Advancing Women in Technology by Caroline Simard
August 3, 2009
02:56 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Telle Whitney, CEO, Anita Borg Institute
For much of July, I was in Turkey and Greece,on a much needed vacation, away from email and cell phones. My first day back in the office, I moderated a panel for Leadership America! Yes, I agree this was a crazy commitment, but the efforts of this group inspired me.
Leadership America is a program of the Women’s Museum in Texas. It has been around for 20 years, and many senior corporate executives have passed through its program. What I like about their current offerings, is that it offers its participants programming in
three different geographical areas (Chicago, Silicon Valley, and DC). Because of this diverse programming, a participant would leave the six month program with exposure to very different businesses and business paradigms. They are also offering a trip to China later this year, which is very exciting.
The panel that I moderated brought together several technology leaders to discuss technology, and its impact on being a great leader. Participating in this panel were three extraordinary people, with diverse perspectives:
James Beck,
COO and Managing Director, Mayfield
James brings a wealth of knowledge about growing venture funding worldwide, as Mayfield has opened new funds in China and India over the last few years.
Rebecca
Norlander, Partner & Engineering Manager, Microsoft
Rebecca’s degrees are in Computer Science, and she has a deep technical expertise, but has successfully moved up the leadership ladder at Microsoft.
Dorothy
Farris, VP, Worldwide Sales, Jupiter Systems
Dorothy brings many years as a successful sales executive to the conversation.
We had a robust conversation about the role that technology plays in building leaders. Some of the words of wisdom that I heard
were:
- Blackberry’s and Cell phones are tools that can aid
or hinder you as a leader. What is
most important in effective use of these devices is to ensure that you set
personal boundaries of when you use them, and they don’t become a constant
and unwelcome diversion.
- The world has become global, and many teams are
global in nature. This creates a
new set of problems that leaders need to understand and embrace, including
simple logistical issues such as conference call times that a team spanning
China, US, and Israel can
all make. Understanding your team constraints and finding solutions is an
important part of being an effective global leader.
- Innovation is happening, and it happening world wide.
Harnessing the power of innovation in multiple countries is part of what
will make entrepreneurs successful in this next century.
- Entrepreneurial solutions to sales, engineering,
investing and innovation are where all of our panelists found exciting
opportunities. None of them accept the status quo, but instead are looking
for new ways to approach their job.
Technology, be it social networks, or mobile devices, are part of
the innovation that they regularly use in their jobs.
I left the panel tired, but inspired by not only these remarkable people, but
the thoughtful conversation with the Leadership America participants.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
July 27, 2009
11:31 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
The police arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University, and President Obama’s comments on the incident, has re-ignited a national debate about race, bias, and stereotyping in the US. Regardless of the specifics of the Gates incident, African-American and Latinos in the US routinely experience bias and stereotyping, and social science data on the topic is sobering. If you want to learn about how that bias plays out early in terms of access to science and engineering education, read Stuck
in the Shallow End, where Dr. Jane Margolis and her colleagues discuss the ongoing segregation of opportunity at the K-12 level. To learn more about how bias and stereotyping plays out in the workplace, read The Level Playing Field Institute Corporate Leavers Survey. To test your own stereotypical assumptions, visit Project Implicit, a research project at Harvard University.
Fortunately, amidst the sobering news and data, there are programs working to increase the proportion of underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
The
Empowering Leadership Alliance (EL Alliance), funded by the National Science Foundation, aims “to increase the number of students from groups with long-standing
underrepresentation that receive undergraduate and graduate degrees in the computing disciplines.” Dr. Richard
Tapia, whom I blogged
about last week, University Professor at Rice University,
is the Principal Investigator of the alliance. This week, I interviewed Dr. Tapia as well as Ann
Redelfs and Cynthia Lanius, who are co-leaders and co-founders of the alliance.
The EL-Alliance creates a national network of committed academics, industry, and government representatives to increase diversity in computing. In order to bring more women and underrepresented minorities in technology, multiple educational and industry organizations need to commit to increasing their outreach, mentoring, and retention efforts.
