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In recent years, Silicon Valley and the tech industry, in general, have been getting bad press for their sexist “bro-culture” and lack of gender diversity. According to a new study, they still are not making much progress in addressing those problems. A close look at their mistakes sheds light on how other business leaders can do better.
The numbers tell a sobering story about the status of women in tech. While women make up 59% of the total workforce, they account for only 30% in major tech companies. That figure is even worse when you consider it includes both tech and non-tech jobs. At Google, Facebook, and Twitter, women hold less than 20% of tech jobs.
As one summary of the history of women in tech states, “The tech industry’s male bent was by no means preordained.” In fact, women played a major role in tech’s early development. The team that developed the U.S. military’s first computer was half women. A woman led Apollo 11’s coding team. In 1984, 36% of computer science majors were women. That figure has dropped to 18% today, while 80% of software engineers are men.
The problem with focusing on individuals
Where did tech go wrong? Emily Chang ably tells the story of how women went from "pioneers to outsiders" in Silicon Valley in her recent book Brotopia. New research summarized in the Harvard Business Review looks at why, despite a public commitment to gender equity, tech continues to get it wrong.
A major problem, says the study’s author, Alison Wynn, is a focus on the individual as the unit of change. Gender equality initiatives tend to be organized around unconscious bias training (training men to limit bias in hiring and promotion decisions), and mentorship programs (training women to be more assertive and proactive). In the absence of significant organizational change, both approaches can be ineffective or even backfire.
Unconscious bias is stubborn, and making a conscious effort to suppress it has mixed results. Iris Bohnet of Harvard’s Kennedy School explored the limitations of bias training in her book What Works. Other research at Harvard has shown that women who aggressively negotiate for raises or advancement are often “penalized” for doing so.
Instead, focus on organization and culture
“Bias is built into our practices and procedures, not just our minds,” says Bohnet. Her book explores a variety of ways that companies can tweak the processes by which they identify, develop, and promote talent. The common theme of her recommendations is transparency and clearly defined criteria.
Wynn also recommends an organizational strategy for creating gender equality. The individualistic approach, she says, tends to focus on teaching women to fit the existing mold—instead of raising tough questions about whether the mold itself needs to be changed.
Be transparent with hiring and promotion
Wynn and other researchers agree that a great deal of progress could be made simply by introducing transparency and clarity into hiring and evaluation policies. While managers often prefer the freedom of unstructured interviews, studies show that structured interviews—built around targeted job-related questions and tests—produce superior results. They are better at predicting high performance and less subject to unconscious bias. Open-ended interviews open the door to bias.
Similarly, researchers at Stanford have found that ambiguous standards for performance evaluations lead to a disadvantage for women. Without structure, evaluators are more likely to rely on gender, race, and other stereotypes. By contrast, when evaluation criteria are clear, transparent, and measurable, women can compete on a more level playing field.
Change starts at the top, but shouldn’t stop there
A new McKinsey study on Women in the Workplace notes that American and Canadian companies have made considerable progress at the very top—both in diversity and attitudes toward gender equity. The number of companies with three or more C-suite women has risen from 29% to 44% over the five years of the study. Over 70% of senior leaders say gender diversity is a top priority.
Unfortunately, however, that progress does not always make its way down to middle and front-line management. While women’s representation has improved considerably at the level of senior management, it has stalled at lower levels. Moreover, middle managers report a lower commitment to gender diversity.
The problem, the study concludes, is a “broken rung” at the bottom of the ladder. For every 100 men hired for their first management position, only 72 women are given the same opportunity. As a result, in the 600 companies studied, men hold 62% of manager-level positions to women’s 38%—almost a two-to-one advantage.
“So even as hiring and promotion rates improve for women at senior levels,” the authors state, “women as a whole can never catch up. There are too few women to advance.”
The lesson for business leaders is clear: closing the gender gap will never happen unless companies embrace change at every level of the organization. A commitment to diversity and inclusion must involve reforming culture, as well as practices and procedures, with a particular focus on hiring and promotion. In the future, companies on the cutting edge of diversity will also be the companies on the cutting edge of innovation.
