How we walk the walk with gender equality2 min read

One of the biggest challenges facing the UK digital economy is the urgent need to attract women to the sector.

Currently, less than a fifth of employees in British tech jobs are women. That puts a duty on every tech firm to think about how we solve this. At Cloud9 Insight, we have achieved a figure of 41%. It’s not quite enough! But we’re on the right track and we’re happy to share our approach with you. Maybe it will help spark some ideas at your business!

Our approach to gender equality

We have a female CEO in Carlene Jackson and half of our management team are women. As a dyslexic entrepreneur, Carlene has built a business that is focussed on nurturing people from diverse backgrounds, including women.

At all levels, the team understands and embraces the foundational importance of equality, diversity and inclusion. Management encourages all team members to draw up “10 year CVs” and to discuss them with managers.

These provide roadmaps for development that support employees to think beyond any gender-related barriers. They help employees overcome any marginalisation or micro-aggressions they might experience later in their careers due to their sex.

Join the national conversation on gender equality

We also take every opportunity we can to join the national discussion on the need for more women in tech. For example, Carlene and our Partner Success Manager Pauline Durand have joined the Women In Tech Network, which is sponsored by Microsoft. We are hugely proud to support this important community, which is doing great work to promote women in technology.

Carlene is the lead for Diversity and Inclusion at the IAMCP EMEA and speaks regularly in the media about ways of encouraging young or disadvantaged women and girls to believe they can have fulfilling careers in digital. As a result of this work, Carlene was shortlisted in the ‘Woman of the Year’ category in the Women In IT national awards.

You might be amazed how inspiring it can be for your female workforce to see your own managers joining conversations beyond the walls of your business. This has certainly proven to be true at Cloud9 Insight! It is also an effective way to demonstrate your commitment to gender equality to prosective employees from the enormous untapped pool of talent that exists in Britain’s female population.

Gender equality, diversity and inclusion is a clear challenge for all of us and we will rise to it by sharing ideas. So we’d love to hear – either in the comments below or by private message – how your business is approaching the need for more women in tech.

Thank you!