“The most important outcome of creating this network for minority students is so they can realize they are not alone, and see that they can make it”, said Dr. Tapia. “A lot of minority students come from disadvantaged high schools and didn’t get the same opportunities and preparation to be competitive
at a major research university. We believe that the environment needs to be changed in order for them to be successful. I know from my own experience that it is possible for them to succeed given the right support.”
Lanius and Redelfs say that the EL-Alliance enhances the retention and advancement of minority students in computing disciplines through three strategies: at the local level, the alliance builds critical mass within a campus among STEM departments, whereby students can connect to each other, to
mentors, faculty, and to opportunities. At the regional level, specific regions can create critical mass; for example, the EL Alliance reached out to all the major research institutions in the Boston Area, and invited them to build a community through
the alliance, over 300 people are now engaged
from that region. The third approach is national – any minority student can join the alliance, get support, mentoring, and get connected to opportunities.
“A lot of times computer
science faculty have some opportunities for research – they want to reach out to minority students, but don’t know where to find them. The Alliance brokers these kinds of opportunities and makes sure that minority students have access to those opportunities”, says
Ann Redelfs.
The biggest challenge of the EL Alliance? Finding the isolated minority students who need them the most. “We have outreached to department chairs to increase our reach to those students,” notes Cynthia Lanius. Often, students at the freshmen level are also not aware of the need to join such an effort: “They are freshmen, they are on top of the world, and they haven’t experienced the barriers yet. By the time you get to junior year they have experienced the challenge. The EL Alliance makes sure we don’t lose them from computing disciplines”, says Dr. Tapia.
To see what is possible, take a look at the biographies of Latino and Native American scientists collected by SACNAS, an organization dedicated to advancing Hispanic and Native American scientists. Also look at this compilation of biographies of African-American
scientists.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
July 17, 2009
11:24 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Last week, I started a blog series about organizations and groups who are making a difference for underrepresented men and women in technology. Our research shows that only 6.8% of technical employees in Silicon Valley are African-American, Hispanic, or Native American, and that these underrepresented employees are significantly more likely to plan to leave their companies. The CRA Taulbee Survey shows that a mere 1% of PhD recipients in Computer Science are Hispanic, 1% are African-American, and 0% are Native American (!). These statistics haven’t changed significantly since the early 1990s.
Latinas in Computing, mentioned last week, is one group which seeks to bring the interests of underrepresented women to the forefront. Dr. Patty Lopez, Component Design Engineer at Intel, has been one of the major driver for LiC since its founding, and is a 2009 Grace Hopper Celebration Committee member – if you are coming to GHC, look for LiC sessions!
Other programs that need to be mentioned are the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing and the EL Alliance (Look the EL Alliance in next week’s blog).
Modeled on the Grace Hopper Celebration, the Richard Tapia Celebration “provides a welcoming and supportive setting for all participants and particularly for students and faculty from under-represented groups. It is aimed at providing a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure”.
The Tapia Conference was named in honor of Dr. Richard A. Tapia, a mathematician and University Professor in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Tapia is the kind of role model that defies the odds – you can read his full bio online for a massive dose of inspiration: a first-generation American from Mexican parents, he was the first in his family to attend college, and earned a PhD in Mathematics from UCLA. He is an accomplished scientist who has published over 100 papers, and he was the first Hispanic to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering. The list of awards he received and his research accomplishments is astounding. In terms of making an impact on the next generation of underrepresented technologists and scientists, he walks the talk. During his tenure at Rice University, he advised more underrepresented minority and women doctoral students than anyone else is the country. Tapia is director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice, where he strives to change the academic practices that re-create inequality. In a 2003 paper on diversity in academia, Tapia and colleagues lament that increasing diversity is not truly rewarded by the current academic reward system, which rewards research over teaching and mentoring activities. Yet, faculty engagement in teaching and mentoring is critical to increasing the recruitment, retention and advancement of underrepresented minorities. In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Tapia also argues that the top-tier universities need to actively engage in becoming a part of the solution
In order to foster such mentoring opportunities, the Tapia Conference was formed to celebrate the technical contributions and career interests of diverse people in computing fields. The Conference is a project of the Coalition to Diversity Computing and is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Computing Research Association (CRA), and the IEEE Computing Society (IEEE-CS). The CDC is a joint organization of the ACM, CRA, and IEEE-CS. The National Science Foundation is an active supporter of the conference. The conference has grown steadily in participation over the years to over 400 participants. Students, faculty, and industry participants get the opportunity to discuss technical topics while breaking down feelings of isolation, creating new professional networks, and access mentoring and professional development opportunities. I attended Tapia for the first time this year- seeing 400 participants, men and women, from diverse backgrounds, provided me with hope that it is indeed possible to increase diversity in technology. You can read Telle Whitney’s blog about our participation here.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
July 10, 2009
04:55 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Last month, ABI published a report
on underrepresented minorities in technical positions in the high-tech industry. African-American, Hispanic, and Native American women in technology are critically absent from high-level positions in technology. In our sample, the proportion of African-American technical women goes from 4.6% at the entry level to 1.6% at the high level, and the proportion of Hispanic/Latina women goes from 4.1% at the entry level to 0% at the high level.
