Despite gender diversity programs around the globe, women in the technology sector still struggle with discrimination and a lack of opportunities in the industry. The technology community has mixed emotions and the mindset to accept the fact that women need to be motivated and better incentivized to keep their careers in the domain.And when it comes to promoting women in mid-senior and senior leadership positions, the journey becomes tougher for any individual in the technology sector. Though the so-called corporate and entrepreneurial world is dominated by male leadership, women are managing to do wonders in climbing up the ladder.
Today every company worth its salt is having specifically targeted programs for developing women leaders, especially in the technology domain. Still, the country ripples to maintain the gender diversity ratio in tech hiring and retaining talent. To understand the situation at different levels and organisations around the world, the following women leaders in technology highlighted their experience and ground reality of their respective industries.
Entering the man’s world
The IT sector in India is still dominated by men. That’s not to say that women don’t like STEM education or are not suited for it. Women need men to understand the challenges they undergo in their careers and a little support from teachers to encourage them to study science and technology that can allow them to enter the IT world.
“The Indian dairy industry has been driven by women since inception,” says Annie Mathew, Chief Information Officer, Mother Dairy. “But now we have a significant percentage of women in technology teams working hard in a healthy gender-diverse workforce. We have six-sigma projects and major business transformation projects which are being led by women techies,” Mathew added.
She feels that women should be better incentivized in terms of employee benefits, and other support areas at the organisation level. There should be more leaves, flexible work hours, sponsorship programs for upskilling, etc.
Building gender-neutral work environments
Gender equality is not just a social cause it is as much an economical cause. It is proven that organizations that have a higher balance of gender at the senior level do on average 33% more in revenue as well as margins as compared to organisations that have skewed gender ratios at leadership.
“The only way to combat this inequality is to consciously tackle gender parity. Hence many organizations are reviewing and consciously bridging the pay parity and retention,” Radhika Saigal, Partner-Technology, EY said.
“Being at the top involves a lot of hard work and perseverance of individual and family support – irrespective of gender. It is even tough when there are glass ceilings created for women due to societal pressures. If we want gender stereotypes to be broken for our sons and daughters, we need to stand up and be role models for them. Besides hard and intelligent work, we have to create our own support system and seek support to create a meaningful work-life balance,” Saigal expressed.
“Women feel imposter syndrome and often look at themselves as undervalued for their work. They feel a lack of confidence and motivation to innovate in their work. With isolation at workplaces, and no representation of their hard work in the technology domain disturbs the mindfulness of women working in IT,” Sakshi Vidur, Head of Information Security, Yum Brands added.
As a woman technology leader and a role model to many, Vidur expresses that women do feel outnumbered in the industry as there is a lack of opportunities in the sector. She promotes gender equality and has been doing many initiatives at the personal and company level to support women in tech. She maintains that diversity at her technology teams as well.
“Though women are getting into the technology domain, there’s a lack of opportunities for them to climb up the leadership ladder. Not only in BFSI, but it’s also a pan-industry phenomenon that women struggle to get into leadership roles. Not every woman has family support or in some way they don’t perceive the confidence to step into mid-senior and senior roles,” Kirti Patil, Joint President & CTO, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance added.
She also highlighted that the pandemic has boosted the chances of women in technology to work confidently. According to her, It’s not because of the mindset changes but because of the catastrophe that women need not travel or face any challenge. The new normal empowers women to multitask and also pushes them to upskill in technologies such as AI, Data Science, etc while managing work and family.
Motherhood and leadership can happen in tandem
“As a mother working in IBM, my experience has been wonderful. I have been able to allow traveling with my daughter to work and have shared great experiences of motherhood with my daughter. IBM as a global technology company has really supported me in making this happen. APAC is leading all the geographies in terms of women entering leadership roles and at IBM we have women leading country-specific business as General Managers which is a very proud moment,” Brenda Harvey, General Manager, IBM Asia Pacific said.
She believes that every business today is technology-driven. Hence there is a pool of opportunities for women to enter technology.
“We are pushing our best efforts in sharing our experience, and showcasing the real tech world which is gender diversified and has great opportunities for women. Programs like returnship, which like the tech-re entry initiative by IBM for technical professionals who took a break from the workforce and are looking to restart their careers. This is a paid returnship program that enables techies to work on projects that match their expertise, interests, and abilities and could lead to full-time employment. Women have been a major focus and target participant segment of this program. There are more such initiatives taken by us to support women in technology,” Harvey highlighted.
