Balancing big ambition with a healthy dose of pragmatism – how to make real progress on gender equality goals
Throughout my career, I’ve learned that ambition isn’t worth anything without ideas that work in practice. That’s true for all facets of our business, from our products to our people.
When it comes to gender equality, I’ve seen the tech sector make great strides and I’m proud of the more diverse sector we work in today. But the fact remains that only 26% of the UK’s tech sector workforce is female and the sector’s gender pay gap stands at 16%, higher than the UK national average of 11.6%. There’s no room for complacency.
According to the UN, 75% of all jobs will be related to STEM areas by 2050, which provides a daunting challenge. It’s not a surprise that the UN’s theme for this year’s International Women’s Day - DigitALL - highlighted the significance of women in the tech sector and the work we must do to ensure better gender equality.
There are steps we can take now to address issues such as the gender pay gap to encourage more gender equality in tech. At Vodafone UK, we’ve been able to reduce the mean gender pay gap from 12% in 2020 to 10.4% in 2022, driven by programmes aimed at the recruitment and support of women in the workplace.
To make tangible progress, we need to place more emphasis on three areas:
Learn early on
Attracting the best talent and inspiring young women to consider careers in tech often starts at the beginning of their career, or earlier when they are still in education. To ensure we attract a diverse workforce, it’s important that everyone knows about the various paths into a career in tech and the opportunities it gives employees. For example, our apprenticeship programmes have proved successful to enlightening students to the roles and opportunities available to gain valuable skills and experience in a real-world business environment. To achieve greater equality in the sector, we need to make sure that young people are aware of their potential career paths in tech and excite them about their career prospects.
Empower future leaders
Female representation at the top of tech remains low; research shows women occupy less than one-fifth of the positions on tech company boards. It’s a complex challenge, but if we want to retain talent, we need to create an environment where visible career progression is apparent for women. That’s why we have an ambition for 40% of senior leadership team positions to be held by women by 2030, and I’m proud to say we reached 30% ahead of target in 2020.
To truly achieve equal representation, we need to ensure that women and men are offered equal opportunities when it comes to important life events outside of work, such as having children or becoming carers. We do this by offering 13 weeks’ full pay and a further 26 weeks’ half pay to women who take maternity leave. We also offer 16 weeks of fully paid leave to non-birthing parents and all new parents can work reduced hours for six months when they return to work. Our ReConnect programme supports talented people returning to the workplace after a career break with training, flexible working and a phased return to ease the transition and our Parental and Carer’s Leave Policy supports colleagues to fulfil their personal caring responsibilities.
Build an inclusive team
We need to continue to place human-centric leadership front-and-centre, so teams are encouraged to be themselves and progress no matter their race, gender, age, sexual orientation or socio-economic background.
To create a community of allyship, we recently launched the Gender Equality Network (UKGEN) at Vodafone UK. This group, which is open to all employee, provides a collective voice on topics such as gender equality, discrimination, or differentiation to encourage positive, sustainable change on difficult issues.
Being a strategist means looking ahead to the future, but also helping an organisation be the best it can be, now. For the tech industry to retain credibility as a trailblazer, we need to be relentless in our approach to achieving gender equality. From attracting the right talent, to upskilling and championing women at every stage of life – we need to set women up for success as tech leaders, so we can continue building technology that changes people’s lives.
techUK is marching forward to close the tech gender gap in 2023. Throughout March, coinciding with International Women’s Day (IWD 2023) on 8 March, we are exploring how we embrace equitable workplaces. The UN’s theme for IWD 2023 focuses on Digital for All or DigitALL, and we are proud to support this.
For more information, please visit our Women in Tech hub.