Minority women thus suffer from a double dose of underrepresentation in technology due to gender and race. This leads to significant barriers to their retention and advancement in the field: isolation, lack of role models, and lack of access to mentors are especially problematic.
In our next two blog posts, we will be featuring groups and organizations that are working to create change for underrepresented minorities in technology. One such group is Latinas in Computing (LiC).
On Wednesday, I met with LiC Co-Founder Dr. Gilda Garreton, Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories (you can see Gilda’s blog on all things computing,mentoring,and family at http://blogs.sun.com/gilda/).
Gilda is a force in the computing community. Originally from Chile, she earned her doctorate at the Swiss Institute of Technology and has been with Sun Microsystems for the past five years, researching on VLSI CAD.
Gilda is outspoken about the barriers experienced by Latina technologists: “There are very few Latinas in technical roles. People in the tech industry sometimes have a predefined notion based on their experience outside the working environment, and therefore there is a tendency of assuming Latinas can’t be technologists, especially in advanced fields, research, and leadership positions. This is a perception that Lic is working to change. Also, Latinas experience significant work-family challenges because of cultural expectations around family responsibilities. Fortunately, Sun Microsystems Labs has been fantastic about flexibility.”
Gilda co-founded Latinas in Computing in 2006 with Drs. Cecilia Aragon and Dilma DaSilva. Dr. Cecilia Aragon, Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, is well-known for her research on visual interfaces and human-computer interaction. She was recently named one of the Top 25 Women of 2009 by Hispanic Business Magazine. Dr.
Dilma DaSilva is a Research Staff Member at IBM TJ Watson Research Center, where she leads the Advanced Operating Systems team. Before joining IBM, Dilma was a Professor at University of Sao Paolo, Brazil.
At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2006, the three met and organized a “Birds-of-a-Feather” session for Latinas in Engineering – the energy and enthusiasm of the participants led to the realization that that there was a clear need for a community dedicated to technical Hispanic/Latina women. Since then, LiC has gone up to over 100 members from around the world – the group has a listserve, a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn. Group members will feature 7 papers and presentations at the 2009 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, with topics ranging from mentoring, motherhood, community empowerment through technology, and knowledge bases for biological research.
LiC has also formed formal partnerships with like-minded organizations, such as CAHSI,a consortium of universities dedicated to increasing enrollment and graduation of Hispanic and Latino students in Computing, and MentorNet,
the e-mentoring network for diversity in engineering and science.
Dr. Garreton says that the impact of LiC is so far twofold. First, students use LiC to break their feelings of isolation, express their concerns, and get mentoring. At the senior level, members talk about the glass ceiling around gender and race, and support each other’s efforts in career advancement. One of the most significant outcome is for the participants to realize that they are not alone in their experiences.
Efforts such as LiC are critical to increasing the representation of Hispanic/Latina women in computer science and engineering. If you have participated or know of other successful programs for underrepresented minorities in science and engineering, please share them here!
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
June 25, 2009
04:29 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I leave next Tuesday for a three week vacation in Turkey and Greece. Of course it is crazy busy getting ready, but
I am really looking forward to it. For
me, my productivity greatly increases if I have some down time, including being
disconnected.
