IT and women – can they satisfy one another?

Have you just ended your maternity or parental leave? Have you been out of the labour market for a longer period? Have you just finished your degree? Are you interested in IT or want to try something new? Do you want to find out if IT could be an option? These were the questions the Women into IT project asked women who found themselves on the “crossroads” of the labour market. The reason is a simple one: IT companies in the Czech Republic, just like in many other European countries, face an outstanding disparity in representation of women and men. And some more appear as well: the Czech labour market urgently needs people seeking creative and inspirational work, family-friendly environment, and a workplace offering work-life balance programmes, including work from home, or a job where time has not been turned off.

“Women should understand that the IT sphere stands for a dynamic and fast-developing area where the will to keep on learning is the most important. They need not be graduates in information technologies or have many-year-long experience in IT to succeed in technologies,” says Lenka Simerská, project coordinator and APC Women’s Networking Support Programme coordinator for Europe, commenting on the project’s starting point. In one breath, she adds that in the Czech Republic, the IT companies have initiated an offer of a variety of alternative working organization, which is convenient for parents caring for small children, staying on parental leave or seeing about elderly parents.

In a number of occasions, it is the IT business where women have the opportunity to stay in touch with their employment and all innovations that relate to their positions on a day-to-day basis even during their maternity and parental leave. Working in IT brings one major privilege: direct access to technologies and diverse forms of communication that are Alpha and Omega of work from home, tele-working, job-sharing and other types of alternative working hours.

Do women belong in IT?

IT companies are aware of the fact that human resources include women, especially since women in the Czech Republic, thanks to their very high education level, have the right potential to enter companies working in technologies and communications. It remains wasted, though. It was IBM Czech Republic that made the huge step forward via supporting the Women into IT project – both financially and personally: the IBM female employees take active part in seminar discussions talking of their work and its challenges. Blanka Litošová, IBM HR manager, comes with an explanation: “IBM wants to show women that the company wants them among their teams.” Introducing IBM and positions within the company structures, she makes it clear that IT is not only about programming, coding, hardware or development of elaborate new applications.

It is just the contrary: even the large information technology companies primarily focus on IT services to their clients. Thus, they need to rely on communicative, loyal and process-oriented team players. It is not necessary for all the positions to be educated in mathematics or computer science: IT is especially for those with skills in sales and business, consultation experience and well-developed soft skills. Another HR manager of IBM Czech Republic, Zuzana Havlíčková, adds that in the Czech Republic, IBM employs only a few people who deal solely with programming. Dozens of other employees work in sales and consultation departments as well as in the company infrastructure: HR, marketing or finance.

Women have their place in technologies

There is nothing to fear at all and women who already entered among IT employees confirm it. Blanka Litošová is one of them: “Even at the global level, IBM is perceived as a company providing equal opportunities to women in “typically” male positions.” It is also distinguished in definition of flexible working hours, programme for parents at maternity or parental leave caring for small children, existence of informal groups where women have the opportunity to meet other colleagues, opening services of the company healthcare to employees’ family members, or availability of a private pre-school facility for children, as well as in general openness of the company towards women.

IBM supported the nearby kindergarten when it was opened: it now allows its employees to make use of more favourable conditions both in case of day-long childcare and the temporary back-up care. Recently, the kindergarten services also included hobby activities for school-age children. The company remembers its employees’ children also via events called Kids in the Office and Try Science that allow them come close to IT and science in a playful way conforming to their age.

Children in kindergartens may take advantage of Young Explorer, a computer station provided by IBM to selected kindergartens within its global KidSmart Early Learning Programme initiative. These stations allow children of 3 to 7 years of age to work with a number of software programmes introducing them in digital world, supporting their computer literacy and developing their knowledge of languages, numbers, science and humanities.

Fighting stereotypes in education via discussion

IBM is well aware of the fact that everything depends on choice of profession that has remained largely stereotypical in many ways. Girls often do not even consider the possibility of opting for technological and information study fields. Petr Draxler, HR Director for the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, adds: “Women’s representation in IT is far from reflecting their 50 share in the total population. Among graduates from Czech universities, there are less than 10 of women. If we do not focus on increasing their number, we will lose many talents. And that would be a pity.”

That is the reason why seminars organized by APC with the support of IBM worked also with female students of secondary schools. Women employed in IBM in Prague or Brno led discussions with them on current situation in the field and refuted myths about IT being only for men programmers and technology freaks.

As the project oriented in a complex way on two important target groups of women – students and women deciding – in certain phase of their life – about their future career plans, it made the first step: it succeeded in persuading a group of women that IT is worth considering. There are two reasons: it is inclined towards women’s careers even if they decide to have children, and it is a prospective subject offering possibilities of growth and further education.

Practical seminars – sharing and understanding

Seminars for women who consider their future working opportunities or – in certain cases – complete change of profession were not formed only of discussion about IT and different positions it offers. The second day was dedicated to further personal insight of its participants. Why? Lenka Simerská explains: “The idea was to provide women participating in the project space to share and reflect on their personal and work-related goals, relation to IT and motivation to work in technologies. We also wanted them to identify and discuss their fears or qualities they feel they were missing to succeed in IT sector.”
The seminar was not aimed at presentation of IT business and its approach to women’s career. Its focus was much larger and thus its other part accentuated communication skills that have played an important role in today’s IT world.

Lenka Simerská says that “if we offered them training in programming or other IT related skills, it would not mean as much as the “communication day” did.” The explanation is brief: Czech women often do not believe in their personal values, they lack self-respect and self-confidence. Their barriers are not in skills and experience; they consist in how they perceive themselves. Women often feel they do not know enough but in today’s IT world, it is more practical to learn by doing as necessary knowledge and experience can be easily gained while working on a concrete project. And that is definitely an important challenge for women: to value what they know at the moment and to believe they are able to learn more as their work in IT goes on. As Lenka Simerská concludes: “It is better to talk to women about what they want, how they want to reach it and how self-confident they are, than just organize another computer course for them. They need to get a real picture of today’s IT and their opportunities within, and that is what we respond to.”

All feedback forms were filled up with superlatives though some women admitted they expected training but loved the different form: practice, experience, personal approach and openness. Both IBM and APC WSNP will follow up these activities in the nearest future.

Source: APC WNSP