Here is an excerpt from an article written by Sarah Fister Gale for Talent Management magazine. She suggests that increasing the number of women in STEM jobs requires companies to adjust their recruiting strategies and broader cultural norms. To read the complete article, check out all the resources, and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.
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Whenever a manager at business software giant SAP is considering a group of candidates for a position, at least one of them has to be a woman or minority.
And if that person isn’t hired for the job, the manager making the hiring decision has to defend the choice.
“We want them to hire the person for the job,” said Jenny Dearborn, SAP’s chief learning officer. “But they can’t just say, ‘I liked this guy more.’ They have to explain why they made that decision.”
The practice is part of SAP’s broader strategy to increase the number of women recruited into science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, roles. The company’s goal is to have 25 percent of its leadership team represented by women by 2017.
In particular, the defense process represents an effort to help the company uncover unconscious bias — a human trait many human resources experts say supports the gender imbalance in STEM jobs. A 2013 U.S. Census Bureau report showed that men are hired at twice the rate of women for STEM roles, and a Global STEM Alliance report released in late January 2015 found that women still represent less than 30 percent of the world’s science researchers.
Despite these figures, some companies have taken strides to fix the issue by using talent strategies that extend from recruitment to work-life balance.
Better Leaders, More Ideas
The male-dominated culture around STEM roles not only hurts the women who go out for these jobs, but also negatively affects organizational creativity, innovation and diversity, said Donna Milgram, executive director of the Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science in Alameda, California.
“Women bring a different perspective to the job,” Milgram said, “and they value different things.” If companies want women as customers, they should be eager to have that female perspective on the teams developing their products, Milgram added.
Women also make better corporate leaders, suggests a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics. According to the study, women are more likely to make fair decisions when competing interests are at stake. The study also cited research showing companies with at least one female director were 20 percent less likely to file bankruptcy while those with a higher representation of females on their boards of directors performed better financially.
Still, companies continue to struggle to attract and retain women in STEM roles. Even if companies are actively looking for more women to hire, experts say many will be hard-pressed to close the deal unless they present an appealing culture that is supportive of women.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
Sarah Fister Gale is a freelance writer based in Chicago.