Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Technology has never been more important to organizations, and as a result, recruiting and retaining quality IT employees is increasingly difficult.

• IT unemployment rates continue to hover below 2% in the US.
• The IT talent market has evolved into one where the employer is the seller and the employee is the buyer.

Common Obstacles

• While the number of jobs in IT has increased dramatically, the percentage of women in IT has progressed disproportionately, with only 25% of IT jobs being held by women.*
• The challenge is not a lack of talented women with the competencies to excel within IT, but rather organizations lack an effective strategy to recruit and retain women in IT.

Info-Tech’s Approach

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. 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 to help:

• 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.

Info-Tech Insight

Retaining and attracting top women is good business, not personal. Companies with greater gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.1 In the war on talent, having a strategy around how you will recruit and retain 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.

*– McKinsey & Company, 2020; 2 – CIO From IDG, 2021

Diversity & inclusion – it’s good business, not personal

Why should organizations care about diversity?

1. The war for talent is real. Every CIO needs a plan of attack. Unemployment rates are dropping and 54% of CIOs report that the skills shortage is holding them up from meeting their strategic objectives.

Source: Harvey Nash and KPMG, 2020

2. Diversity has clear ROI – both in terms of recruitment and retention. Eighty percent of technology managers experienced increased turnover in 2021. Not only are employee tenures decreasing, the competition for talent is fierce and the average cost of turnover is 150% of an IT worker’s salary.

Source: Robert Half, 2021

3. Inability to recruit and retain talent will reduce business satisfaction. Organizations who are continuously losing talent will be unable to meet corporate objectives due to lost productivity, keeping them in firefighting mode. An engaged workforce is a requirement for driving innovation and project success.

ISACA’s 2020 study shows a disconnect between what men and women think is being done to recruit and retain female employees

Key findings from ISACA’s 2020 Tech Workforce survey

65% of men think their employers have a program to encourage hiring women. But only 51% of women agree.

71% of men believe their employers have a program to encourage the promotion or advancement of women. But only 59% of women agree.

49% of women compared to 44% of men in the survey feel they must work harder than their peers.

22% of women compared to 14% of men feel they are underpaid.

66% of women compared to 72% of men feel they are receiving sufficient resources to sustain their career.

30% of women compared to 23% of men feel they have unequal growth opportunities.

74% of women compared to 64% of men feel they lack confidence to negotiate their salaries.

To see ISACA’s full report click here.

Image: Statista, 2021, CC BY-ND 4.0

The chart to the left, compiled by Statista, (based on self-reported company figures) shows that women held between 23% to 25% of the tech jobs at major tech companies.

Women are also underrepresented in leadership positions: 34% at Facebook, 31% at Apple, 29% at Amazon, 28% at Google, and 26% at Microsoft.

(Statista, 2021)

To help support women in tech, 78% of women say companies should promote more women into leadership positions. Other solutions include:

• Providing mentorship opportunities (72%)
• Offering flexible scheduling (64%)
• Conducting unconscious bias training (57%)
• Offering equal maternity and paternity leave (55%)

(HRD America, 2021)

Traditional retention initiatives target the majority – the drivers that impact the retention of women in IT are different

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

* Recent data stays consistent, but, the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees

The majority of organizations take a one-size-fits-all approach to retaining and engaging employees.

However, studies show that women are leaving IT in significantly higher proportions than men and that the drivers impacting men’s and women’s retention are different. Knowing how men and women react differently to engagement drivers will help you create a targeted retention strategy.

In particular, to increase the retention and engagement of women, organizations should develop targeted initiatives that focus on:

• Organizational culture
• Employee empowerment
• Manager relationships

Why organizations need to focus on the recruitment and retention of women in IT

1. Women expand the talent pool. Women represent a vast, untapped talent pool that can bolster the technical workforce. Unfortunately, traditional IT recruitment processes are targeted toward a limited IT profile – the key to closing the IT skills gap is to look for agile learners and expand your search criteria to cast a larger net.
2. Diversity increases innovation opportunities. Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than homogenous groups, and the presence of women is more likely to increase the problem-solving and creative abilities of the group.
3. Women increase your ROI. Research shows that companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than those with few or no women. Further, organizations who are unable to retain top women in their organization are at risk for not being able to deliver to SLAs or project expectations and lose the institutional knowledge needed for continuous improvement.

Source: Bureau of Labour Statistics; Info-Tech Research Group/McLean & Company Analysis

Improving the representation of women in your organization requires rethinking recruitment and retention strategies

Info-Tech’s approach to improving gender diversity at your organization

Info-Tech takes a practical, tactical approach to improving gender diversity at organizations, which starts with straightforward tactics that will help you improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization.

How we can help

1. Leverage Info-Tech’s tools to define your current challenges and opportunities for gender diversity to improve your recruitment and retention issues.
2. Employ straightforward and tested tactics to increase talent acquisition of women in IT by optimizing how you sell to, search for, and secure top female talent.
3. Take a data-driven approach to measure and increase the retention and engagement of women within your IT organization, and know how and when to involve your staff for optimal results.

Leverage Info-Tech’s customizable deliverables to improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization

RECRUIT Top Women in IT

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.

Key metrics to track:

• Average number of female candidates per posting
• Average time to fill position
• Percentage of new hires still at the organization one year later

RETAIN Top Women in IT

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.

Key metrics to track:

• Voluntary turnover rates of men and women
• Average tenure of men and women
• Percentage of internal promotions going to men and women
• Employee engagement scores

Info-Tech’s methodology for Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our teams knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 6 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

1. Tactics to Recruit More Women in IT

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.

2. Tactics to Retain More Women in IT

Call #4: Launch focus groups to improve performance of key retention drivers.

Call #5: Measure the employee experience and identify key moments that matter to staff.

Call #6: Conduct stay interviews and establish actions to improve retention.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Consider key factors within the recruitment process

Key Talent Pipeline Opportunities:

• In today’s talent landscape IT leaders need to be highly strategic about how they recruit new talent to the organization.
• IT professionals have a huge number of options to choose from when considering their next career.
• IT leaders need to actively market and expand their search to attract top talent. The “where” and “how” to recruit men and women in IT are different and your strategy should reflect this.
• Partnering with your HR department to help you improve the number of applicants, expand your search criteria, and optimize the interview experience will all directly impact your talent pipeline.

