Tech’s role is to build a community of women to share their knowledge, insights, and thoughts on how to ensure equality for us in the workplace, further our careers, and break the glass ceiling that's stopping women from having a greater level of participation in senior leadership roles. In order to facilitate this, we need women in tech to act as mentors, support aspiring women leaders in tech, and provide mentorship to students or women looking to break into the industry.
According to Deloitte Insights, women will make up 32.9% of the overall workforce in technology companies and 25.0% of technical roles. These figures are trending in the right direction but key drivers of this participation rate, like female enrollment in STEM courses or undertaking work placements in tech companies during university, also need to increase in order to maintain this progress. At TribalScale, our aim for 2023 will be to proactively advertise to women about all of the various roles in the technology sector such as UX Design, Product Management, Sales and Human Resources—not just Software Engineering. We feel that this type of advocacy needs to happen at the grassroots level, at university career fairs and through networking events and podcasts. We think that if we can help to change the inherent presumptions of what a role in the tech industry looks like, we can make meaningful progress in the level of female representation.
What We're Focused on in 2023
Our HR team is committed to supporting women in tech in as many ways as possible. Some of the changes we are implementing within TribalScale are as follows:
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Reviewing our job descriptions and ensuring that we are using inclusive language to attract a diverse pool of candidates.
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Continue to reach out to women in tech groups and organizations to promote open roles and to build relationships with potential candidates.
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Using a diverse panel of interviewers, which will help to ensure that different perspectives are represented in the recruitment process.
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Provide training to hiring managers and interviewers on unconscious bias to recognize it and avoid it.
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Continue to offer remote work arrangements to attract a broader range of candidates, including women who may have caregiving responsibilities.
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Provide mentorship opportunities for women in TribalScale, which will help to create a supportive environment and attract more women to our organization.
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After the success of our Women in Tech Atlanta event, we will be hosting a similar event in Toronto in 2023! Hope to see you there!!!
On a final note, it's important to keep in mind that creating a diverse and inclusive environment is a continuous process and requires the commitment of everyone in the organization.