At ABI we work with many corporations who strive for a more
diverse and productive workforce. Since
I regularly see how increased hours results in diminished productivity, I was
dismayed by some of the results from our recent study “Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women
in Technology”, where it is clear that many employees believe that vacation,
while provided, is discouraged. Some of
the comments we heard include
“Now, I find very guilty in saying I want
vacation. In this role and especially working part-time, I find it very
hard to even tell my boss that this is what I'm expecting to do and this is
what I want to do. I think, you know, I can be equally productive, probably
happier if I get that time off. I don't think he would say no, either,
but there's just definitely a mentality. People around you, they don’t
take time off.” – mid-level technical woman
“I don’t think it’s the nature
of the work. I think it’s the way the culture has grown up because I’ve
actually seen the work. I’ve been able to help people balance their lives
a little more and the quality of their work didn’t suffer as a result of
it. It’s mostly and it was true of me when I was much younger there was
kind of a hero mindset that if you’re working a lot of hours and you’re somehow
doing something wonderful. Basically if you’re social life and your work
life are the same then being at work all the time is fine because they’re your
friends.” – high level technical man
I understand from recent data that many people are being
forced to take vacations, and it is causing them economic challenges, and I realize
that for many men and women, their pay check supports their family, and they
are compelled to work as much as possible.
But in the high tech industry, I’ve seen many people work the hours
because they felt that they had to do it to be successful at their
company. Often they leave because that
kind of success is not what they want.
Many women pay dearly financially to have life flexibility.
I believe that a vacation provides clean and open space in
the brain where creativity can emerge. I
know for me that time where I am unconnected is more beneficial to my ability
to do my job than any other choice I make.
For colleagues that truly disconnect, I see the positive difference it
makes in their contributions. I believe
in vacation. I also see that enlightened
managers do too.
I am looking forward to the change of scenery, and the new
ideas that I know will come. Yes, I am
taking a blackberry, but my staff knows to send only high priority items. I know how valuable this is for me and for
the organization, regardless of what the pundits say.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
June 19, 2009
05:39 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Last week, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology released a report on underrepresented minorities in the high-tech industry. In the report, I present the results of our survey of seven high-tech companies in Silicon Valley as they pertain to underrepresented minorities. We find that only 6.8% of technical employees in these companies are underrepresented.
What do we mean by “underrepresented minority”? The accepted definition of “underrepresented minorities” from the National Science Foundation and other major research institutions focuses on racial and ethnic groups whose representation in a profession is significantly below their representation in the general population. For the US, this includes African American/black, Hispanic American/Latino, and Native American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. While any non-majority group in the workplace is a “minority”, they are not considered to be “underrepresented” unless their race/ethnic representation in the general population is higher than their representation in the profession.
We find 6.8% technical employees who are from underrepresented backgrounds, with the following breakdowns (some individuals identify as multi-racial):
African American/Black: 1.8%
Native American: 1.3%
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.6%
Hispanic/Latino: 3.7%
Considering that underrepresented minorities represent 27% of the US population, 6.8% in technical positions in this Silicon Valley sample is indeed real underrepresentation. We find that Hispanic, African-American and Native women suffer from a double dose of underrepresentation due to race and gender, and are especially absent from the higher levels of the technical ladder.
More disturbingly, we find that 51% of underrepresented women and 34% of underrepresented minority men are looking to leave their employers. Other research from the Level Playing Field Institute has shown that men and women of color were more likely to cite unfairness as a reason for leaving their employer.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
June 11, 2009
05:58 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Recently I had the chance to speak with several people at Intuit, including Jennifer Hall, their VP of Human Resources, as well as Kris Halvorsen, their Chief Innovation Officer. The reason we spoke was that I’ve been very impressed with Intuit’s culture, and their ability to retain technical women, and wanted to learn more. What Jennifer told me is that “Intuit is forever focused on a culture where all employees want to work.” She believes that Intuit values diversity, values collaboration, and creates an environment for the employees, while still focusing on results.
