7 of the Best Employers for Women Technologists
On what would have been American computer scientist Anita Borg’s 68th birthday, Talkin’ Cloud looks at 7 of the best technology companies for women technologists.
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In no particular order, here are 7 of the leading technology companies for women technologists, along with some of the initiatives and ideas they use to hire, retain, and promote women in technology.
Accenture made headlines last year for being the first big consulting firm to publish data around its gender and ethnicity of its U.S. workforce. In 2015, women accounted for 36 percent of the company’s total workforce, the report said. The numbers in leadership were slightly lower with women accounting for 31.3 percent of its executives.
Accenture provides training programs around diversity awareness, diversity management courses, and professional development for women to build skills around leadership, negotiation and performance, and others.
Intel has made it a company-wide mission to create and sustain a culture of diversity and inclusion. In the first half of 2016, Intel achieved 43.4 percent diverse hiring, nearly reaching its 2016 hiring goal of 45 percent total diverse hiring.
Representation of technical women rose to 21.2 percent, up 5.5 percent since 2015.
One of the newer initiatives that Intel has introduced is its Retention WarmLine service, which provides employees with the support they need if they find themselves struggling with issues or concerns about staying in their current job or leaving Intel.
As of 2015, 24 percent of Google’s leadership roles were held by women, up only three percent from 2013. Nineteen percent of technology roles were held by women, up two percent from 2013. While Google still has a lot of work to do to become more diverse, it has implemented some changes to help improve this process.
“We check and recheck processes like promotion and performance reviews to make sure they’re producing equitable outcomes, and address any gaps we find,” Nancy Lee, VP of operations, Google said. “For example, Googlers in engineering or product management roles are able to nominate themselves for promotion, and in 2010 we discovered that women in technical roles were less likely than men to self-nominate. We found that with a small nudge—emailing these findings to all technical Googlers—the rate of women self-nominating went up and now the gap between men and women has closed.”
While IBM has not disclosed specifically how many women it employs, it has numerous initiatives to help bring and keep women in technology.
One of those initiatives is helping women who have been out of the workforce for some time. IBM designed a program that used the best of existing “returnships” and tailored it to the specifics of working in technology.
ADP has received various accolades for its work in promoting a diverse workforce. Part of its diversity and inclusion focus is providing a flexible work environment, including onsite day care centers and discounts to offsite centers, as well as flexible work schedules and telecommuting.
ADP committees and councils engage its associates in helping execute its Diversity & Inclusion priorities, including its annual Diversity & Inclusion Summit.
SAP’s goal is to have 25 percent of its management positions filled by women by the end of 2017. And it seems its well on its way to achieving that goal; as of the fourth quarter of 2016, 24.3 percent of management positions are women.
In 2016, SAP became the first U.S. technology company to receive an EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gener Equality) certification.
SAP has a chief diversity and inclusion officer who oversees its diversity and inclusion initiatives.
At Intuit, women hold one-third of senior management positions, and represent 40 percent of its most senior leaders. The company also has a dedicated executive as its chief diversity officer.
On the technical side of the company, women hold 30 percent of its engineering positions.
Intuit also supports a number of external programs and initiatives including Girls Who Code and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
At Intuit, women hold one-third of senior management positions, and represent 40 percent of its most senior leaders. The company also has a dedicated executive as its chief diversity officer.
On the technical side of the company, women hold 30 percent of its engineering positions.
Intuit also supports a number of external programs and initiatives including Girls Who Code and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Dr. Anita Borg was an American computer scientist who was an advocate for women in technology. Among her many accomplishments, she founded the Systers online community in 1987, and in 1994, co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Later, in 1997, she founded the non-profit Institute for Women and Technology which continues Borg’s legacy today by working to recruit, retain and advance women in technology.
On what would have been Borg’s 68th birthday, Talkin’ Cloud looks at 7 of the best technology companies for women technologists, based on an annual report by the Anita Borg Institute.
The Report
The Top Companies for Women Technologists helps women find organizations where they can thrive, the Institute says, and “helps organizations measure and improve their own ability to hire, retain and advance women in technical roles.”
The companies are selected based on a “rigorous methodology” that analyzes data from participating organizations. In the 2016 version, 60 companies participated, up 71 percent over 2015.
The companies are split into two categories: Change Alliance and Leadership Index. Change Alliance companies are “instrumental in driving change” while Leadership Index companies are performing above the average of all participating companies. In this slideshow, we look at companies in the Leadership Index. You can see the full list of leaders here.
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