New research from the US has revealed more than a third of women in tech plan to leave their jobs in the next two years.
The report, compiled by Wisconsin-based business management company, New View Strategies, showed that one in three women in the tech industry experience gender bias at their workplace.
The report, which interviewed over 1,000 women about their workplaces, also revealed that 38 percent of participants reported men were often assumed to be more competent than women at their workplace.
Forty-six percent of respondents said their organisations did not actively promote gender equality in either their hiring process or within their workplace culture, proving that gender inequality in the industry remains a prominent issue.
Flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid models of remote work have improved existing pay inequities, however 46 percent of respondents said they still believe there is a gender pay gap at their workplace.
Despite this, only a quarter of the respondents claimed to have publicly discussed a pay gap with their work colleagues.
New View Strategies CEO Kerry Peters told Bizwomen, “There’s always room for growth or learning opportunities, and the tech field can always change. Hopefully, it does.”
“Perhaps more classes or training for employees, or even simply hiring more women may be beneficial.”
Ten percent of respondents said they have experienced gender-based harassment on the business communication platform, Slack or via email, and seventy percent said they prefer having their cameras off during video calls.
Almost half of the respondents said they are not aware if their workplace has a remote work harassment policy.
In September, a report found that one in three women in the US have been thinking about leaving the workforce or switching career paths, due to the impacts of the pandemic.
Rachel Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Leanin.org, told CNBC that the report was ‘really concerning.’
“Women are continuing to do a disproportionate amount of housework and child care throughout the pandemic compared to men, but on top of these obvious drivers of burnout, we see that women are taking on more work in the office around employee well-being, as well as advancing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which means their workloads just going up and up and up,” she said.
The latest report from New View Strategies showed that fifty-two percent of women said their workload increased during the pandemic, while 27 percent said they were not less optimistic about their careers.
Over half of the women surveyed said that the tech industry lacked opportunities for advancement, and that there was a lack of mentorship, female role models, and training resources.
When asked why they chose to pursue a career in tech, roughly half of respondents said they chose tech for the compensation, while 33 percent said they made their decision based on secure employment.
13 percent of respondents said their organisation offered training specifically for women, though 54 percent believe their tech company should offer more training which catered just for women.
Almost three quarters of respondents claimed PTO (paid-time off) was the most highly valued benefit in their jobs, while more than half said it was the paid maternity leave.
Other reasons for working in their chosen careers include included 401k (superannuation), stock options and job training.
A large portion of respondents also told researchers that hiring more women into their workplace would probably help strengthen morale.