It is no secret that technical professions are still predominantly practised by men. IT companies in particular have a hard time attracting women to their sector and retaining them in the long term. Not even one in five employees in the IT sector is a woman, although the technology sector is one of the most future-oriented industries. But how can companies in the IT sector counteract this and ensure a higher quota of women in the future? We will show you in the following!
The IT sector in particular has developed into a male-dominated world of work. In the 80s, programming was still a typical female job. At that time, it was more about hard work for office workers with a rather low status, but women were the first programmers!
Grace Hopper, who worked with the world's first all-electric computer, was one of the pioneers of computer science. The term "bug" comes from her. She is also responsible for the invention of the compiler. She believed that women were better suited for coding. Her argument:
"You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it is ready when you need it. You can only do that with patience and an eye for detail. Women are naturals at programming.
Of course, gender roles in the world of work were different in the past than they are today. Women were often responsible for the household and were allowed to do menial, if only minor, work. Of course, this classic distribution has not existed for a long time, but Grace Hopper's insight has nevertheless been somewhat forgotten, and there are still industries that are described as "male-typical" or "female-typical".
Only just under 18% of employees in the IT sector in Germany today are women (source: Business Insider). Of women with a degree in IT, only 20% still work in this field at the age of 30. This is according to a report by the Centre of Competence for Technology Diversity and Equal Opportunities.
But what is the reason for this?
It may not be due to the working conditions in this industry, as more than every second employee is satisfied with their work-life balance in an IT company. The job offer also offers enough potential. So what is the real reason?
Well, now we have made it clear that the IT industry needs more women. But why is that? Or is this simply about the number of women quota?
Again, there are several reasons:
An important point for many companies is the strength of mixed teams. They can not only contribute to a better working atmosphere, but also increase productivity. Why? Women often have very different approaches to certain things. They often bring new creative ideas and different perspectives to the company.
Companies with higher gender diversity have comparatively better returns than competitors with low diversity. If companies manage not only to recruit women but also to retain them in the long term, they automatically ensure a competitive advantage, which in turn can then be attributed to the strengths of the mixed teams.
Men and women often have a different perspective and angle on things. Creative ideas can lead to more innovative solutions to problems that improve performance at the overall company level.
Even though the quota of women in IT companies is a fundamental problem, the number of women in leading positions in the industry has increased in the last 2 years. Nevertheless, the majority of the team often consists of men. Similarly, women often seem to have the impression that men advance faster in their company than women.
So it is up to companies to make the industry more attractive to women. We have summarised some points that can help recruit more women:
Even though IT companies have set themselves the goal of increasing the proportion of women in their company, women are still heavily outnumbered and unfortunately often still experience discrimination or disadvantages. Therefore, empowering women in our industry is a necessary task for the coming years!
At Appmatics, we are happy to say that our quota of women is growing steadily. In the field of testing alone, we have a large number of female students with a great interest in digital applications. And also in management positions, the male-female ratio is balanced with 3 women and 3 men. Our UI/UX and marketing departments even consist exclusively of women. Overall, we currently have a distribution of 149 men and 73 women at Appmatics.
We are definitely proud of our female power in the company and look forward to all the other women interested in IT joining our team in the coming years!