Too Few Women in IT: Now What?!

Lucy Sanders: CEO, National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)!Deborah Keyek-Franssen: Director of Academic Technology, University of Colorado at Boulder; Co-director, Colorado Coalition for Gender and IT (CCGIT)!

EDUCAUSE 2012 :: Friday, November 9"

Women in IT: Why Do They Matter?"

Women’s participation …"

"

»  Reflects the user base"»  Enhances innovation, creativity"»  Expands the qualified talent pool "»  Benefits the bottom line"

Women Reflect the User Base"»  Women compose +50%

of college students!!»  Women compose +50%

of higher ed faculty and staff!

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data, 2011. NCES: Employees in degree-granting institutions, by sex, employment status, control and level of institution, and primary occupation: Selected years, fall 1989

through fall 2009. !

Women Enhance Innovation"“There’s little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members. But if a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.”!

Source: “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science October 2010, Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi and Thomas W. Malone!

Women Expand the Talent Pool"

"We simply cannot afford to alienate large chunks of the workforce. It is a widely understood truth that the single biggest challenge is attracting the right people …" "to literally handicap yourself by 50 percent is insanity.”""- Dan Shapiro, Google!

Women Benefit the Bottom Line"Gender diversity yields:!!»  Better, faster problem-

solving!»  More experimental,

more efficient teams!»  Higher return on

investment

Sources: Workplace Diversity Pays, American Sociological Review (2009), Capitalizing on Thought Diversity, Research-Technology Management (2009), The Difference, Scott Page (2007), Innovative Potential, London Business School

(2007), The Bottom Line, Catalyst (2004)!

Women in Higher Ed IT: The Numbers"

Sources: Brown, Wayne: “Study of the Higher Education Chief Information Officer Roles and Effectiveness,” Center for Higher Education Chief Information Officer Studies, Inc. (CHECS), 2011; Bureau of Labor Current Population Survey, 2011;

Bloomberg Businessweek, October 2012.!

Percent of higher education “Technology Leader” positions held by women"37"

Percent of higher education CIOs who are women"23"

University of Colorado: The Numbers"Percent of women in the central IT shop"

Percent of women in Help Desk, TCOM, AT"

22"

Percent of women in PMO, Ops, Tier 2/3"

9"

9"

Percent of women in non-technical support positions"

4"

Women in Higher Ed IT Are Declining"

Percent of female CIOs aged 41-45 who plan to retire in next decade"20"

Source: Brown, Wayne: “Study of the Higher Education Chief Information Officer Roles and Effectiveness,” Center for Higher Education Chief Information Officer Studies, Inc. (CHECS), 2011.!

Percent of male CIOs aged 41-45 who plan to retire in next decade"7"

Women Who Could Lead … Don’t"

Source: Brown, Wayne: “Study of the Higher Education Chief Information Officer Roles and Effectiveness,” Center for Higher Education Chief Information Officer Studies, Inc. (CHECS), 2011.!

Percent of female Technology Leaders who aspire to be CIO"48"

Percent of male Technology Leaders who aspire to be CIO"68"

The Double Challenge for Women"

Source: “Women Technology Leaders: Gender Issues in Higher Education Information Technology,” NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 2011.!

“As higher education institutions continue to be dominated by male leadership and male hegemonies, women pursuing careers in academic leadership roles find themselves disadvantaged.”""“Women similarly find themselves disadvantaged as they pursue technical or leadership roles in IT organizations.”

The Lack of Women Matters More Now Because IT Matters More Now"

»  Schools increasingly look to IT to provide competitive services, reduce costs, solve problems!

»  Technology occupations are growing faster than the norm!

»  The talent pipeline for IT jobs is falling short!»  Women are a mostly untapped talent pool!

So: Why So Few Women?"

Source: “Women Technology Leaders: Gender Issues in Higher Education Information Technology,” NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 2011.!

è Unconscious bias"è Lack of mentors and professional development"è Supervisory relationships"è Bias in performance reviews and promotion"è Lack of support for competing life responsibilities"

Unconscious Bias Starts in Society"

Unconscious Bias: What Is It?"

“Schemas” help us make sense of the world, but they also cause us to misinterpret, leading to bias. !

"

"

What Do You See In This Picture?"

Unconscious Bias Salient in Orgs Dominated by a Single Group"

Society

Employees

Organizational Culture

Subtle Dynamics

Institutional Barriers Schemas/

Unconscious Biases

Subtle Dynamics: What Are They?" Ex 1: Stereotype Threat Fear of confirming a negative stereotype Ex 2: Micro-inequities Being singled out, ignored, or discounted based on race or gender

Example: White male engineering students

score lower when told in advance that Asians

typically score higher on math tests

Source: Aronson, et al., 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1998!

Bias: Stereotype Threat"

How Stereotype Threat Can Impact Women"

»  Don’t speak up in meetings!

»  Reluctant to take leadership positions !

»  Discount their performance!

Bias: Micro-inequities"

»  Slights!

»  Unacknowledged accomplishments!

»  Isolation and lack of networks!

»  Exclusion!

Institutional Barriers: What Are They?"Hiring Selecting people “like me” Task Assignment Women in “low status” jobs Performance Appraisal Men – effort, individual & technical skill Women – luck, strength of team, collaboration, easy assignments Promotion Criteria modeled implicitly on existing senior male leaders

John Doe Jane Doe

Bias in Performance Appraisal"Both male and female scientists gave the male candidate better assessments, said they would be more likely to hire the male candidate, and offered the male candidate a higher salary. !"" Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, and Handelsman: "Science faculty’s subtle gender biases

favor male students," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012. 109: 16474-16479. !

When orchestras began “blind” auditions with musicians behind a curtain (and asked candidates to remove their shoes), it increased by 50 percent the probability that women would advance out of preliminary rounds.!

Hires of female musicians increased by 25-46 percent. !!

Goldin & Rouse (2000) The American Economic Review, 90(4), 715-741.!

Bias in Hiring"

Organizations Influence and Reinforce Bias"

Organizational biases reflect external and internal culture""We perpetuate the status quo when nothing in the situation forces us to question our assumptions"

So: How Do We Fix This?"

➔  Establish accountability metrics!

➔  Train supervisors!

➔  Remove bias from performance appraisal processes!

➔  Model personal engagement, sponsorship

➔  Foster inclusive team meetings and culture!

➔  Provide recognition, credit, encouragement!

Concrete Steps to Increase Women’s Participation"

»  Examine task assignment and performance reviews for bias"

»  *Sponsor* underrepresented groups on the technical career path (note that this is not the same as mentoring)"

»  Examine your actions for self-limiting behaviors or beliefs"

»  Provide encouragement"

What to Do When You Get Home"

NCWIT Can Help"

è Supervisory Program-in-a-Box Series!

è Mentoring Technical Women Program-in-a-Box!

è Top Ten Ways to Be a Male Advocate for Technical Women!

è Top 10 Ways Managers Can Increase the Visibility of Technical Women!

NCWIT Research-backed Resources"

Boxes"Practices" Talking Points" Workbooks" Top Ten" Reports"

More Free NCWIT Resources"

"At a university, people learn from each other. !“Diverse groups of people bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it.!!“I'm not making political statements …These are mathematical results.”!!- Scott E. Page!

What Are YOU Going to Do When You Get Home?"