Seven Ways to Fight the Gender Gap Within Your Business
The VAR Guy and Talkin’ Cloud reached out to several business leaders within the channel to see what they’re doing to promote diversity, and asked some strong women in our space for their take on being a female in the channel. Click through for the main takeaways.
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Last week, women in tech had a reason to celebrate when Intel Corp. announced it has reached 100 percent pay parity for all women and underrepresented minorities. Some of tech’s most powerful companies have women at the helm, such as Meg Whitman at HPE or Ginni Rometty at IBM.
And just today, Diane Greene, founder CEO of VMware and currently senior vice president for Google’s cloud business, stood onstage at the Google Cloud conference wearing a red ribbon in support of International Women’s Day and promised to listen if any female Google employee feels she isn’t getting fair treatment because of her gender.
But across the tech sector, the numbers still tell a very different story. The Department of Labor estimates that only 26 percent of the workforce in computers and mathematics is female. When you drill down into the IT sector, the picture isn’t any prettier. What’s more, women are consistently still paid less across the board in the IT world.
Experts widely recognize that a big part of the problem is a lack of senior leadership in the tech world. For every Meg or Ginni are dozens of other C-suite or board positions occupied by men. Less than 18 percent of the senior leadership at Microsoft is female; at Intel, it is 18.4 percent. Google is doing significantly better; the number of women in leadership roles there hovers at an “impressive” 24 percent.
But the good news is that there are things you can do in your business right now that will help make a difference. The VAR Guy and Talkin’ Cloud reached out to several business leaders within the channel to see what they’re doing to promote diversity, and asked some strong women in our space for their take on being a female in the channel. Click through for the main takeaways.
Before a tech company can be truly committed to diversity, there has to be leadership buy-in. “The CEO must set the vision and the prioritization of diversity and inclusion so all employees understand its important, have the hard conversations, and do the hard work required,” according to recommendations laid out by Project Include, a non-profit launched last year to promote diversity in the tech industry.
The experts we reached out to agree.
“Early on in my career, I would walk into an office with my tools, prepared to tackle an issue and I would always get the reaction of ‘wow, a female tech!’ I didn’t pay any mind to it because it is something that is rare,” Nancy C. Sabino, CEO and co-founder of Texas-based SabinoCompTech said in an email. “As my company grew and I stepped into a leadership role the reaction still has not changed much except that now it’s in two aspects: the tech side and the business side. As a Hispanic female, I have always felt strongly about diversity and the importance of it. Now, as CEO, I realize that the decisions to have a company culture that not only accepts and welcomes diversity but recognizes it as one of its strengths starts with me. Leaders in any organization have the ability to create the most impactful changes because of their significant influence. While diversity efforts from the bottom up could work, the pace in which acceptance is a belief in an organization would be faster, greater and more meaningful coming from the top down.”
“Our company would not be where it is today if it was not for our belief in fair and equal treatment for all. We would not get to where we are going without the strengths of our differences,” Sabino says.
Having leadership support for diversity can also impact the bottom line.
“Having worked in very large organizations with specific hiring policies and statistics enforced to encourage diversity, I encourage leadership teams within smaller companies to educate themselves on the proven benefits of diversifying leadership teams,” Tracy Pallas, VP of channel sales at illusive networks told us in an email. “The recent report by Catalyst The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards found that companies with higher representation of female board members realized better financial performance across 3 financial indicators: return on equity +53%, return on sales +42%, and return on invested capital +66%. In addition, research has shown that employees with female managers feel more engaged in the workplace and those female bosses provide more mentorship and coaching for both male and female employees.”
Work-life balance is important for the happiness and inclusion all employees, of course, but tech companies have historically not been very good at providing incentives that appeal to a diverse workforce.
“The polarized nature of benefits in the industry often includes perks like pool tables, catering to allow people to stay at work late, free alcohol, gaming consoles, multi-day outings, massage, laser tag, and helicopter rides, but not preschool, childcare, or paid leave to care for sick parents. Such benefits do not encompass all workers of different ages, genders, races, religions, socioeconomic origins, immigration statuses, disability statuses, and other underrepresented groups. These benefits can have lower immediate financial costs, but do not address long-term retention and worker happiness for employees from underrepresented groups,” Project Include says.
Katee Van Horn, VP of engagement and inclusion at GoDaddy says the company has made improvements to its policies which benefit new parents.
“Recently we made changes to our parental leave that includes increased time off for both parents and added ‘Milk Stork’, which is a mail delivery service available for nursing mothers who are traveling for work, and other benefits for parents to welcome their new addition,” she says.
Clear rules and expectations help everyone at work be accountable to promoting a diverse and inclusive workforce.
“We have anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and code of conduct policies which address the protected characteristics including: race, color, ethnicity, religion, creed, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, medical condition, current or prior military service, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law,” Van Horn says.
“We also have created a Women in Technology employee resource group to give space for our women in tech to grow their network and support system,” she says.