1. Sell

How do you position the value of working for your organization and roles in a meaningful way?

2. Search

How can you expand your key search criteria and sourcing strategies to reach more candidates?

3. Secure

How can you reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences?

Info-Tech’s Sell-Search-Secure recruitment model

Follow these steps to increase your pool of female candidates.

1. Sell Tactics:

1. Develop an employee value proposition that will attract female candidates.

2. Understand how your job postings may be deterring female candidates.

2. Search Tactics:

3. Identify opportunities to expand your role analysis for job requisitions.

4. Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.

3. Secure Tactics:

5. Identify tactics to improve women’s interview experience.

6. Leverage behavioral interview questions to limit bias in interviews.

Please note, this section is not a replacement or a full talent strategy. Rather, this blueprint will highlight key tactics within talent acquisition practices that the IT leadership team can help to influence to drive greater diversity in recruitment.

Understand where leaks exist in your talent pipeline

Start your recruitment enhancement here.

Work with your HR department to track critical metrics around where you need to make improvements and where you can partner with your recruitment team to improve your recruitment process and build a more diverse pipeline. Identify where you have significant drops or variation in diversity or overall need and select where you’d like to focus your recruitment improvement efforts.

Enhance your recruitment strategies

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.

Sell the organization

What is an employee value proposition?

An employee value proposition (EVP) is a unique and clearly defined set of attributes and benefits that capture an employee’s overall work experience within an organization. An EVP is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

How is an employee value proposition used?

Your EVP should be used internally and externally to promote the unique benefits of working within the department. As a recruiting tool, you can use it to attract candidates, highlighting the benefits of working for your organization. The EVP is often highlighted where you are most likely to reach your target audience, whether that is through social media, in-person events, or in other advertising activities.

Why tailor this to multiple audiences?

While your employee value proposition should remain constant in terms of the unique benefits of working for your organization, you want to ensure that the EVP appeals to multiple audiences and that it is backed up by relevant stories that support how your organization lives your EVP every day. Candidates need to be able to relate to the EVP and see it as desirable, so ensuring that it is relatable to a diverse audience is key.

Develop a strong employee value proposition

Three key steps

1. Build and Assess the EVP

Assess your existing employee value proposition and/or build a forward-looking, meaningful, authentic, aspirational EVP.

2. Test the EVP

Gather feedback from staff to ensure the EVP is meaningful internally and externally.

3. Adopt the EVP

Identify how and where you will leverage the EVP internally and externally, and integrate the EVP into your candidate experience, job ads, and employee engagement initiatives.

As you build your EVP, keep in mind that while it’s important to brand your IT organization as an inclusive workplace to help you attract diverse candidates, be honest about your current level of diversity and your intentions to improve. Otherwise, new recruits will be disappointed and leave.

What is an employee value proposition?

And what are the key components?

The employee value proposition is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

Creating a compelling EVP that presents a picture of your employee experience, with a focus on diversity, will attract females to your team. This can lead to many internal and external benefits for your organization.

Collect relevant information

Existing Employee Value Proposition: If your organization or IT department has an existing employee value proposition, rather than starting from scratch, we recommend leveraging that and moving to the testing phase to see if the EVP still resonates with staff and external parties.

Employee Engagement Results: If your organization does an employee engagement survey, review the results to identify the areas in which the IT organization is performing well. Identify and document any key comment themes in the report around why employees enjoy working for the organization or what makes your IT department a great place to work.

Social Media Sites. Prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social media websites like Glassdoor and Indeed make it easier for employees to share their experiences at an organization honestly and candidly. While postings on these sites won’t relate exclusively to the IT department, they do invite participants to identify their department in the organization. You can search these to identify any positive things people are saying about working for the organization and potentially opportunities for improvement (which you can use as a starting point in the retention section of this report).

Step 1.1

Sell – Assess the current state and develop your employee value proposition

Activities

1.1.1 Gather feedback on unique benefits

1.1.2 Build key messages

1.1.3 Test your EVP

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

1.1.5 Review job postings for gender bias

1.1.1 Gather feedback

1. Hold a series of focus groups with employees to understand what about the organization attracted them to join and to stay at the organization.
2. Start by identifying if you will interview all employees or a subset. If you are going to use a subset, ensure you have at least one male and one female participating from each team and representation of all levels within the department.
3. Print the EVP Interview Guide to focus your conversation, and ask each individual to take 15 minutes and respond to questions 1-3 in the Guide:
4. Draw a quadrant on the board and mark each quadrant with four categories: Day-to-Day Elements, Organizational Elements, Compensation & Benefits, and Working Conditions. Provide each participant with sticky notes and ask them to brainstorm the top five things they value most about working at the organization. Ask them to place each sticky in the appropriate category and identify any key themes.
5. Ask participants to hand in their EVP Interview Guides and document all of the key findings.

Download the EVP Interview Guide

1.1.2 Build key messages

1. Collect all of the information from the various focus groups and begin to build out the employee value proposition statements.
2. Identify the key elements that staff felt were unique and highly valued by employees and group these into common themes.
3. Identify categories that related to one of the five key drivers* of women’s retention in IT and highlight any key elements related to these:
• Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.
• Company Potential: An employee’s understanding, commitment, and excitement about the organization’s mission and future.
• Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.
• Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives.
• Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager, including trust, support, and development.
4. Identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the five categories above.
5. Integrate these into one overall statement.
• Examples of great EVPs: L’Oreal, Home Depot

*See Engagement Driver Handout slides for more details on these five drivers.

Quality test your revised EVP

Use Info-Tech’s EVP Scorecard.

Internally and Externally

Use the EVP Scorecard and EVP Scorecard Handout throughout this step to assess your EVP against:

Internal Criteria:

• Accuracy
• Alignment
• Aspirational
• Differentiation

External Criteria:

• Clear
• Compelling
• Concise
• Differentiation

Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

1.1.3 Test your EVP

1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.
2. For internal candidates, send a copy of the EVP and ask them to complete the Internal Assessment (ensure that you have at least 50% representation of women).
3. For external candidates, identify first how you will reach out to them; popular options are to have team members in key roles reach out to members of their LinkedIn network who are in similar roles to themselves. Request that they look for a diverse group to gather feedback from.
4. Have the external candidates complete the External Assessment.
5. Collect the feedback around the EVP and enter the findings into the EVP Scorecard Tool.
6. If you are dissatisfied with the scorecard results, go back to the employees you interviewed to ask for additional feedback, focusing on the areas that scored low.
7. Incorporate the feedback and present the revised EVP to see if the changes resonate with stakeholders.
8. If you are satisfied with the results, present to the leadership and HR teams for agreement and proceed to adopting the EVP in your organization.

