Senior female executives explain why the IT industry is
failing to attract women, what must be done to remedy the
situation, and the benefits this would bring
It is crucial that more work is done to
attract women into the IT profession, senior female IT
executives in the IT industry told an
Intellect roundtable event last month.
The group said that if the UK is to remain competitive,
employers will have to work harder to plug the IT skills gap with
talented female developers and project managers - who must be paid
the same as their male counterparts.
Gillian Arnold, hardware outsourcing executive at IBM, said more
resources should be ploughed into tackling the issue. "The IT
sector should put forward a group of people, funding, and a
location to work on this full-time for a couple of years. There are
issues that need desperate attention, and while the current army of
part-timers is well-meaning, progress is too slow if we are to make
any headway."
Arnold said she would like to see a target of 30% women set for
the IT industry, which all companies would be obliged to try to
meet.
Sarah Speake, a technologist at
Google, said companies need to market themselves better to
improve their appeal to women.
"The culture of the industry makes it an unattractive place for
women. It is down to organisations and how they promote themselves
and their diversity," she said.
Cultural problems
The women agreed there is a problem with the culture of the IT
industry. Kate Craig-Wood, who set up web hosting company Memset,
said, "When people think of IT, they think of a beardy bloke with
sandals, not
Facebook, MySpace and Google. There need to be more female
public IT figures to act as role models."
As well as contending with geeks, women also have to battle an
"old boys' network" mentality. Speake said, "Until I ended up in
Google I was very aware of this."
Claire Curtis-Thomas, MP for Crosby and chair of the all-party
parliamentary group for women in science, engineering and
technology, said an industry that was perceived to discriminate
would not attract women.
The pay gap is a major issue, said Arnold. "If you started at
the same time as a male colleague and have more or less the same
job, but they seem to be on £20,000 more than you, you are going to
wonder what is going on," she said.
This could be one reason for the industry's problem with
retention. Sue Davies, HR director at IT services company Sopra,
said many women in their forties had either retired or moved out of
IT. "This concerns me. What is driving them out?" she asked.
The industry also needs to watch its working practices, the
group said. Women need flexibility to help them look after
families, child care and retraining after maternity leave.
"Too many are dropping out after having families because they
cannot reach a suitable arrangement with their company. They are
reluctantly leaving, and it worries me that there is no standard to
adhere to. These issues are present in most industries but they are
particularly extreme in ours," said Speake.
Flexible working practices
Curtis-Thomas said women do not want to get rid of their "caring
role" in society, but they want to be able to work as well - and it
is down to employers to make this possible.
"Bad times are really coming in terms of recruitment in this
industry, and the problem will become more challenging," she
said.
Curtis-Thomas said these arguments should be articulated to
government and initiatives launched, backed with funding.
But she said throwing money at the problem would not be enough.
"The problem is getting women to make the career choice, and then
hanging on to them," she said.
Discrimination
A major obstacle to increasing the number of women in IT is that
women are still treated as second-class citizens in the sector,
with opportunities to move up in organisations limited, according
to research from GCS.
The IT recruitment company found that 56% of women think there
is a career glass ceiling for women in the IT industry, with the
most senior jobs off limits.
Chris Bartlett, managing director at GCS, said demand for IT
staff in Europe is high, but a large proportion of the workforce
are deterred from entering IT because of a perceived lack of
opportunities in senior management. Thirty five per cent of firms
surveyed said there were no women in the top five IT positions in
their company.
He said there tends to be a preference towards men in senior
positions because women are likely to take career breaks to have
children.
"This should not be a problem because of the way projects work
and the development lifecycle of a project. Women can do a project
and then take a career break and come back later," said
Bartlett.
"The promotion and encouragement of women in IT is good for the
sector, as mixed-gender workforces not only enable a greater
natural balance, they also promote a better working life for staff.
The industry needs to take significant and swift action to make the
necessary changes to avoid a serious shortage of staff in the
future," he said.