For over 40 years, the tech industry has been working to attract more women. Yet, women continue to be underrepresented in technology jobs compared to other professions. Worse, once hired, women leave the field mid-career twice as often as men. In 2013, Karen Holtzblatt launched The Women in Tech Retention Project at WITops.org, dedicated to understanding what helps women in tech thrive. In 2014, Nicola Marsden joined the effort, bringing her extensive knowledge and research on gender and bias for women in tech. Together with worldwide volunteers, this research identified what helps women thrive and practical interventions to improve women’s experience at work. In this book, we share women’s stories, our research, relevant literature, and our perspective on making change to help retain women. All the research and solutions we share are based on deep research and user-centered ideation techniques. Part I describes the @Work Experience Framework and the six key factors that help women thrive: a dynamic valuing team; stimulating projects; the push into challenges with support; local role models; nonjudgmental flexibility to manage home/work balance; and developing personal power. Employees thinking of leaving their job have significantly lower scores on these factors showing their importance for retention. Part II describes tested interventions that redesign work practices to better support women, diverse teams, and all team members. We chose these interventions guided by data from over 1,000 people from multiple genders, ethnicities, family situations, and countries. Interventions target key processes in tech: onboarding new hires; group critique meetings; and Scrum. Interventions also address managing interpersonal dynamics to increase valuing and decrease devaluing behaviors and techniques for teams to define, monitor, and continuously improve their culture. We conclude by describing our principles for redesigning processes with an eye toward issues important to women and diverse teams.
Author(s): Karen Holtzblatt, Nicola Marsden
Series: Synthesis Lectures on Professionalism and Career Advancement for Scientists and Engineers
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 274
City: Cham
Cover
Copyright Page
Title Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Lack of Women in the Technology Industry
The Leaky Bucket: Beyond Filling the Pipeline
Why Diversity Matters
Understanding Retention:If Going to Work Isn’t Fun, Why Do It?
Is Tech Culture the Retention Culprit?
Does Family and Home/Work Balance Matter?
The Women in Tech Retention Project:Why Women Stay
Practical Interventions that Work
Insanity is Doing the Same Thing Over and Overbut Expecting a Different Result
Structure for Freedom:Principles and Practices, not Personalities
Restructure the Process to Change Behavior
Understanding Teams
Finding Critical Intervention Points
Overview of the Book
Introduction:The @Work Experience Framework
A Dynamic, Valuing TeamThat’s Up to Something Big
Social Connection is a Must for Everyone
The Psychological Sense of Team
Team Cohesion in Diverse Teams
Insider and Outsider Experience Undermines Team Cohesion
Team Identification
Team Cohesion and Remote Work
Numbers Matter
The Priority of Creating Dynamic Valuing Teams
Stimulating Work
Boredom and Retention
Challenge the Team and the Individual
Work and Gender Stereotypes
Competency and Stimulating Work
Team Housework
The Push and Support
The Push
Family and The Push
Professors Push for Excellence
Managers Push and Ensure Support
Give Me a Big Hairy Problem and Let Me Go
Gender and Self-Promotion
Support
Coaching
Guiding
Championing
Challenge Without Support
The Push and Support and Remote Work
The Push and Support as a Retention Strategy
Local Role Models
Local Role Models and Leadership
Local Role Models and Perceptions of Advancement
Local Role Models and Coaching
Finding a Mentor and Building a Network
Advancement and Women in Tech
Nonjudgmental Flexibility for Family Commitments
The Balancing Act of Home and Work Demands
Career Choices and Parenting
Men, Childcare, and Career
The Power of Nonjudgmental Flexibility
Personal Power
Imposter Syndrome as a Growth Response
Self-Confidence and Building Personal Power
Quieting Negative Self-Talk
Taking on a Personal Challenge Grows Personal Power
Personal Power and Retention
Part I Conclusion
Introduction: Practical Interventions to Retain Women in Tech
Team Onboarding
Understanding New Hires
Who is Your New Hire?
The New Hire Attitude
Levels of Experience
Remote Working
Overview of the Team Onboarding Checklist
The Four Key Time Segments in Onboarding
The Eight Building Blocks of Team Onboarding
Connection Building Blocks
Success Building Blocks
Structure of the Team Onboarding Checklist
The Team Onboarding Checklist for Retention
The Critique Meeting
Beyond Personal Evaluation in Critique Meetings
Attitudes For an Effective Critique Session
Perspectives on Providing Feedback on Work Products
The Critique Meeting Process
Elements of The Critique Meeting
Goal of the Critique Meeting
Roles in a Critique
Focus of the Critique: The Artifact Being Reviewed
Criteria of Goodness
Procedure to Collect Feedback
Rules of Engagement
The Power of Structured Meetings
Sneak Attacks on Key Processes: Agile
Key Dimensions of Scrum
Explicit vs. Implicit Processes: Deciding Where to Tune
The Analysis Matrix:Surfacing Gender Issues in Scrum
Mindsets and Self-Management
Tuning Working Meetings
Tuning Planning Poker
Picking Stories: Choosing Work
The Power of Explicit Practices
Valuing and Jerk Behaviors
The Honorables
The Jerks
Interventions Ideas Using the Valuingand Jerk Characters
Plan Your Approach
Introduce the Goal of the Exercise
Present the Characters and Reflect Individually
Individual Discussions with Managers
Team Discussion for Valuing
Team Discussion for Jerk
Becoming a Valuing Organization
Building Resilience: Team Manifesto and Process Checks
The Team Manifesto: Defining Team Values
Step 1: Run the Exercise Exploring Rudeness
Step 2: Build a Team Manifesto
Tune Processes—Don’t Blame People
The Process Check
Running a Process Check
Creating a Resilient Team
Part II Conclusion
Principles of Process Interventionfor Retaining Women in Tech
Remote Working and The @Work Experience Framework
Principles of Intervention Design
Do User-Centered Process Redesign
Make the Implicit Explicit
Structure Working Meetings
Naming and Claiming—Not Blaming
Design for Easy Adoption
References
Authors’ Biographies