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

Identify your target audience and marketing channels.

1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.
• The target audience for your employee value proposition
• Internal and/or external
• Local, national, international
• Experience
• Applicant pool (e.g. new graduates, professionals, internship)
2. For each target audience, identify where you want to reach them with your employee value proposition.
• Internal: Town hall meetings, fireside chats
• External: Social media, advertising, job postings
• Global: Professional affiliations, head hunters
3. For each target audience, build the communication strategy and identify messaging, mediums, timeline, and task ownership.

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Restaurant

SOURCE: McDonald’s Careers, Canadian Business via McLean & Company

McDonald’s saw a divide between employee experience and its vision. McDonald’s set out to reinvent its employer image and create the reputation it wanted.

Challenge

• Historically, McDonald’s has had a challenging employer brand. Founded on the goal of cost effectiveness, a “McJob” was often associated with lower pay and a poor reputation.
• McDonald’s reached out to employees using a global survey and asked, “What is it you love most about working at McDonald’s?”

Solution

• McDonald’s revaluated its employer brand by creating an EVP focused on the three F’s.
1. Future – career growth and development opportunities
2. Flexibility – flexible working hours and job variety
3. Family & Friends – a people-centric work culture

Results

• As a result of developing and promoting its EVP internally, McDonald’s has experienced higher engagement and a steady decrease in turnover.
• Externally, McDonald’s has been recognized numerous times by the Great Place to Work Institute and has been classified by Maclean’s magazine as one of Canada’s top 50 employers for 13 years running.

Make your job descriptions more attractive to female applicants

10 WAYS TO REMOVE GENDER BIAS FROM JOB DESCRIPTIONS – GLASSDOOR – AN EXCERPT

1. USE GENDER-NEUTRAL TITLES: Male-oriented titles can inadvertently prevent women from clicking on your job in a list of search results. Avoid including words in your titles like “hacker,” “rockstar,” “superhero,” “guru,” and “ninja,” and use neutral, descriptive titles like “engineer,” “project manager,” or “developer.
2. CHECK PRONOUNS: When describing the tasks of the ideal candidate, use “they” or “you.” Example: “As Product Manager for XYZ, you will be responsible for setting the product vision and strategy.
3. AVOID (OR BALANCE) YOUR USE OF GENDER-CHARGED WORDS: Analysis from language tool Textio found that the gender language bias in your job posting predicts the gender of the person you’re going to hire. Use a tool like Textio tool or the free Gender Decoder to identify problem spots in your word choices. Examples: “Analyze” and “determine” are typically associated with male traits, while “collaborate” and “support” are considered female. Avoid aggressive language like “crush it.
4. AVOID SUPERLATIVES: Excessive use of superlatives such as “expert,” “superior,” and “world class” can turn off female candidates who are more collaborative than competitive in nature. Research also shows that women are less likely than men to brag about their accomplishments. In addition, superlatives related to a candidate’s background can limit the pool of female applicants because there may be very few females currently in leading positions at “world-class” firms
5. LIMIT THE NUMBER OF REQUIREMENTS: Identify which requirements are “nice to have” versus “must have,” and eliminate the “nice to haves.” Research shows that women are unlikely to apply for a position unless they meet 100 percent of the requirements, while men will apply if they meet 60 percent of the requirements.

For the full article please click here.

1.1.5 Review job postings

To understand potential gender bias

1. Select a job posting that you are looking to fill, review the descriptions, and identify if any of the following apply:
• Are the titles gender neutral? This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in your naming, but consider if the name really represents the role you are looking to fill.
• Do you use pronouns? If there are instances where the posting says “he” OR “she” change this to “they” or “you.”
• Are you overusing superlatives? Review the posting and ensure that when words like “expert” or “world class” are used that you genuinely need someone who is at that level.
• Are all of the tasks/responsibilities listed the ones that are absolutely essential to the job? Women are less likely to apply if they don’t have direct experience with 100% of the criteria – if it’s a non-essential, consider whether it’s needed in the posting.
• Is there any organization-specific jargon used? Where possible, avoid using organization-specific jargon in order to create an inclusive posting. Avoid using terms/acronyms that are only known to your organization.
2. Select four to six members of your staff, both male and female, and have them highlight within the job posting what elements appeal to them and what elements do not appeal to them or would concern them about the job.
3. Review the feedback from staff, and identify potential opportunities to reduce bias within the posting.

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Social Media

SOURCE: Buffer Open blog

When the social media platform Buffer replaced one word in a job posting, it noticed an increase in female candidates.

Challenge

For the social media platform Buffer, all employees were called “hackers.” It had front-end hackers, back-end hackers, Android hackers, iOS hackers, and traction hackers.

As the company began to grow and ramp up hiring, the Chief Technology Officer, Sunil Sadasivan, noticed that Buffer was seeing a very low percentage of female candidates for these “hacker” jobs.

In researching the challenge in lack of female candidates, the Buffer team discovered that the word “hacker” may be just the reason why.

Solution

Understanding that wording has a strong impact on the type of candidates applying to work for Buffer started a great and important conversation on the Buffer team.

Buffer wanted to be as inviting as possible in job listings, especially because it hires for culture fit over technical skill.

Buffer went through a number of wording choices that could replace “hacker,” and ended on the term “developer.” All external roles were updated to reflect this wording change.

Results

By making this slight change to the wording used in their jobs, Buffer went from seeing a less than 2% female representation of applicants for developer jobs to around 12% female representation for the same job.

Step 1.2

Search – Reach more candidates by expanding key search criteria and sourcing strategies

Activities

1.2.1 Complete role analysis

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Enhance your recruitment strategies

Sourcing shouldn’t start with an open position; it should start with identifying an anticipated need and 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.

