Women represent only one-third of tech teams: Report

Women comprise only one-third of all tech teams and a majority of women believe that there is a hiring bias for technology-related roles and also only 2% of women being promoted to leadership roles.

According to a report 'Women in Technology 2018: Breaking Gender Barriers', published by Innovation management and talent assessment company HackerEarth on Monday, there is a stark disparity in the number of women employed by the organisation of all sizes.

The report says that most women at these organisations experience a stagger in their career growth, with only 2% being promoted to leadership roles. Of the 1,000 women surveyed from 35 countries, 72% of them are currently working as software developers and with roles such as Product designers, QA developers, System Admins, and Engineering Managers were in the minority. Almost 80% of the women are working full-time or part-time, but 53% are seeking new roles, while only 11% said that they wouldn’t consider a new offer.

Developers from Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America participated in the survey, where they were asked about their background, career, hiring experience and employee satisfaction.

The objective of the report is to raise awareness on the issue of biased recruitments and to highlight the ways in which organisations can hire and retain more women in technology-based roles. About 84% of the respondents are under 30 and belong to various ethnicities.

The report also showed that there is a high attrition rate among women developers in most companies. Most respondents had an average tenure of only 0-2 years, while only 5.3% choose to stay at the same organisation for more than 8 years. HackerEarth has also created a job satisfaction index which shows that 48% of the respondents surveyed are satisfied to an extent in their current jobs. Almost 69% of the women stated that the reason they would consider moving to a new job is to work with emerging tech, 63% would choose a higher paycheck and almost 48% would move to a new job offering flexible hours.

Vivek Prakash, CTO and Co-Founder, HackerEarth said, “The findings of this report highlights why there is so much disparity when it comes to female developers. While the number of women graduating in CS has been on a steady rise, when it comes to career growth, the numbers are staggeringly low. Implementing policies to support women in the workplace and providing them with training and resources will help reduce the high attrition rates we have observed amongst women technologists."

Growth opportunities, better work-life balance, opportunity to work on exciting new technologies, flexibility, better compensation and adequate training are some of the factors that encourage women to continue their career in technology, the report pointed out, adding installing worker-friendly policies, child care services and flexible schedules can help women rise to better positions.

While only 19% of the respondents cite that their organisations were “not at all family-friendly”, more than 50% said that their organisations had some policies that are family oriented. About 81% of the respondents also felt that their organisations valued their opinion and 71% responded that their employers provided adequate opportunities for women looking to rejoin the workforce after a long break.