We all know the facts. Although the number of women in STEM-qualified occupations in Australia has increased significantly over the past decade, only 15 per cent of STEM-qualified jobs are held by women.
What we don’t seem to know is what to do about it and that needs to change – women have so much to benefit from a career in tech and tech organisations have so much to gain by improving representation of women.
A 2020 McKinsey and Company multinational survey found that organisations in the top quartile for gender diversity in their executive teams were 25 per cent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile. Moreover, the higher the representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance.
Here’s the top five things tech leadership teams need to drive in 2024 to bolster representation of women:
1. Better promote the many benefits of working in tech to women
Flexibility: The tech industry offered WFH long before COVID and continues to be a front runner when it comes to offering flexible working conditions, including remote work. This needs to be better promoted because we know that the return to office push of the last 12 months has disproportionately impacted women’s career opportunities as women are more likely to be juggling a higher load of care responsibilities than their male counterparts.
Competitive salaries and benefits: Tech companies typically offer higher-than-average salaries across the board as well as comprehensive benefits packages. This should be a selling point for women considering Australia’s gender pay gap sits at 21 per cent and on average, an Australian woman earns $1 million less than an Australian man across her career.
Opportunity, innovation and impact: Despite the many headlines about tech lay-offs, tech is growing fast in Australia with National Skills Commission stats showing jobs in STEM will grow twice as fast as non-STEM jobs and this growth brings opportunity. We need to talk to women about how a career in tech offers the chance to be at the forefront of innovation – contributing to developments that can have a huge impact on society – from healthcare technology to environmental solutions.
2. Reframe how we talk about and market, tech jobs
Breadth of tech jobs: We need to sell the fact that tech jobs span far wider than software development, data science and web development. Sure, these are rapidly growing career paths that desperately need women – but every tech company also needs marketers and communications specialists, HR professionals and admin personnel – industries traditionally well-populated by women.
Stop feeding the ‘tech-bro’ reputation: Too many news articles and tech recruitment campaigns reinforce the ‘tech-bro’ culture with images of packs of men swaddling laptops. It’s no wonder women aren’t considering tech careers if the industry itself is selling itself as a job for young, super-confident males.
3. Think outside the box when it comes to recruitment
Consider business graduates as potential employees: People with business skills have so much to offer tech but often companies just hone in on graduates with the traditional computer science/engineering backgrounds. At Altis, we recognise the skills and attributes business graduates bring to the table and have introduced a program targeting people with business degrees with a passion for data. Our DevelopHer Program brings in female graduates, empowering them in a 12-week intensive program that helps lift their tech skills. By directly targeting women, this strategy automatically makes us more accessible to women, with females making up 47 per cent of all management and commerce graduates in Australia.
4. Take a good hard look at your own patch
Executive leadership representation and pay equity
Ok, this one will make you squirm. Start by making changes at the top. Take a good, hard look at your exec team. How many women are there? How will women ever feel welcome if they are only led by men? And while we are covering the uncomfortable – what’s your game plan for tackling the gender pay gap in your organisation and how will you communicate it? No matter what the numbers say, it’s important you have targeted strategies in place to address the underlying causes of the gap.
The federal government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) says its research shows that female leadership is key to shrinking the gender pay gap. Even so, “female representation in leadership continues to be a cause for concern”, it says.
While women make up half of the employees in the 2020-21 WGEA dataset (51 per cent), women comprise only:
- 19.4 per cent of CEOs
- 32.5 per cent of key management positions
- 33 per cent of board members
- 18 per cent of board chairs
Altis has a long-term commitment to reducing the gender equity pay gap. To do this, Altis had to successfully undertake a pay gap analysis of its workforce, report the pay equity metrics to the WGEA board, and communicate our pay equity initiatives to our employees.
5. Support women to harness their strengths and unleash their potential
Nurture young women
At Altis, we recognised that the young graduate women we were interviewing, as a whole, weren’t speaking as confidently as their male counterparts. Unfortunately it’s a common trait in women to downplay their achievements and doubt themselves.
Being a mother to a young girl, I want to help shape a world in which she knows she can achieve anything she sets her mind to. To instil in her and other young women the confidence to chase their dreams.
At Altis, we actively tackle this endeavour by enrolling our female team members in the Women Rising program led by Megan Dalla-Camina. This program is designed to cultivate authenticity, confidence, and leadership abilities in women, enabling them to achieve significant advancements for both themselves and our organisation.
Support women through critical life stages
Becoming a mother is the most challenging time of many women’s careers. Many women suffer confidence issues after being away from the workplace. On return they feel they have to be ‘extra’ productive to ‘make up’ for clocking off in time for day care/school pick up or for working part-time.
Sadly, I know some women who never openly talk about their personal lives as a mum for fear they will be regarded as less committed to their role. In 2024, work and life intersect and I firmly believe that we all perform better and feel happier when we can bring our authentic selves to work.
Make sure your organisation has strategies in place to help transition women cope with the challenges of returning from maternity leave and, most critically, offers both women and men the flexibility to fulfil both their work and family commitments.
Charmaine Loratet is Chief People Officer at Altis Consulting and a passionate advocate for improving representation of women in STEM careers