Expand your search

What is a candidate sourcing program?

A candidate sourcing program is one element of the overall HR sourcing approach, which consists of the overall process (steps to source talent), the people responsible for sourcing, and the programs (internal talent mobility, social media, employee referral, alumni network, campus recruitment, etc.).

What is a sourcing role analysis?

Part of the sourcing plan will outline how to identify talent for a role, which includes both the role analysis and the market assessment. The market assessment is normally completed by the HR department and consists of analyzing the market conditions as they relate to specific talent needs. The role analysis looks at what is necessary to be successful in a role, including competencies, education, background experience, etc.

How will this enable you to attract female candidates?

Expanding your sourcing programs and supporting deeper role analysis will allow your HR department to reach a larger candidate pool and better understand the type of talent that will be successful in roles within your organization. By expanding from traditional pools and criteria you will open the organization up to a wider variety of talent options.

Minimize bias in sourcing to hire the right talent and protect against risk

Failure to take an inclusive approach to sourcing will limit your talent pool by sidelining entire groups or discouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds. Address bias in sourcing so that diverse candidates are not excluded from the start. Solutions such as removing biographical data from CVs prior to interviews may reduce bias, but they may come too late to impact diversity.

1.2.1 Role analysis

Customize a sourcing plan for key roles to guide talent pipeline creation.

1. Complete a role analysis to understand key role requirements. If you are hiring for an existing role, start by taking an inventory of who your top and low performers are within the role today.
2. Consider your top performers and identify what a successful employee can do better than a less successful one. Start by considering their alignment with job requirements, and identify the education, designations/certifications, and experiences that are necessary for this job. Do not limit yourself; carefully consider if the requirements you are including are actually necessary or just nice to have.

	Required Entry Criteria	Preferred Entry Criteria
Education	University Degree – Bachelors	University Degree – Masters
Experience	5+) years design, or related, experience Experience leading a team	External consulting experience Healthcare industry experience
Designations/Certifications		ITIL Foundations

3. Review Info-Tech’s Job Competency Library in the Workforce Planning Workbook, identify the key competencies that are ideal for this anticipated role, and write a description of how this would manifest in your organization.

Competency	Level of Proficiency	Behavioral Descriptions
Business Analysis	Level 2: Capable	Demonstrates a basic understanding of business roles, processes, planning, and requirements in the organization. Demonstrates a basic understanding of how technologies assist in business processes. Develop basic business cases using internal environment analysis for the business unit level.

4. Hold a meeting with your HR team or recruiter to highlight the types of experience and competencies you are looking for in a hire to expand the search criteria.

Target diverse talent pools through different sources

When looking to diversify your workforce, it’s critical that you look to attract and recruit talent from a variety of different talent pools.

SOURCING APPROACH

INTERNAL MOBILITY PROGRAM

Positioning the right talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, and supporting them appropriately. Often tied to succession or workforce planning, mentorship, and learning and development.

SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

The widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on common efforts, and build relationships. Think beyond the traditional and consider niche social media platforms.

EMPLOYEE REFERRAL PROGRAM

Employees recommend qualified candidates. If the referral is hired, the referring employee typically receives some sort of reward.

ALUMNI PROGRAM

An alumni referral program is a formalized way to maintain ongoing relationships with former employees of the organization.

CAMPUS RECRUITING PROGRAM

A formalized means of attracting and hiring individuals who are about to graduate from schools, colleges, or universities.

EVENTS & ASSOCIATION PROGRAM

A targeted approach for participation in non-profit associations and industry events to build brand awareness of your organization and create a forward-looking talent pipeline.

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Increase the number of female applicants.

1. Identify where your employees are currently being sourced from and identify how many female candidates you have gotten from each channel as a percentage of applicants.

	# of Candidates From Approach	% of Female Candidates From Approach	Target # of Female Candidates
Internal Talent Mobility
Social Media Program
Employee Referral Program
Alumni Program
Campus Recruiting Program
Events & Non-Profit Affiliations
Other (job databases, corporate website, etc.)

2. Work with your HR partner or organization’s recruiter to identify three recruitment channels from the list that you will work on expanding.
3. Review the following two slides and identify key success factors for the implementation. Identify what role IT will play and what role HR will play in implementing the approach.
4. Following implementation, monitor the impact of the tactics on the number of women candidates and determine whether to add additional tactics.

Different talent sources

Benefits and success factors of using different talent sources

Enhance your recruitment strategies

Work with your HR department to influence the recruitment process by taking a data-driven approach to understand the root cause of applicant drop-off and success and take corrective actions.

Secure top candidates

Why does the candidate experience matter?

Until recently it was an employer’s market, so recruiters and hiring managers were able to get good talent without courting top candidates. Today, that’s not the case. You need to treat your IT candidates like customers and be mindful that this is often one of the first experiences future staff will have with the organization. It will give them their first real sense of the culture of the organization and whether they want to work for the organization.

What can IT leaders do if they have limited influence over the interview process?

Work with your HR department to evaluate the existing recruitment process, share challenges you’ve experienced, and offer additional support in the process. Identify where you can influence the process and if there are opportunities to build service-level agreements around the candidate experience.

Take a data-driven approach

Understand opportunities to enhance the talent selection process.

While your HR department likely owns the candidate experience and processes, if you have identified challenges in diversity we recommend partnering with your HR department or recruitment team to identify opportunities for improvement within the process. If you are attracting a good amount of candidates through your sell and search tactics but aren’t finding that this is translating into more women selected, it’s time to take a look at your selection processes.

SIMPLIFIED CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCESS STEPS

1. Application Received
2. Candidate Selected for Interview
3. Offer Extended
4. Offer Accepted
5. Onboarding of Staff

To understand the challenges within your selection process, start by baselining your drop-off rates throughout selection and comparing the differences in male and female candidates. Use this to pin point the issues within the process and complete a root-cause analysis to identify where to improve.

Step 1.3

Secure – reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences

Activities

1.3.1 Identify selection challenges

1.3.1 Identify your selection challenges

Review your candidate data.

