What Women [in Tech] Want: Tech’s State of the Union
A new report published by Hackajob is shining an important light on women in the tech industry. Pulling data from 400 surveyed women who work in the tech sector, the report is full of facts, preferences, and an in-depth look at the current hurdles facing women today.
While we won’t release the entire report, here are our top three takeaways:
- Diversity is Rising…Slowly
Fifty-five percent of female tech talent identify as from a non-White background, which is an improvement, but because of hurdles like systemic racial profiling, biases, and a too-long laissez faire attitude, getting women into the tech field has proved difficult, let alone offering opportunities for women of color. With new initiatives, the number of female tech talent is growing, especially at the junior level. Increased awareness, DEI initiatives, and enhanced innovation in the hiring process are also helping to improve diversity in tech. However, at the risk of patting ourselves too hard on the back, there’s still far more work to be done to eliminate entry barriers and spread placement to upper-level positions, where numbers are still low.
- Flex Work is The Best Work
While there’s no one-size-fits-all for the work experience, the emerging trend for women is valuing work flexibility. Of all the women surveyed, zero percent preferred to work in the office. Nearly two-thirds preferred a fully remote experience, while twenty-nine percent preferred a hybrid situation. Normalizing a healthy work-life balance is also paramount, and it turns out that, despite what you’ve heard, size matters. Women prefer a company-sized from 51-200 employees, a typical startup size. One possibility for this preference is that a startup company comes with more risks, more experimentation, and the chance to be a big fish in a smaller pond. Additionally, with a focus on agility and scalability, startup culture can encourage continuous learning, adaptation to market dynamics, and a focus on delivering value to customers.
- The Secret to Retention Lies in the Advancement
Though the world of tech isn’t stagnant, it certainly seems like womens’ advancement within it is. Of the 89 percent of women who wanted to pursue a higher role within their field, only 6 percent identified their organization's career progression opportunities as excellent. Yikes. Companies not only can but should do better by offering professional advancement programs, flexible work arrangements, tailored education in both soft and hard skills, and training to overcome the gender biases that are still very much alive in the world of tech. Additionally, increasing transparency about what a progression plan looks like will keep women invested and excited about their opportunities and keep them from looking elsewhere.
But this only scratches the surface of the stats in this report. If you’d like to learn more about the state of HR tech for women, download your own copy here.