Jun 22, 2016
Gender diversity has been a hot topic in Australia for a few years now, and it’s only getting hotter. With an abundance of reports being released by the likes of Forbes, Deloitte and McKinsey explaining not only why diversity matters but piling up stat after miserable stat on how bad even the top tier of technology leaders are at achieving it.
Study after study highlights the numerous ways in which diversity shows clear benefits to those companies who manage it. Quite simply, they outperform those who don’t believe in every sense.
Once you understand the positive influence of diversity and have educated the rest of your company on it too – because it’s your absolute duty to do so – then, and only then, will the lights suddenly come on.
Diversity in the workplace is a straightforward and obvious concept, once articulated. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions and perspectives. Individuals who are distinct from each other in gender, race and other aspects bring unique knowledge and experiences to any task faced. A male and a female developer might have enormously different perspectives – and that’s a good thing.
I’m buoyed by the more recent tech innovators like Slack, Pinterest and Airbnb who are leading the way with some seriously impressive accomplishments in diversifying their workforces. What stands out about them to me is how intentional they are in their efforts. They’re transparent about where they believe they fall short and publicly declaring their goals to change, then reporting on their progress.
We at ansarada are only just embarking on the journey towards becoming a truly diverse company, and we openly aspire to join the ranks of businesses like those listed above. I have myself been on a voyage of discovery over the past 12 months, learning about how and why diversity works, why it’s so hard to hire females in tech and what we need to do to get better at this.
Here I’m sharing my top three ways to become better at gender diversity;
Structure your Interviews
Interview processes often lack structure. Each candidate is treated uniquely, being asked whatever questions occur to the interviewers throughout the process. The problem with this approach is that it lets unconscious bias creep in, which leads to not assessing candidates in the same way. The very nature of unconscious bias is that it influences your decisions in ways you don’t notice and can’t control. We have found that the best solution is to introduce a structured interview that ensures every candidate is evaluated in the same way, thus removing much of the unwanted bias and helping interviewers be more objective.
Rewrite your ads
One area we were falling on was our job adverts. I attended unconscious bias training with Atlassian’s global diversity lead a few months back, and it opened my eyes. Studies show that women aren’t self-promoters and so they won’t put themselves forward for jobs unless they’re sure they’re qualified. Men will be far more likely to apply even if unsure. Surprisingly women need to feel they meet on average seven or more requirements listed on a job ad. Men, just two! When I reviewed our job ads, I realised we were putting off most female candidates with long lists of requirements, many of which weren’t even necessary but just ‘nice to haves’ and wish lists. Since then, we invested in the diversity editing tool Textio which has had a dramatic impact.
Ditch the Dart Board
It’s not all that surprising to hear that women prefer sofas, indoor plants and comfortable working spaces to the provision of dart boards. So when we see photos of ‘cool’ tech company office spaces that are all dart boards, pool tables and video games, it’s no wonder very few applicants are women. Making areas of your working environment appealing to women and showcasing them helps female candidates to visualise themselves working there which means they’ll be more likely to apply for your jobs.
Of course, there is much more that you can do to help foster a diverse and inclusive culture at your company. However, I recommend the above three because they are low effort, high impact. Needless to say, diversity and inclusion are high on my Talent priority runway for FY17 at ansarada. We made great strides on this during the last year, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be.
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