1. Hold a meeting with your HR partner to identify trends in your selection data. If you have an applicant tracking system, pull all relevant information for analysis.
2. Start by identifying the total number of candidates that move forward in each stage of the process. Record the overall number of applicants for positions (should have this number from your sourcing analysis), overall number of candidates selected for interviews, overall number of offers extended, overall number of offers rejected, and overall number of employees still employed after one year.
3. Identify the number of female and male candidates in each of those categories and as a percentage of the total number of applicants.

Selection Process Step	Total # of Candidates	Male Candidates		Female Candidates		% Difference Male & Female
	#	#	% of total	#	% of total
Applicants for Posted Position	150	115	76.7%	35	23.3%	70% fewer females
Selected for Interview
(Selected for Second Interview)
(Selected for Final Interview)
Offer Extended
Offer Rejected
Employees Retained for One Year

4. Identify where there are differences in the percentages of male and female candidates and where there are significant drop-off rates between steps in the process.

Note: For larger organizations, we highly recommend analyzing differences in specific teams/roles and/or at different seniority levels. If you have that data available, repeat the analysis, controlling for those factors.

Root-cause analysis can be conducted in a variety of ways

Align your root-cause analysis technique with the problem that needs to be solved and leverage the skills of the root-cause analysis team.

Brainstorming/Process of Elimination

After brainstorming, identify which possible causes are not the issue’s root cause by removing unlikely causes.

The Five Whys

Use reverse engineering to delve deeper into a recruitment issue to identify the root cause.

Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram

Use an Ishikawa/fishbone diagram to identify and narrow down possible causes by categories.

Process of elimination

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

Using the process of elimination can be a powerful tool to determine root causes.

• To use the process of elimination to determine root cause, gather the participants from within your hiring team together once you have identified where your issues are within the recruitment process and brainstorm a list of potential causes.
• Like all brainstorming exercises, remember that the purpose is to gather the widest possible variety of perspectives, so be sure not to eliminate any suggested causes out of hand.
• Once you have an exhaustive list of potential causes, you can begin the process of eliminating unlikely causes to arrive at a list of likely potential causes.

Example

Problem: Women candidates are rejecting job offers more consistently

Potential Causes

• The process took too long to complete
• Lack of information about the team and culture
• Candidates aren’t finding benefits/salary compelling
• Lack of clarity on role expectations
• Lack of fit between candidate and interviewers
• Candidates offered other positions
• Interview tactics were negatively perceived

As you brainstorm, ensure that you are identifying differentiators between male and female candidate experiences and rationale. If you ask candidates their rationale for turning down roles, ensure that these are included in the discussion.

The five whys

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques

Repeatedly asking “why” might seem overly simplistic, but it has the potential to be useful.

• It can be useful, when confronting a problem, to start with the end result and work backwards.
• According to Olivier Serrat, a knowledge management specialist at the Asian Development Bank, there are three key components that define successful use of the five whys: “(i) accurate and complete statements of problems, (ii) complete honesty in answering the questions, and (iii) the determination to get to the bottom of problems and resolve them.”
• As a group, develop a consensus around the problem statement. Go around the room and have each person suggest a potential reason for its occurrence. Repeat the process for each potential reason (ask “why?”) until there are no more potential causes to explore.
• Note: The total number of “whys” may be more or less than five.

Example

Ishikawa/fishbone diagram

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

Use this technique to sort potential causes by category and match them to the problem.

• The first step in creating a fishbone diagram is agreeing on a problem statement and populating a box on the right side of a whiteboard or a piece of chart paper.
• Draw a horizontal line left from the box and draw several ribs on either side that will represent the categories of causes you will explore.
• Label each rib with relevant categories. In the recruitment context, consider cause categories like technology, interview, process, etc. Go around the room and ask, “What causes this problem to happen?” Every result produced should fit into one of the identified categories. Place it there, and continue to brainstorm sub-causes.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Avoid naming individuals in the fishbone diagram. The goal of the root-cause exercise is not to lay blame or zero in on a guilty party but rather to identify how you can rectify any challenges.

Leverage behavioral interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Questions Library.

Reduce bias in your interviews.

In the past, companies were pushing the boundaries of the conventional interview, using unconventional questions to find top talent, e.g. “what color is your personality?” The logic was that the best people are the ones who don’t necessarily show perfectly on a resume, and they were intent on finding the best.

However, many companies have stopped using these questions after extensive statistical analysis revealed there was no correlation between candidates’ ability to answer them and their future performance on the job. Hiring by intuition – or “gut” – is usually dependent on an interpersonal connection being developed over a very short period of time. This means that people who were naturally likeable would be given preferential treatment in hiring decisions whether they were capable of doing the job.

Asking behavioral interview questions based on the competency needs of the role is the best way to uncover if the candidates will be able to execute on the job.

For more information see Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Question Library.

Improve the level of diversity in your organization by considering inclusive candidate selection practices

Key action items to create inclusivity in your candidate selection practices:

1. Managers must be aware of how bias can influence hiring. Encourage your HR department to provide diversity training for recruiters and hiring managers. Ensure those responsible for recruitment are using best practices, are aware of the impact of unconscious bias, and are making decisions in alignment with your DEI strategy.
2. Use a variety of interviewers to leverage multiple/diverse perspectives. Hiring decisions made by a group can offer a more balanced perspective. Include interviewers from multiple levels in the organization and both men and women.
3. Hire for distinguished excellence. Be careful not to simply choose the same kind of people over and over, in the name of cultural fit (Source: Recruiter.com, 2015).

Broaden the notion of fit:

• Hire for skill fit: you might still hire certain types for a specific job (e.g. analytical types for analysis positions), but these candidates can still be diverse.
• Hire for fit with your organization’s DEI values, regardless of whether the candidate is from a diverse background or not.
• It can be tempting for hiring managers to hire individuals who are similar to themselves. However, doing so limits the amount of diversity entering your organization, and as a result, limits your organization’s ability to innovate.
4. Deliberately hire for cognitive diversity. Diverse thought processes, perspectives, and problem-solving abilities are positively correlated with firm performance (Source: Journal of Diversity Management, 2014).

Leverage a third-party tool

Ensure recruiting and onboarding programs are effective by surveying your new hires.

For a deeper analysis of your new hire processes Info-Tech’s sister company, McLean & Company, is an HR research and advisory firm that offers powerful diagnostics to measure HR processes effectiveness. If you are finding diversity issues to be systemic within the organization, leveraging a diagnostic can greatly improve your processes.