Theresa Caragol, founder and CEO of Theresa Caragol Consulting, agrees that having written policies in place are important.
“A code of conduct, a culture charter, or a set of company values – or all of the above are very helpful as long as your leadership team walks the talk,” Caragol says.
There is a range of training available to help your managers and leadership team spot biases in hiring and beyond.
“Diversity and inclusion training benefits all members of an organization who come from nontraditional backgrounds, not just members of underrepresented groups,” Project Include says,” The best diversity and inclusion training recognizes the myriad ways that we differ from each other, yet come together to accomplish goals — both for the organization and for ourselves as individuals.”
At GoDaddy, a partnership with the Clayman Institute has helped managers understand their own biases. “We have also partnered with the Clayman Institute out of Stanford to block bias from our performance review process and help our leaders to think about how bias impacts their working teams,” Van Horn says.
Margie Sims, VP of sales at Dizzion, believes that it’s important to reach outside of your own organization to provide mentorship and resources to bring women and minorities into the tech industry.
“I’m involved with the CloudGirls organization which empowers women within the cloud ecosystem,” Sims says. “In our local Denver community, SIM Women is an organization that promotes mentorship and advancement for women in technology roles. Investing your time in these organizations, offering coaching and mentorship, and getting involved helps advance the overall diversity profile within technology, which is something near and dear to me.”
Van Horn says, “There are quite a few companies doing great things in this space so build your network. Also, don’t try to do everything at once. Start with areas where you can see tangible results across all of your diverse groups. Identifying clear expectations that were consistent for everyone increased our employee engagement and built a better workplace.”
Being open to new ideas and perspectives is important when an organization looks at its own approach to diversity and inclusion.
“I think the first thing is to be open minded to new perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. That’s what it all comes down to,” Sims said. “Take, for example, the diversity millennials are bringing to companies today. Regardless of age, sex, race or anything else, finding the right cultural fit and alignment with core values should really be the common denominator. Within that framework, understanding and appreciating that diversity of ideas and experiences will make your organization stronger and better-rounded. Those attributes drive the ultimate ability to create new solutions, attack new markets and customer segments, and solve challenges.”
On International Women’s Day, GoDaddy is doing a number of things to celebrate women in its workforce and its customers, Van Horn says.
“We are celebrating today in multiple ways. Across our locations, our employees have been asked to wear red in support of International Women’s Day. We are also hosting a 100-person UX event celebrating women in our Tempe location,” Van Horn says. “Throughout the month, our GoDaddy Women in Technology employee resource group (GDWIT) will be celebrating Women’s History Month. We will be highlighting some of employees who have shared their stories of overcoming obstacles in our very own ‘Women Who Have Made Their Own History’ series. We will be celebrating and recognizing some of our amazing female small business owner customers around the globe. We will also continue to grow our GDWIT community with a variety of different activities at each of our office locations.”
At Appirio, the company is also celebrating International Women's Day in its own way, according to Elizabeth Friedland, director of communications.
"Appirio is celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day with all our amazing women across the globe. The theme this year is #BeBoldForChange and calls for us to help forge a better working world — a more gender inclusive world. All of us can be leaders within our own spheres of influence by taking bold actions to accelerate gender equality," Friedland said in an email. "Appirio is asking employees to submit stories of women who inspire, as well as to share actions employees plan to commit to, via our internal chat system using #BeBoldForChange. All entries will be placed into a drawing for an opportunity for an employee to win prizes at the end of the week."
On International Women’s Day, GoDaddy is doing a number of things to celebrate women in its workforce and its customers, Van Horn says.
“We are celebrating today in multiple ways. Across our locations, our employees have been asked to wear red in support of International Women’s Day. We are also hosting a 100-person UX event celebrating women in our Tempe location,” Van Horn says. “Throughout the month, our GoDaddy Women in Technology employee resource group (GDWIT) will be celebrating Women’s History Month. We will be highlighting some of employees who have shared their stories of overcoming obstacles in our very own ‘Women Who Have Made Their Own History’ series. We will be celebrating and recognizing some of our amazing female small business owner customers around the globe. We will also continue to grow our GDWIT community with a variety of different activities at each of our office locations.”
At Appirio, the company is also celebrating International Women's Day in its own way, according to Elizabeth Friedland, director of communications.
"Appirio is celebrating this year’s International Women’s Day with all our amazing women across the globe. The theme this year is #BeBoldForChange and calls for us to help forge a better working world — a more gender inclusive world. All of us can be leaders within our own spheres of influence by taking bold actions to accelerate gender equality," Friedland said in an email. "Appirio is asking employees to submit stories of women who inspire, as well as to share actions employees plan to commit to, via our internal chat system using #BeBoldForChange. All entries will be placed into a drawing for an opportunity for an employee to win prizes at the end of the week."
The VAR Guy and Talkin’ Cloud reached out to several business leaders within the channel to see what they’re doing to promote diversity, and asked some strong women in our space for their take on being a female in the channel. Click through for the main takeaways.
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