Gender Equality in Tech: Top 3 Benefits of Employing More Women in Tech

2 years ago by Gravitas Recruitment Group
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This is the second article in a three-part series exploring gender equality in tech. In the first we explored the Causes of Under-represented Women in Tech, looking at the continued lack of women in tech and the main reasons behind it.

In this article we delve further into the data that shows it’s time for tech companies to rethink the importance of gender balance. Evidence suggests that better balance can:

Tackle the tech skills shortage
Improve staff retention
Create a better workplace culture
Improve problem solving and productivity.

Here are the top benefits of employing more women in the technology industry.

Improve problem-solving and increase revenue

According to Forbes, high gender-diverse companies can generate higher revenue on average, compared to less-diverse companies.

With recognised differences in the way they think and the strengths between women and men, it makes sense that bringing in better balance will result in improved innovation and problem-solving. This ultimately leads to the increased revenue demonstrated by more diverse organisations.

Moving up the career ladder and increased gender diversity within leadership, brings increased skill diversity in upper management and creates a better decision-making process, which then filters down into the company.

Involving more women in leadership not only encourages more collaboration across people in the business as they feel inspired by women role models, but it also gives female employees confidence to be involved during the decision-making processes. Again, this has a knock-on effect on revenue.

A study by BCG found companies with a proportion of 30% or more women in management positions resulted in a 15% increase in their profitability. Moreover, having one or more women on a company’s board or senior management, correlated with an increase in return on assets of 8 to 13 basis points. Incredibly, Fortune 500 companies with at least three women in leadership roles saw a significant increase of 66% in ROI.

Understand your customers better and build better tech products

By collaborating with professionals with different genders, background, ethics and sexual orientations, companies can create a dynamic culture to inspire creativity and increase their capability to understand the pain points of customers.

Nearly half of all consumers are women. In fact, based on a survey by HerMoney, 94% of women in relationships control the household finances, investments, and retirement planning in the UK. For B2C tech companies, hiring diversity will help create a realistic customer persona and market your products more effectively to your target customers.

To represent your customers further, it’s important to involve more women in the design and build of tech products too. A better gender balance can, in turn, introduce more balance into the build and decision-making process, to help to reduce bias.

Helps close the talent shortage in tech

As highlighted in another recent post, there is an ongoing significant tech talent shortage, with over 70% of employers experiencing tech skills shortages in the UK. With such gaps in talent, it is important to encourage as many people into the industry as possible.

A 2023 study by Mckinsey & Company, concluded that the answer to the European tech talent shortage was to recruit and retain women into all the fastest growing tech roles. Their analysis showed that if companies could push the number of women in their tech roles from 22% to 45% it would make up the estimated 3.9 million tech talent shortfall 2027, closing the tech talent gap.

Moreover, adding more women to the tech workforce would have a hugely positive impact at an education level, bringing in future tech talent. According to a PWC survey, the lack of female students in STEM education is impacted by the under-representation of females as role models in tech. In fact, 78% of students surveyed could not name a female working in the tech industry.

Therefore, to increase hiring diversity and close the talent shortages in tech, it is important to celebrate female leaders in tech to ensure young girls have strong female role models to look up to. Female leaders in tech can encourage girls to pursue their interest in tech, by visiting schools to educate them on the exciting career prospects in tech, becoming mentors for young people, and looking for opportunities to give others a stepping stone into tech, perhaps through apprenticeships.

Take action to improve your hiring strategy

As you can see, gender equality in tech is essential to not only business success but also closing the talent shortage. If you are interested in the topics of gender equality, read our series on ‘Gender Equality in Tech Sector’. In the next article, we will share useful tips for enhancing gender equality in the workplace.

If you are looking for help hiring the best talent and introducing more gender balance, contact our team todayto speak to one of our experts. We offer tailored hiring solutions to meet the specialist needs of tech businesses in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China.