Not surprisingly, a disconnect I’ve seen with many companies is the disconnect between policies and practice. Both Jennifer and Kris talked about the commitment to flexibility, and that it came from the top. The organizational leadership is committed to flexibility. Intuit also has strong technical leaders who serve as role models, including Nora Denzel, a member of the Anita Borg Institute Board of Trustees.
Intuit recognizes the need for flexibility and career development. There are women in many positions, including senior technical positions, who work part time. One of the results from our study last year is that women want to make technical contributions, even if they are working part time.
Intuit has also developed a robust women’s network. Women’s networks are a common tool for the companies we work with. One of the best indicators of success is the commitment of the organization to supporting these women’s network, with money and leadership support. Intuit often brings women from this network to ABI’s events including Women of Vision and the Grace Hopper Celebration. There is nothing more powerful than several tables of women at the Women of Vision Awards enjoying the event and swapping stories.
We also discussed how important the partnership is between R&D and HR. The leadership development program for technical leaders comes from the technical workforce, and all too often these two functions are managed completely separately.
Intuit holds regular diversity events, often hosted by multiple employee networks, e.g. black history month, or co-sponsored women’s network and gay and lesbian networks. The individual networks are important, but cross pollination between networks is key to the organizations’ success. For each of these events, there is strong executive presence.
In these challenging times, culture is increasingly important. Intuit should be proud of its approach.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 26, 2009
03:22 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Ask a woman working in technology (most likely in a
dual-career couple), if she has found “work-life balance” yet and she will laugh
at you. As I look around for practical solutions to this issue and see that
some “tips” to achieve balance recommend “leaving your job/career,” it is clear
to me that progress has been slow on this one.
One
of the biggest problems with work-family issues is this notion of “balance.” As
a culture, we frame work and family as opposite ideals. This pressure hits
women at the mid level especially. The conflict happens when demands of family
life are incompatible with the demands of work life, often forcing women to
leave the workforce entirely in an “all or nothing” proposition. Mid-level is
also where work-life issues more likely leads to more difficulty in career
growth. There, there is a double push on career women as their time compete
betweens two competing ideal-types of “ideal mother and family caregiver” and “devoted
worker/career woman” (see the book “Competing
Devotions” for more on those conflicting demands). What does this lead to? Feeling
guilty for not being at home when you are at work, and feeling guilty for not working
when you are at home. A no-win situation.
It’s time to reframe the discussion. “Balance” is a misnomer –
it implies that there is a perfect equilibrium somewhere in there to be
attained – an equilibrium that is static and set in stone, with women
themselves being at fault for not finding this elusive “balance.” There is
nothing to be won in framing the issue in those terms. Also, the term “work-life
balance” has been squarely framed as a woman’s issue, yet men in dual-career couples
face similar challenges. This dual-earning situation represents the majority of
the population: the US Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that 71% of US mothers
are employed, 51% of US families are in dual-earning couples, and that the
proportion of married-couple families in which only the husband works is at 19.8%
(there is a dearth of data on unmarried partners and same-sex couples in the
workforce).
- The
first tip, then, is to stop seeing “work” and “life” as separate things. This
distinction is artificial. Family and work are both life and are both
important. As high-tech work has globalized itself, the boundaries between
work and family have eroded (blackberries in bed anyone?), making it outdated
to see them as separate spheres.
- Let go
of the guilt. This one can be tough for some, due to the unrealistic societal
expectations outlined above. That means that we can acknowledge what we
accomplished at the end of the day and let go of the rest.
- Develop
a NOT to do list. Jo Miller, CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching
and an expert on leadership development and advancement for women, argues
that the myth of the “superwoman” leads to burn out. Miller says that: “‘Shoulds’
are goals we set ourselves that in actuality don't add much value to our
lives. So we resist doing them, but with a level of guilt. For example: ‘I
should be more active in the PTA. I should invite neighbors to dinner. I
should clean out the garage.’ The antidote to Shoulds is the not-to-do
list, a declaration that you have permission to not do those tasks.” In
her workshops, Miller leads women in developing that “NOT to do list,”
deciding on the things they will let go so they can focus on their most
important work and family priorities. (for example: I will NOT clean, bake,
take phone meetings before 8am, etc.). For a great example on how that discipline
can significantly help, read this Fast
Company article about Sophie Vandebroek, CTO of Xerox and single-mom
of three children, where she details the strict discipline and boundaries
she has set on what she will and will not do, both at work and at home.