Use this diagnostic to get vital feedback on:

• Recruiting efforts. Find out if your job marketing efforts are successful, which paths your candidates took to find you, and whether your company is maintaining an attractive profile.
• Interviewing process. Ensure candidates experience an organized, professional, and ethical process that accurately sets their expectations for the job.
• Onboarding process. Make sure your new hires are being trained and integrated into their team effectively.
• Organizational culture. Is your culture welcoming and inclusive? You need to know if top talent enjoy the environment you have to offer.

For more information on the New Hire Survey click here. If you are interested in referring your HR partner please contact your account manager.

Phase 2

Enhance Your Retention Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Actively engage female staff to retain them

Employee engagement: the measurement of effective management practices that create a positive emotional connection between the employee and the organization.

Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

Today, what we find is that 54% of women in IT are not engaged,* but…

…engaged employees are: 39% more likely to stay at an organization than employees who are not engaged.*

Additionally, engaging your female staff also has the additional benefit of increasing willingness to innovate by 30% and performance by 28%. The good news is that increasing employee engagement is not difficult, it just requires dedication and an effective toolkit to monitor, analyze, and implement tactics.*

* Info-Tech and McLean & Company Diagnostics; N=1,308 IT employees

Don’t seek to satisfy; drive IT success through engagement

Engagement drivers that impact retention for men and women are different – tailor your strategy to your audience

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

* Recent data stays consistent, but the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees.

An analysis of the differences between men and women in IT’s drivers indicates that women in IT are significantly less likely than men in IT to agree with the following statements:

Culture:

• They identify well with the organization’s values.
• The organization has a very friendly atmosphere.

Employee Empowerment:

• They are given the chance to fully leverage their talents through their job.

Manager Relationships:

• They can trust their manager.
• Their manager cares about them as a person

Working Environment:

• They have not seen incidents of discrimination at their organization based on age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity.

Enhance your retention strategies

Employee engagement is one of the greatest predictors of intention to stay. To retain you need to understand not only engagement but also your employee experience – the moments that matter – and actively work to create a positive experience.

Improve employee engagement

What differentiates an engaged employee?

Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

Why measure engagement when looking at retention?

Engaged employees report 39%1 higher intention to stay at the organization than disengaged employees. The cost of losing an employee is estimated to be 150% to 200% of their annual salary.2 Can you afford to not engage your staff?

Why should IT leadership be responsible for their staff engagement?

Engagement happens every day, through every interaction, and needs to be tailored to individual team members to be successful. When engagement is owned by IT leadership, engagement initiatives are incorporated into daily experiences and personalized to their employees based on what is happening in real time. It is this active, dynamic leadership that inspires ongoing employee engagement and differentiates those who talk about engagement from those who succeed in engaging their teams.

Sources: 1 - McLean & Company Employee Engagement Survey, 2 - Gallup, 2019

Step 2.1

Improve employee engagement

Activities

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results and trends

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

Take a data-driven approach

Info-Tech’s employee engagement diagnostics are low-effort, high-impact programs that will give you detailed report cards on the organization’s engagement levels. Use these insights to understand your employees’ engagement levels by a variety of core demographics.

For the purpose of improving retention of women in IT, we encourage you to leverage the EXM tool, which will allow you to track how this demographic group’s engagement changes as you implement new initiatives.

Engagement survey

For a detailed breakdown of staff overall engagement priorities.

Overall Engagement Results

• A clear breakdown of employee engagement results by demographic, gender, and team.
• Detailed engagement breakdown and benchmarking.

Priority Matrix and Driver Scores

• A priority matrix specific to your organization.
• A breakdown of question scores by priority matrix quadrant.
• Know what not to focus your effort on – not all engagement drivers will have a high impact on engagement.

EXM dashboard

Reporting to track engagement in real time.

EXM Dashboard

• Leverage Info-Tech’s real-time Employee Experience Monitor dashboard to track your team’s engagement levels over time.
• Track changes in the number of supporters and detractors and slice the data by roles, teams, and gender.

Time Series Trends

• As you implement new initiatives to improve the engagement and retention of staff, track their impact and continuously course correct.
• Empower your leaders to actively manage their team culture to drive innovation, retention, and productivity.

Start your diagnostic now

Leverage your Info-Tech membership to seamlessly launch your employee engagement survey.

Info-Tech’s dedicated team of program managers will facilitate this diagnostic program remotely, providing you with a convenient, low-effort, high-impact experience.

We will guide you through the process with your goals in mind to deliver deep insight into your successes and areas to improve.

Start Now

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results

Identify trends

1. In a call with one of Info-Tech’s executive advisors, review the results of your employee engagement survey.
2. Identify which departments are most and least engaged and brainstorm some high-level reasons.
3. Review the demographic information and highlight any inconsistencies or areas with high levels of variance. Document which demographics have the most and least engaged, disengaged, and indifferent employees.
4. With help from the Info-Tech executive advisor, identify and document any dramatic differences in the demographic data, particularly around gender.
5. Identify if the majority of issues effecting engagement are at an organization or department level and which stakeholders you need to engage to support the process moving forward.
6. Identify next steps.

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

Hold focus groups with IT staff and focus on the five areas with the greatest impact on women’s retention.

1. Review the handout slides on the following pages to get a better understanding of the definition of each of the top five drivers impacting women’s retention. Depending on your team’s size, pick one to three drivers to focus on for your first focus group.
2. Divide the participants into teams and on flip chart paper or using sticky notes have the teams brainstorm what you can stop/start/continue doing to help you improve on your assigned driver.
• Continue: actions that work for the team related to this driver and should proceed.
• Start: actions/initiatives that the team would like to begin.
• Stop: actions/initiatives that the team would like to stop.
3. Prioritize the initiatives by considering: Is this initiative something you feel will make an impact on the engagement driver? Eliminate any initiatives that would not make an impact.
4. Have the groups present back and vote on two to three initiatives to implement to drive improvements within that area.

Culture

Engagement driver handout

Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.

Questions:

• I identify well with the organization’s values.
• This organization has a collaborative work environment.
• This organization has a very friendly atmosphere.
• I am a fit for the organizational culture.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #1
• Men in IT: #2

Company Potential

Engagement driver handout

Company Potential: An employee’s understanding of and commitment to the organization’s mission, and the employee’s excitement about the organization’s mission and future.

