Transcript Slide 1
Retaining women in IT
Rebecca George
Chair - Women in IT Champions Forum
Background
Women in IT Champions Group formed
January 2002
IBM, Accenture, Dell, EDS, e-Skills UK, Ford,
KPMG, Oracle, Freelance Consultant
ƒ About 10% of the IT workforce in the UK
ƒ 3 men, 6 women
Open and collaborative group
Retention was our main agenda item
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Get some data
Look at other industries for comparisons
Identify work life balance best practices
Write a paper
Get some more data
Some Data - Women in IT Champions Group
2001 Data - What % of your total company is female?
40
37%
Pe rc e n ta ge
33%
33%
32%
29. 5%
30
25%
24%
22. 5%
20
Industry Average
10
0
2001 Data - What % of people leaving your company is female?
50
46%
Percentage
40
30
20
10
0
30%
34%
32%
30%
19%
32%
More Data
Part-time worke
Executives
Snr Mgmnt
Management
M a le
Fe m a le
Prof/C onsultant
11% 9%
P ar t-tim e wor ke
23%
E xecutives
27%
22%
S nr Mgm nt
31%
Managem ent
31%
P r of/Consultant
69%
77%
90
84% 83%
80
69%
70
64%
62%
60 54%
54%
46%
50 46%
36% 38%
40
31%
30
17%
16%
20
10
0
Gr aduates
69%
73%
91%
P ercentage
78%
Leavers by Gender - March 2002
Ttl Leaver s
89%
Graduates
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Ttl employees
Percentage
Employees by type - March 2002
Male
Fem ale
Women appear to be leaving - why?
Hypothysis:
ƒ Other sectors have better work life balance than the IT industry
ƒ They also have more women
ƒ Perhaps they are doing something we are not
So we interviewed:
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ASDA
Tesco
Marks and Spencer
Her Majesty's Land Registry
Senior Civil Service
Shell
Ford
Unilever
3M
Astra Zeneca
Pfizer
Halifax Bank of Scotland
Some academics and networking groups
What we found
On the whole, we all have similar work life balance programmes
ƒ Training, flexible time, wellness, vacation support, on site service
providers, professional services, extended leave
There are plenty of (young) women in the lower levels
In all the organisations we interviewed, the numbers of women
drop off towards the top, usually sharply
ƒ In the UK as a whole, there are 600+ board positions. 10 are filled by
women (1)
ƒ Of all the people earning £100k+, only 12% are women (2)
There might be a tenure problem
Women leave at two points in their careers
ƒ As a result of motherhood
ƒ At a more mature phase in their careers
So, apparently, the issue of retaining women isn't just about
programmes and processes, or even about equal opportunity
ƒ 'I didn't know I was a minority until I had been in my company for 10 years'
1. 2001 Cranfield Female FTSE Index
2. Denise Kingsmill government research
Walking the talk
There are things companies can do to change
the culture
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Avoid early morning or late night meetings
Make sure that senior executives take their vacations
Encourage people to take their leave (not the cash)
Delegating when on vacation rather than dialing in
Talking about work life balance for men and women
and making it acceptable
Treat senior executives with respect and
consideration
Make sure there really is equal opportunity
But some companies do all this, and women
are still leaving faster than we can hire or
promote them into the top jobs
2003 Activities
Women in IT Champions Forum
Supported by Intellect
More members
Internal activities include flexible working,
video and sharing best practice
External activities include creating the
business case for diversity, and researching
the retention issues
END
Back up - UK data
ICT supplier industries account for 7.0% of UK GDP
Larger than Financial Services at 5.4% or Public Admin at 5.0%
From 1995 to 2000 total number of IT jobs, narrowly defined, increased from about 600,000
to just over 900,000, compounding 8.4% pa. A wider definition would add approximately
another 400,000 or so this figure.
Of the 900,000 in 2000, 100,000 were in the Public Sector
A IBM forecast sees an additional 250.000 IT jobs created between 2001 and 2005, many of
these will be in the Public Sector
The proportion of women in the IT Services industry has been comparatively low
Average earnings in this industry have risen at nearly twice the national average earnings
over past 10 years. Financial incentives and career opportunities have attracted talent to IT
jobs but the rate of wage inflation is indicative of high demand
Fastest growing occupations in the period 1995 to 2000 were
software engineers up from 95,000 to 192,000
programmers/analysts up from 178,000 to 275,000
computer operators have seen slow growth, from 104,000 to 121,000
the fast growing occupations are mainly in the IT Services industry
Approximately half of the people working 'in IT' work in IT companies, the rest do IT jobs in
other companies or the Public Sector.
SOURCE - IBM economist, from publically available sources