- Develop
a support network. Most dual-career couples live away from their extended
families and cannot rely on a mother or other family member to step in for
emergencies. Developing alternative support networks is critical. One of
my friends and working mother of three recently simultaneously broke her
ankle (no more driving for 8 weeks) and also had to fly out urgently to be
with her mother who was dying. Within days a group of about 7 of us men
and women friends created a spreadsheet to schedule playdates for her
children outside school hours and pooled resources to have meals delivered
at her home. It took very little of our time since we each took a very
small part, and the group is ready to respond to the next crisis. Extend
your support network both at work and in your community.
- Move
away from viewing the problem as a woman’s problem - this is a problem facing
partners in a family. In their book, “Getting to 50/50,” Joanna
Strober and Sharon Meers argue for reframing the discussion from “I” to
“we”, where work and family matters are an issue facing both men and women
in partnerships.
- Keep
in mind that the best companies and managers are those who acknowledge
that family responsibilities are a part of life, as are work
responsibilities, and that those responsibilities pertain to both men and
women.
Perhaps instead of balance, we can acknowledge that the
issue is the socio-demographic reality of dual-career couples – representing the
largest proportion of the workforce.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 21, 2009
05:43 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Balancing work and life –how
do you do it? This is a common question
from many technical women. At times, it
seems daunting, as we look at the demands from our many commitments. Yes, it is really important to me to be
making contributions to the innovation of my field, my organization, or my
project. And yes, my life partner, child
and cause are also very important. How do I do it all?
I believe that you can have it all….just not at the same
time. The most important decision you
can make is what are the most important priorities today. Here are a couple of stories of women who
have solutions, at least for the moment.
For many technical people, especially women with kids, they
create the second shift. I have a friend
who works at a large high tech company in software development. She has two children, and believes that it
is really important to spend time with them attending her daughter’s soccer
games and piano lesson, and her son’s cello lesson. Her husband takes the kids to school in the
morning, allowing her to go in to work early.
She leaves the office at 3:00 pm most days, but then logs on in the
evening after the kids are in bed. In
her case, the early morning time is great interrupted thinking time, and her
evening hours allow her to respond to her international colleagues in a timely
fashion. She also makes sure that her code
contributions are significant and address the specific needs of her project
leader. What makes this approach work
is the commitment of her organizational leadership to schedule most meetings
between 9 am – 4pm daily. One of
the consequences of her choices is that she has prioritized her technical contributions
and her family above her other social connections. She rarely has time to have dinner with
friends during the week.
What if your job isn’t this flexible? Sometimes I think the answer is to change
jobs. I find myself impatient with
companies that don’t realize that time flexibility for their employees, both
men and women, is extremely important. But
I realize that leaving a particular job isn’t always an acceptable option. However, many times there is more flexibility
than you realize – ask for what you want. For some of the youngest high tech companies,
their workforce is very young. It has
been a startling development for one company in particular when their young
technical workforce starting having babies.
It is my experience that many of these young people – men and women –
are demanding flexibility, and getting it.
I realize how scary it can be to ask your manager for a change in hours,
but a well constructed arguments that gets to the heart of their own
development goals, is often successful.
For example, I recently met with a software manager who was completely
oblivious to the fact that his best developer (a woman) was deeply unhappy with
their weekly 5pm, 2 hour staff meeting.
For him, it made sense because it was right before the dinner the
company brought in every Thursday, and allowed them to celebrate their
accomplishments for the week. When she
gave her notice, she told him that the schedule didn’t work for her. In fact, when he asked his team, it didn’t
work for 6 of the 8 team members. He
was able to get her stay, but it would have been much better if she had brought
this issue up months before, especially since she knew that her team mates
weren’t happy with the weekly meeting.
