Recruit and Retain More Women in IT
Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.
Contributors
45 IT professionals contributed to the development of this research
- The war on talent is here, and talent has won. IT has been one of the fastest growing sectors with nearly 1.4 million job openings between 2008 and 2018. However, with the unemployment rates hitting record lows in 2017, CIOs increasingly struggle to attract and retain top IT talent.
- While the number of jobs in IT has increased dramatically, the percentage of women in IT has decreased from 35% of IT jobs being held by women in 1990 to only 26% in 2013 (Huffington Post).
- The challenge is not a lack of talented women in IT available to fill roles, but rather, organizations lack an effective strategy to recruit and retain women in IT.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Retaining and attracting top women is good business, not personal. As per McKinsey Global Institute, “$4.3 trillion of additional annual GDP in 2025 could be added to the U.S. by fully bridging the gender gap.”
- In the war on talent, having a strategy around how you will recruit & retain of women in IT is Marketing 101. What influences whether women apply for roles and stay at organizations is different than men; traditional models won’t cut it.
Impact and Result
To stay competitive, IT leaders need to radically change the way they recruit and retain talent, and women in IT represent one of the largest untapped markets for IT talent. CIOs need a targeted strategy to attract and retain the best, and this requires a shift in how leaders currently manage the talent lifecycle. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution that will help IT leaders:
- Build a Recruitment Playbook: Leverage Info-Tech tools to effectively sell to, search for, and secure top talent.
- Build a Retention Strategy: Follow Info-Tech’s step-by-step process to identify initiatives and opportunities to retain your top talent.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a recruitment and retention plan for women in IT, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Enhance your recruitment strategies
If you don’t have a targeted recruitment strategy for women you are missing out on 50% of the candidate pool. Increase the number of viable candidates by leveraging best practices to sell to, search for, and secure top women in IT.
2. Enhance your retention strategies
The drivers that impact the retention of men and women are different. Take a data-driven approach to improving retention of women in your organization by using best practices to measure and improve employee engagement.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a six call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Enhance your recruitment strategies
Call #1 - Develop a strategy to better sell your organization to diverse candidates.
Call #2 - Evaluate your candidate search practices to reach a wider audience.
Call #3 - Introduce best practices in your interviews to improve the candidate experience and limit bias.
Guided Implementation #2 - Enhance your retention strategies
Call #1 - Launch focus groups to improve performance of key retention drivers.
Call #2 - Measure the employee experience and identify key moments that matter to staff.
Call #3 - Conduct stay interviews and establish actions to improve retention.
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Make the Case for Strategically Recruiting and Retaining Women in IT
The Purpose
Identify the need for a targeted strategy to recruit and retain women in IT and pinpoint your largest opportunities to drive diversity in your IT team.
Key Benefits Achieved
Establish goals and targets for the changes to be made to your IT recruitment and retention strategies.
Activities
Outputs
Understand trends in IT staffing.
Assess your talent lifecycle challenges and opportunities.
- Recruitment & Retention Metrics Report
Make the case for changes to recruitment and retention strategies.
- Business Case for Recruitment and Retention Changes
Module 2: Develop Strategies to Sell Your Organization to Wider Candidate Pool
The Purpose
The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions. Ensure you are putting a competitive foot forward by developing a unique, meaningful, and aspirational employee value proposition and clear job descriptions.
Key Benefits Achieved
Implement effective strategies to drive more applications to your job postings.
Activities
Outputs
Develop an IT employee value proposition.
- Employee Value Proposition
Adopt your employee value proposition.
- EVP Marketing Plan
Write meaningful job postings.
- Revised Job Ads
Module 3: Expand Your Talent Sourcing Strategy
The Purpose
- Sourcing shouldn’t start with an open position, it should start with identifying an anticipated need and then building and nurturing a talent pipeline.
- IT participation in this is critical to effectively promote the employee experience and foster relationships before candidates even apply.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Develop a modern job requisition form though role analysis.
- Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.
Activities
Outputs
Build realistic job requisition forms.
- Job requisition form for key roles
Identify new alternative sourcing approaches for talent.
Build a sourcing strategy.
- Sourcing strategy for key roles
Module 4: Secure Top Talent
The Purpose
- Work with your HR department to influence the recruitment process by taking a data-driven approach to understanding the root cause of applicant drop-off and success and take corrective actions.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Optimize your selection process.
- Implement non-bias interview techniques in your selection process.
Activities
Outputs
Assess key selection challenges.
- Root-Cause Analysis of Section Challenges
Implement behavioral interview techniques.
- Behavioral Interview Guide
Module 5: Retain Top Women in IT
The Purpose
- Employee engagement is one of the greatest predictors of intention to stay.
- To retain employees you need to understand not only engagement, but also your employee experience and the moments that matter, and actively work to create positive experience.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify opportunities to drive engagement across your IT organization.
- Implement tactical programs to reduce turnover in IT.
Activities
Outputs
Measure employee engagement and review results.
- Identified Employee Engagement Action Plan
Develop programs to improve employee engagement.
Train managers to conduct stay interviews and drive employee engagement.
- Action Plan to Execute Stay Interviews
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Academic Partnerships
Guided Implementation
8/10
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