Women in tech: How to widen the talent pool
- 16 March 2018
Following last week’s column by NHS Digital’s director of implementation on closing the gender gap in technology, Lisa Emery, CIO of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, talks about the scale of the challenge and that the real change will come only if we create the right environment.
The Tech Talent Charter was founded by a number of organisations across the recruitment, technology and social enterprise fields to increase gender diversity in the tech workforce in the UK; and was supported in the government’s policy paper on the UK Digital Strategy in March 2017 .
Since early 2017 the charter has widened its reach and now garners the support of the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) who are leading on the digital skills agenda for the UK government.
The DCMS was the first government department to sign up to the charter with secretary of state Matt Hancock, stating that “you can’t catch all the fish if you only fish in half the pool, and if we want Britain’s tech industry to prosper we should be using the talents of the whole nation.”
NHS Digital’s Eve Roodhouse recently welcomed the government’s signature of the charter. Eve chairs the Women’s Network at NHS Digital and praised the organisation’s “talented women” who were “pushing the boundaries.”It was also great to see a female employee of NHS Digital being recognised at the recent Women in IT awards.
The scale of the challenge
In its 2017 report Diversity in IT, BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT found that just 17% of IT specialists were female.
The Tech Talent Charter quotes this statistic, adding that “only one in ten females are currently taking A-Level computer studies, and yet there is a looming digital skills gap where the UK needs one million more tech workers by 2020. Half the population cannot be ignored, and nor should it be, if there is to be a more diverse, inclusive, fairer and commercially successful tech workforce and industry”.
Whilst acknowledging that diversity encompasses much more than gender, the charter asserts that “the low number of women in tech is by far the most pressing issue at present”
It aims to mirror the success in the US of the 2002 ‘Rooney Rule’ which required members of the National Football League to interview minority candidates for certain roles, and led to a significant increase in the number of African American coaches.
There are now over 125 signatories to the charter, including Dell, HP and Cisco. Signing up obliges organisations to commit to actively promote the appointment of women into technical roles, and to collect and submit anonymised data to contribute to annual diversity reporting.
It recognises that signatories will need to “define their own timetable for change and implement the strategy that is right for their organisation” and must pledge to “having a senior-level, named representative with responsibility for the Charter commitments”.
Start early
This is all really positive, but largely focusses on the here and now, addressing issues facing those already in, or about to commence, work. It’s my firm belief we need to start much earlier – in our schools and communities.
Although a new computing curriculum was introduced in the UK in 2014 with the aim of encouraging more kids in to careers in STEM, this is still to bear fruit and there remains a prevailing view that science and tech are a ‘man’s game’.
Much of the focus is on the more technical aspects of IT, whereas we increasingly need to see technology as a change agent, requiring a breadth of skills to get the best from it.
Change needs to happen right across the board – in our schools, homes, communities, and employers. Ultimately there can only be positives to come from increased diversity in STEM, and it is down to us all as leaders to actively promote this.
Set the agenda
We need to get ourselves out there – talking in schools, bringing female colleagues to conferences and events, making sure that agendas show balance in terms of presenters and contributors.
Talk about science and technology with your kids and young relatives; foster the natural inquisitiveness they have. Girls are just as glued to phones, tablets and other tech as boys, but somehow we’re just not translating that to the possibility of careers related to science and technology.
Use social media channels to promote groups and events and to support and champion women who are out there leading the way.
There is an increasing array of fabulous initiatives aimed at promoting women in STEM. It’s important that we actively get behind these – and that means more than just the occasional half-hearted retweet.
It means getting out there and role-modelling.
Although it can feel uncomfortable and a little contrived at times, try to come out of your comfort zone at events – it’s too easy to fall in with the same group of people.
Encourage your male colleagues to introduce themselves to female peers, and to include them in their networks. Challenge event organisers where you see a lack of female input to the agenda.
Men still make most of the hiring decisions in tech. This is not to say that men don’t wish to see change – but it can be harder for them to recognise quite how difficult it can be for a woman to walk into a male-dominated environment.
Thankfully I can honestly say that I can see real change in the time I’ve been working in science and tech, but there is much still to do to create the right environment now, and into the future. We all have a responsibility to make it happen.
9 Comments
I really believe we need to open up opportunities in IT to clinicians, eg as a secondment – our IT often act in a bubble and make decisions without understanding the real requirements in our trust – and I never see them out of their IT offices, on the wards, or in clinics or theatre or MDTs. This would massively help with change programs and digital deliveries. And I don’t mean coding. I mean IT requirements gathering, IT procurement, IT strategies… From what I have seen, this could only reduce the number of failed transformation programs. Plus who says you have to go into tech as your first career?