Balance is a challenge, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be such a
common topic at every years Grace Hopper conference. But I believe that there is many more choices
than most of us believe, if you consider what is most important to you, and
ask.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
May 8, 2009
12:35 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In my last blog post, I highlighted the different family configurations
between men and women working in high-technology – namely, 82% of technical women
report that their partner works full time, compared to 37% of technical men,
and a majority of women are partnered with someone working in high-tech as
well.
This creates the need for flexibility. Now, “flexibility” is
probably one of the most over-used buzz words when it comes to talking about the
retention of women in US corporations. It is thrown around a lot, and yet ill
defined. It is often used in the context of “flexible work” to refer to
part-time work arrangements, and usually it is thrown around as a solution for “work-life
balance” specifically for women. It is often viewed as a “special arrangement” or
a “perk,” a concession that a company makes for an employee. However, we are doing ourselves a disservice
by framing flexibility as a women’s issue and an exceptional “perk.”
Would you build an inflexible technology system? Consider
the following engineering definition of flexibility from
Wikipedia.
“In the context
of engineering design one can define flexibility as the ability of a system to respond to potential internal or external
changes affecting its value delivery, in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Thus, flexibility for an engineering system is the ease with which the system
can respond to uncertainty in a manner
to sustain or increase its value delivery. It should be noted that
uncertainty is a key element in the definition of flexibility.”
Where flexibility is necessary to the success of technology systems,
it is necessary to the success of human systems:
- There
is ongoing and significant uncertainty built in any human system (just
like engineering systems), leading to all employees experiencing variable
demands on their time from their families – in the form of sickness, closed
schools, spousal travel, elderly parents, divorce, sick children, etc.
- In
order to deliver technology products and services and maximize return on
investment for the company, managers must build in flexibility in the way
they allocate the workflow of their employees.
- This
flexibility will enable teams to respond to uncertainty and meet their business
goals.
- Since
technical employees deeply care about flexibility, our organization will be
able to attract and retain top talent.
Flexibility is a business imperative that has been
demonstrated to positively impact the bottom line:
-
Recruitment and Retention benefits
o Our
own Research
shows that 78% of technical men and 83% rate flexibility as very or highly
important to them, second only to the basics of healthcare and financial rewards.
Companies that take flexibility seriously will thus be able to attract and
retain technical talent.
-
Other case studies have shows that flexibility increases
retention – for example, IBM, in a global survey of 42,000 employees, found that
flexibility is a top contributor to retention. Difficulties around work-life balance
were found to be the second top reason for intending to leave the company
(again, only second to dissatisfaction around financial rewards)
-
Reduced absenteeism
One
study of flexible work practices by researchers Dalton and Mesch in Administrative Science
Quarterly found that the introduction of flexible schedules led to higher
employee satisfaction and reduced absenteeism. When the organization removed
the flexibility schedules, absenteeism and satisfaction rates went back to what
they were before.
-
Flexibility is a two-way street: global human capital
management
Globalization is putting increased demands on today’s
workforce for shifting and unpredictable schedules, and an appropriate
implementation of flexible practices is critical to companies’ ability to meet these
new demands. In The Global
Human Capital Study, CEOs defined “adaptability” as a critical feature of the
new human capital model. Companies that can quickly deploy talent with the
right skills to specific problems need workers who are adaptable and flexible –
and this flexibility mindset needs to be reflected in organizational practices.
While flexibility practices take many forms, such as part-time
options, compressed work weeks, telecommuting, or the newer on-ramps and
offramps, a company doesn’t need to implement complex changes to experience the
wins of flexibility. Incorporating a flexibility “mindset” can be very effective
even if informally. Some critical components of fostering a flexibility mindset
include:
-
Integrate flexibility with business strategy – consider
which projects, times, or tasks are conducive to flexibility.
-
Understanding how flexibility is valued by your
employees – understanding employee needs around flexibility is critical to implementing
the right solution.
-
Executive buy-in and modeling – in order to send a
signal that formal or informal flexibility is an accepted business practice, executives
need to engage in it where possible.
-
Making sure evaluation and promotion practices are
aligned with flexibility mindset – this requires ensuring that there is no evaluation
penalty associated with flexibility.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
