With award season approaching, nominations have been announced for this year’s CRN Women in Channel Awards and Women in Tech Excellence Awards, the topic of diversity in Tech and the IT Channel is ever more present in our minds. Celebrating women and their achievements across the industry is hugely important for many reasons like awareness and confidence. However perhaps most importantly, it keeps a conversation going, which is essential if we are to truly achieve equality in the workplace.
Progress to be Made
It’s no secret that STEM has a while to go when it comes to diversity. What’s more, the Tech industry has been widely criticised for making little improvement in recent years when it comes to increasing not only the percentage of women in the industry but the percentage of women in leadership roles. Unfortunately, this still seems to be the case as in 2020, over 80% of the Tech workforce were male. In fact, the proportion of men and women appointed as directors has remained largely the same since the beginning of the century! Is this arguably an issue that is being driven from the top of companies?
There is also much improvement to be made for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Representation is as low as 15% and there is a significant pay gap for the the few who do work in the industry. It was found that Black employees were earning 25% less than their white colleagues.
Universally Beneficial
Simply put, this is a moral issue and every human regardless of gender, skin colour, sexuality or disability is entitled to fair and equal treatment. However it is also widely proven that a diverse workforce is hugely beneficial. Diversity in the workplace increases creativity and innovation, something hugely logical when you consider that it involves bringing people together with different experience, backgrounds and therefore skills! If implementing successfully, a diverse culture, can increase collaboration, productivity and overall employee satisfaction. Needless to say that the above results lead to many more positive outcomes, which begs the question; why are businesses not making more of an effort to diversify their workplace?
Tackling the Issue
If there’s anything we’ve learnt in the past year, it’s that we have to continue to have these difficult conversations. Encouraging open and honest communication will be key to achieving diversity. Computer Weekly found that over 20% of tech employees are hesitant to bring up the subject. Diversity is a topic that everyone should be discussing, not just those affected by the lack of it.
In 2019, Cameo launched Project One, an initiative focussed on people and culture, with the simple aim of creating a nicer workplace. This has helped create an open environment which encourages collaboration and creates the opportunity to learn from each other. We’ve been working hard to improve our own stats and make a difference in the industry. Our mission is to prove you do not need to look or be a certain way to work in Tech. We are making strides forward, with our female representation now at 35%. We’re not perfect, but we won’t stop until we have shown that Tech truly is for all.
Click the below links to read more about the topics discussed in this blog:
https://www.diversityintech.co.uk/how-to-achieve-diversity-in-tech
https://technation.io/insights/diversity-and-inclusion-in-uk-tech-companies/