Retaining Women in Technology

In spite of many initiatives to attract and retain women in technology, the numbers are sobering. One contributing factor is a mismatch between the expectations and needs of women in technology and workplace realities in technology companies. Through qualitative and quantitative studies, we identified key factors necessary in the daily work experience within a technology company and also of women's self-perception in this environment. We developed the @Work Experiences Measure and showed that its dimensions can differentiate the experiential quality of different work environments in technology firms. Using the measure, we demonstrated that the number of women in the team is related to a more positive work experience. We also showed that employees “thinking of leaving their job” have significantly lower scores on the measure. Using this measure companies can identify what to focus on to help create success for women. Future research will further calibrate the measure on additional populations, within and between companies and develop effective recommendations for interventions.

I. Introduction

Technology continues to be a sector where job opportunities exist, and where positions go unfilled [1], [2]. At the same time, women continue to be underrepresented in technology as compared to their numbers in the overall workforce [3]. Moreover, although women make up half of the population, and they are certainly a key consumer base for technology products, they are glaringly absent from tech jobs, especially in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. Consider the following: •

In the US in 2016, only 26% of the professional computing workforce consisted of women. Three percent of the computing workforce were African-American women, 5% were Asian women, and 2% were Hispanic women [4].

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In Canada, women represent a quarter of the high tech workforce, a statistic that has not changed in 10 years [5].

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According to a 2017 Australian report, less than 15% of engineers were women, the estimate suggests that the status quo with respect the number of women engineers continues. The unemployment rates for women were generally significantly higher than men irrespective of qualifications [6].

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In the European Union, women represented only 16% (1.2 million) of all ICT specialists employed in the EU [7]. Across the EU, among women aged 30 who graduated with a degree in information and communications technology (ICT), only 20% still work in the field. By age 45, just 9% are left [8].