Questions:

• This organization has a bright future.
• I am impressed with the quality of people at this organization.
• People in this organization are committed to doing high-quality work.
• I believe in the organization’s overall business strategy.
• This organization encourages innovation.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #2
• Men in IT: #1

Employee Empowerment

Engagement driver handout

Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.

Questions:

• I am not afraid of trying out new ideas in my job.
• If I make a suggestion to improve something in my department I believe it will be taken seriously.
• I am empowered to make decisions about how I do my work.
• I clearly understand what is expected of me on the job.
• I have all the tools I need to do a great job.
• I am given the chance to fully leverage my talents through my job.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #3
• Men in IT: #6

Learning and Development

Engagement driver handout

Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort between an employee and the organization to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives and the organization’s needs.

Questions:

• I can advance my career in this organization.
• I am encouraged to pursue career development activities.
• In the last year, I have received an adequate amount of training.
• In the last year, the training I have received has helped me do my job better.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #4
• Men in IT: #5

Manager Relationships

Engagement driver handout

Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager. Manager relationships depend on the trust that exists between these two individuals and the extent that a manager supports and develops the employee.

Questions:

• My manager inspires me to improve.
• My manager provides me with high-quality feedback.
• My manager helps me achieve better results.
• I trust my manager.
• My manager cares about me as a person.
• My manager keeps me well informed about decisions that affect me.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #5
• Men in IT: #11

Step 2.2

Examine employee experience

Activities

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

Understand why and when employees plan to depart

Leverage “psychology of quitting” expertise.

Train your managers to provide them with the skills and expertise to recognize the warning signs of an employee’s departure and know how to re-engage and retain them.

• The majority of resignations are not spur of the moment. They are the result of a compilation of events over a period of time. Normally, these instances are magnified by a stimulant. The final straw or the breaking point drives the employee to make a change. In fact, it has been estimated that a shock jumpstarts 65% of departures.*
  • These shocks could be a lack of promotion, loss of privilege or development opportunity, or a quarrel with a manager.
• Employees rarely leave right away. Most wait until they have confirmed a new job opportunity before leaving. This creates a window in which you can reengage and retain them.
• The majority of employees show signs that they are beginning to think of leaving. Whether that is leaving immediately, putting in the bare minimum of effort, or job searching online at work. Train your managers to know the signs and to keep an eye out for potentially dissatisfied and searching employees.*
• It is easier and less costly to reengage an employee than to start the hiring process from the beginning.

*Source: The Career Café, 2017

Examine employee experience (EX)

Look beyond engagement drivers to drive retention.

Employee experience (EX) is the employee’s perception of their cumulative lived experiences with the organization. It is gauged by how well the employee’s expectations are met within the parameters of the workplace, especially by the “moments that matter” to them. Individual employee engagement is the outcome of a strong overall EX.

Drive a positive employee experience

Identify moments that matter.

Moments that matter are defining pieces or periods in an employee’s experience that create a critical turning point or memory that is of significant importance to them.

These are moments that dramatically change the path of the emotional journey, influence the quality of the final outcome, or end the journey prematurely.

To identify the moment that matters look for significant drops in the emotional journey that your organization needs to improve or significant bumps that your organization can capitalize on. Look for these drops or bumps in the journey and take stock of everything you have recorded at that point in the process. To improve the experience, analyze the hidden needs and how they are or aren’t being met.

Info-Tech Insight

The moment that matters is key and it could be completely separate from organizational life, like the death of a family member. Leaders can more proactively address these moments that matter by identifying them and determining how to make the touchpoint at that moment more impactful.

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

1. Review your Employee Experience Monitor weekly trends by logging into your dashboard and clicking on “Time Series Trends.”
2. With your management team, identify any weekly trends where your Employee Experience Score has seen changes in the number of detractor, passive, or promoter responses.
3. For each significant change identify:
• Increase in promoters or decrease in detractors:
• What can we do to duplicate positive moments that occurred this week?
• What did I do as a leader to create positive employee experiences?
• What happened in the organization that created a positive employee experience?
• Increase in detractors or decrease in promoters:
• What difficult change was delivered this week?
• What about this change was negatively perceived?
• During the difficult situation how did we as a leadership team support our staff?
• Who did we engage and recognize during the difficult situation?
• Was this situation a one-off issue or is this likely to occur again?
4. Consider your interactions with employees and identify how you made moments matter during those times related to four key engagement drivers impacting women in IT:
• How did you promote a positive culture and friendly atmosphere?
• How did you empower female staff to leverage their talents?
• How did you interact with staff?
• How did you promote a positive work environment? Where did you see bias in decisions?
5. Independently as manager, document three to five lessons learned from the changes in your detractors and promoters, and determine what action you will take.

Measured benefits of positive employee experience

Positive employee experiences lead to engaged employees, and engaged employees are eight times more likely to recommend the organization (McLean & Company Employee Engagement Database, 2017; N=74,671).

Retention

Employees who indicate they are having a positive experience at work have a 52% higher level of intent to stay (Great Place To Work Institute, 2021)

The bottom line

Organizations that make employee experience a focus have: 23% higher profitability 10% higher customer loyalty (Achievers, 2021)

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Post-Secondary Education

SOURCE: Adam Grant, “Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior”

The future is here! Is your data architecture practice ready?

Challenge

A university call center, tasked with raising scholarship money from potential donors, had high employee turnover and low morale.

Solution

A study led by Grant arranged for a test group of employees to meet and interact with a scholarship recipient. In the five-minute meeting, employees learned what the student was studying.

Results

Demonstrating the purpose behind their work had significant returns. Employees who had met with the student demonstrated:

More than two times longer “talk time” with potential donors.

A productivity increase of 400%: the weekly average in donations went from $185.94 to $503.22 for test-group employees.

Enhance your retention strategies

Do not wait until employees leave to find out what they were unhappy with or why they liked the organization. Instead, perform stay interviews with top and core talent to create a holistic understanding of what they are perceiving and feeling.

Conduct stay interviews

What is a stay interview?

