Earlier this year we released the 2024 Gender Diversity in the Australian IT Market report.
Looking at statistics over the years to the current report, we read an interesting, if somewhat alarming tale for representation of women in executive leadership roles. The numbers saw a significant decline for the first time, after remaining steady for over a decade. With women occupying at least 20% of executive leadership roles in IT, and up to 25% in 2019, we saw that number fall to 15% in 2022. This dipped to under 14.5% in 2023, with a slight increase in 2024 to 15.75%.
This sharp decline of 40% between 2019 and 2024 can be attributed to the consequences of the pandemic. McKinsey insights calculate that women’s jobs were 1.8 times more vulnerable during the pandemic than men’s. However, we are hopeful that these numbers will begin to climb again as changes in working conditions over the past four years have introduced a more flexible approach to full-time work. This, in turn, has granted women the ability to achieve improved work/life balance. Hybrid and remote working models have allowed a shift in the traditional approach of women’s career choices; which were to work and place their children in daycare, or stay at home.
So how do we work towards ensuring a steady pipeline of talent is available at executive level?
Setting effective diversity goals is the first place to start.
Set Up Your Project Team
This team should be an assembly of representative who are passionate advocates, and those that can influence and control the outcome such as hiring decisions. Ensure the group is well represented with HR, staff and managers within the business. However, you must have the support and the right executive sponsorship to ensure that discussions turn into plans that turn into action.
Define a Specific Target Group
Set smaller targets that make up your larger goal. Don’t attempt to tackle all areas of diversity in one go. Begin with a smaller, achievable goal. If your goal is gender diversity overall, your target group could be women in IT team management roles. Once you have success within the smaller target group, this helps you develop a framework that you can successively apply across the organisation.
Review Your Data
Your employee and recruitment data is extremely valuable and can provide practical insights about turnover and hiring trends. Valid data ensures you are focusing on the right outcome. For example, if your target is to increase representation of women in your cyber security team your data should tell you where to focus along the hiring process. If only you are interviewing ten candidates and only one of those candidates is a woman, you may focus on the recruitment attraction and selection process. Another area of focus may be your retention efforts and team culture, if the attrition rate of women in your cyber security team is higher than the organisation’s average.
SWOT Analysis – Tried and True
To understand what the available resources and current barriers to achieving your goals are, a SWOT analysis is a great place to start. You can map out what is working for your organisation and what your strengths are in achieving your diversity goals. You may have strong support from your leadership team, partnering with great diversity specialists, or initiatives that are already working.
To minimise weaknesses and how these may be preventing you from achieving your goals, you may consider any gaps that you find in:
- Your EVP
- Training and development
- Organisational culture and systems
- Attraction and retention strategies
- Hiring processes
- Flexibility
- Role design
- Leadership and management
- Embedded behaviours and attitudes
- Unconscious bias
From here you will easily be able to identify any opportunities and threats.
Establish Timeframes
Most organisation require five years to see any significant shift in gender diversity, according to WGEA studies. So you need to be realistic with your timeframes and allow your goals time to succeed before throwing in the towel. Monitor and set achievable timeframes for smaller, supporting initiatives as seeing progress will motivate you to continue.
Be Accountable
Reporting on progress towards your goals provides visibility and embeds accountability. Consider aligning diversity goals to individual KPIs – just as you would with other business objectives. You may like to provide a forum for managers responsible for driving the change to share successes and opportunities for improvement.
The entrenched attitude of “best person for the job” can only change if things change. Traditionally, the best person for the job is the person who has been given all of the opportunities to prove they are the best person for the job. This meritocracy approach impedes all diversity strategies and precludes any sustainable changes up the chain. Targets need to be set and space must be carved out, up to Board level, for those representing minority cohorts.
Use your data. Your analysis of the valuable information you already have can guide what is right for your organisation. Start small if you need to. Consult broadly and share your progress. Draw upon the expertise of diversity champions to help you achieve your goals. Lean on your partners and professional services providers to support your DEI initiatives.
INDEX, understands the benefits of a diverse workforce. We are well-equipped to assist you in realising the commercial benefits of strategically enhancing gender diversity within your teams.