Paula has hit the nail on the head. I’ve been raving for 2 years at least that computer science (CS) courses do not reflect the real world of IT in ANY business, not just health. CS people would not know where to start on sizing up a situation and doing the things Paul gives examples of. I have done a pretty detailed study of CS course and others, masquerading as ‘IT Courses’ but they all fall far short of the world of IT that I have inhabited for nearly half a century. There is a need for education to handle this deficit since IT companies and other organisation do less induction training than they used to. Employers in these companies do not expect the finished article in each person they interview but they wold be delighted if the candidate show they had a broad appreciation of IT, including methodologies, some technical knowledge and, just as importantly, soft skills plus an inkling of creativity and lateral thinking. I am trying to move this idea of IT education along and take it out of the hands of academics, most of whom would not know a service level agreement (SLA), and all the disciplines and metrics that it entails, from a grand piano. Sorry chaps, but your skills lie in CS and not performance, high availability, HPC, war rooms, PDWs, hyperconvergence, Lusser’s Law and other pragmatic factors which help IT to enhance a business’ operations. This is IT’s be all and end all.
Really worth checking out the workforce technology by Clarity HCL. They help the NHS streamline different trusts and assist with money saving. Worth checking out https://www.clarityworkforcetech.com/
Well done Lisa good to give guidance ultimately though I think what needs to change is the true understanding that tech is about change and that is not just something for the IT leads to worry about. The chair of HIMMS said recently the most difficult part of Digital delivery is the change , the human behaviour part and men and women can lead that and are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of behaviour and engagement in everything especially Digital . Really do I need to be invited by a man to come to a meeting ?
I recently gave a talk and ran a workshop at the BBC’s Women in STEM week. There are some incredibly talented women already in this industry a huge percentage of which feel they have no voice. They have passion and great ideas that they don’t feel anyone cares to listen to. I think one of the important steps is to leverage the women already in stem, and encourage them to blaze some trails for the sector and be evangelists for it in order to attract people in.
Since this project I have actively sought STEM workshops for my 6 year old who is fascinated by how things work and is constantly coming up with invention ideas. I’d love the focus to be less on coding for women and more on making science and tech interesting and fun at a young age. There is a danger that tech is used primarily as a pacification method rather than something that truly adds value and enriches our lives, allowing us to spend more time together.
Thanks for sparking these thoughts Lisa!
I wouldn’t even teach any computing in primary school, except as Susie says to fill them with wonder with ‘gee whiz’ computer uses. There is one floating about as a side panel in some IT subscription emails that show the computing environment and people who sent the men to the moon in the Apollo mission. There are many other things like this which can draw children to think computers are wonderful. If they like it enough, they may take up some form of computer study in secondary education and even that isn’t necessary to enter the IT world, which is even later than that. The emphasis on coding, propagated by the IT-unwashed, is a totolly skewed view of real computing. I should perhaps know after nearly half a century in IT, both at the coal face and as an author.
Taking primary school children through some of the stuff I’ve seen in KS1 makes me think it will put the pupils off computing, not on it. This I am sure is what accounts in the main for the poor representation of females in IT, but that is another story. Children are very impressionable at that age, both for and against various things; the more things are rammed down their throats, the more resistance they show.
Terry Critchley
As long as females think they have to grind through the soulless computer science curricula to get into the real working world IT, the numbers will remain low. The topics taught in CS course hardly match those talked about and prevalent in real IT. EVEN WHEN THEY DO, THE RARELY PASS THE ‘SO WHAT?’ TEST. This in essence means ‘what does the third orthogonal normal form of an object database mean to the CEO of Rolls Royce?’ They certainly don’t need 3 or 4 years learning stuff that won’t pass this test.
Contrary to popular belief, computing does not equal coding and anyone who says it is or implies that is living on Planet Zog.
Celebrate the early women giants of IT;
–Ada Lovelace, Babbage’s chief programmer. (19th Century)
–The Bletchley Park decoders. (WW2)
— Mary-Lee Berners Lee.leading 1st generation computer programmer, and Tim’s mum (1950s and 60s)
— Steve Shirley (Dame Stephanie Shirley to you) early software entrepreneur (1960-80s)
When I was young, (1950s) nearly all the top pioneering programmers were women.
This may be particularly important in healthcare where many professions are female dominated and if the tech is not designed to meet their needs. Engaging and employing nurses and other healthcare professions is likely to be very productive as they have more exposure to the entire healthcare process than many doctors (predominantly male working in informatics).
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