A stay interview is a conversation with current employees. It should be performed on a yearly basis and is an informal discussion to generate deeper insight into the employee’s opinions, perspectives, concerns, and complaints. Stay interviews can have a multitude of uses. In this project they will be used to understand why top and core talent chose to stay with the organization to ensure that organizations understand and build upon their current strengths.

When should you do stay interviews?

We recommend completing stay interviews at least on an annual, if not quarterly, basis to truly understand how staff are feeling about the organization and their job, why they stay at the organization, and what would cause them to leave. Couple the outcomes of these interviews with employee engagement action planning to ensure that you are able to address talent needs.

Step 2.3

Conduct stay interviews and learn why employees stay

Activities

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

Conduct regular “stay” or “retention” interviews

Build stay interviews into the regular routine. By incorporating stay interviews into your schedule, they are more likely to stick. This regularity provides several advantages:

1. Ensures that retention issues do not take you by surprise. With a finger on the pulse of the organization you will be aware of potential issues.
2. Acts as a supplement to the engagement survey by providing additional information and context for the current level of emotion within the organization.
3. Begins to build a wealth of information that can be analyzed to identify themes and trends. This can be used to track whether the reasons why individuals stay are consistent or if are they changing. This will ensure that the retention strategy remains up to date.

Stay interview best practices:

• Ideally is performed by managers, but can be performed by HR.
• Ideally completed by managers as they are more familiar with their employees, have a greater reach, can hold meetings in a more informal setting, and will receive information first hand.
• If conducted by managers, it’s a best practice to ensure that there is a central repository of themes so that you can identify if there are any trends in the responses, that consistent questions are asked, and that all of the information is in one place
• Should be an informal conversation.
• Should be conducted in a non-critical time in the business year.
• Ask three types of questions:
• What do you enjoy about working here?
• What would you change about your working environment?
• What would encourage or force you to leave the organization?
• Interview a diverse employee base:
• Demographics
• Role
• Performance level
• Location

Source: Talent Management & HT, 2013

Leverage stay interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Stay Interview Guide.

Proactively identify opportunities to drive retention.

The Stay Interview Guide helps managers conduct interviews with current employees, enabling the manager to understand:

• The employee's current engagement level.
• The employee's satisfaction with current role and responsibilities.
• Suggestions for potential improvements.
• An employee's intent to stay with the organization.

Use this template to help you understand how you can best engage your employees and identify any challenges, in terms of moments that mattered, that negatively impacted their intention to stay at the organization.

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

1. If you are using the Employee Experience Monitor, prepare for your stay interviews by reviewing your results and identifying if there have been any changes in the results over the previous six weeks. Identify which demographics have the highest and lowest engagement levels – and identify any changes in experience between different demographics.
2. Identify a meeting schedule and cadence that seems appropriate for your stay interviews. For example, you likely will not do all staff at the same time and it may be beneficial to space out your meetings throughout the year. Select a candidate for your first stay interview and invite them for a one-on-one meeting. If it’s unusual for you to meet with this employee, we recommend providing some light context around the rationale, such as that you are looking for opportunities to strengthen the organizational culture and better understand how you can improve retention and engagement at the organization.
3. Download the Stay Interview Template, review all of the questions beforehand, and identify the key questions that you want to ask in the meeting.
• TIP: Even though this is called a “stay interview,” really it should be more of a conversation, and certainly not an interrogation. Know the questions you want to ask, and ask your staff member if it’s ok if you jot down some notes. It may even be beneficial to have the meeting outside of the office, over lunch, or out for coffee.
4. Hold your meeting with the employee and thank them for their time.
5. Following the meeting, send them a thank-you email to thank them for providing feedback, summarize your top three to five key takeaways from the meeting, verify with them that this aligns with their perspective, and see if they have anything else to add to the conversation. Identify any initiatives or changes that you will make as a result of the information – set a date for execution and follow-up.
6. If you are in the process of recruiting new employees to the organization, don’t forget to remind them of your referral program and ask if they might know of any candidates that would be a good fit for the organization.

Download the Stay Interview Guide

Ten tips for best managing stay interviews

Although stay interviews are meant to be informal, you should schedule them as you would any other meeting. Simply invite the employee for a chat.

1. Step out of the office if possible. Opt for your local coffee shop, a casual lunch destination, or another public but informal location.
2. Keep the conversation short, no more than 15 to 20 minutes. If there are any areas of concern that you think warrant action, ask the employee if they would like to discuss them another time. Suggest another meeting to delve deeper into specific issues.
3. Be clear about the purpose of the conversation. Stay interviews are not performance reviews.
4. Focus on what you can do for them. Ask about the employee’s preferences when it comes to feedback and communication (frequency, method, etc.) as well as development (preferences around methods, e.g. coaching or rotations, and personal goals).
5. Be positive. Ask your employee what they like about their job and use positively framed questions.
6. Ask about what they like doing. People enjoy talking about what they like to do. Ask employees about the talents and skills they would like to incorporate into their work duties.
7. Show that you’re listening – paraphrase, ask for clarification, and use appropriate gestures.
8. Refrain from taking notes during the meeting to preserve a conversational atmosphere.
9. Pay attention to the employee’s body language and tone. If it appears that they are uncomfortable talking to you, stop the interview or pause to let them collect themselves.
10. Be open to suggestions, but remember that you can’t control everything. If the employee brings up issues that are beyond your control, tell them that you will do all you can to improve the situation but can’t guarantee anything.

Related Info-Tech Research

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• To stay competitive, IT leaders need to be more involved and commit to a plan to recruit and retain people of color in their departments and organizations. A diverse team is an answer to innovation that can differentiate your company.
• Treat recruiting and retaining a diverse team as a business challenge that requires full engagement. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution that will help IT leaders build a plan to attract, recruit, engage, and retain people of color.

Recruit Top IT Talent

• Changing workforce dynamics and increased transparency have shifted the power from employers to job seekers, stiffening the competition for talent.
• Candidate expectations match high consumer expectations and affect the employer brand, the consumer brand, and overall organizational reputation. Delivering a positive candidate experience (CX2) is no longer optional.

Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

• Talk is cheap. Hiring isn’t.
• Gain insight into and understand the need for a strong interview process.
• Strategize and plan your interview process.
• Understand various hiring scenarios and how an interview process may be modified to reflect your organization’s scenario.

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