[OpenExpo] Creating an inclusive corporate culture for women in tech

I presented this at Open Expo 18 in Madrid.

Only 17.2% of tech professionals are women in the EU. What can we do on a corporate level to attract these talents and make them stay?
Creating an inclusive corporate culture helps us achieve just that. This talk shares concrete steps that employees and employers can take to improve women in tech’s sense of belonging and engagement:

1. Make inclusion a company-wide goal
2. Start a women in engineering group
3. Mentorship and set career goals
4. Ensure fair recognition
5. Ally training

Transcript

1. Creating an inclusive corporate culture for women in tech @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
2. IMAGE Yenny Cheung Originally from Hong Kong Software Engineer at Yelp On the Biz National team In Hamburg Leads the Awesome Women in Engineering Group at Yelp in Germany ABOUT ME @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
3. IMAGE Connecting people with great local businesses @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 ABOUT YELP
5. Yelpers have written 155 million reviews since 2004. Some fun facts about Yelp We have over 500 developers working in San Francisco, Hamburg and London. We maintain 85 open source projects! We have 74 million desktop and 30 million mobile app monthly unique visitors. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
6. Agenda for today Why do we want diversity? How to create an inclusive corporate culture Women in tech status quo @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
7. Why do we want diversity? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
8. IMAGE Why do we want people from different cultures, backgrounds, and genders to join our companies? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY
9. 1. People from different backgrounds approach problems in different ways. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
10. WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY "Gender diversity can improve team decision-making and improve innovation capabilities for development of new products or services." - Jessica Alsford, Head of Morgan Stanley’s Research Team @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
11. 2. Having diverse employees helps us customize our services for a diverse set of users @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
12. WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY "Companies in the top quartile for gender or racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians." - McKinsey & Company 2015 @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
13. WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY "Organizations benefit most from gender diversity initiatives when they create a supportive infrastructure. " - National Center for Women in Information Technology 2014 @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
14. IMAGE "Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance." - Vernā Myers, author and speaker on diversity @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY
15. WHY DO WE WANT DIVERSITY So now the question becomes: How do we create a culture where people from all backgrounds can belong and succeed in our companies? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
16. Women in Tech Status Quo @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
17. Employed tech specialists by gender WOMEN IN TECH STATUS QUO @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 *Data from Eurostat in 2017
18. Not receiving high visibility assignments. Experiences of women in tech Having their ideas ignored until a man makes the same suggestion later. Receiving more vague feedback and personality criticism in performance evaluations. Excluded from more creative and innovative roles. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 Feeling stalled in their career. WOMEN IN TECH GROUP
19. 2010 The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations Managers who promote meritocracy ironically show greater bias in favor of men. Companies pressured to disclose women in tech numbers Tracy Chou started a movement that pressured companies to disclose diversity reports. Women in tech in big tech companies were as low as 10%. 2013 2015 #ILookLikeAnEngineer Isis Anchalee started the hashtag about diversity as a response to the backlash of the OneLogin ad that she was in. 2017 Susan Fowler spoke up against Uber She posted alleged multiple instances of sexism and sexual assault at the company. 2018 #MeToo Women from all over the world called out aggressors and toxic work cultures. WOMEN IN TECH STATUS QUO @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
20. “A Boy’s Club”? “Programmer” == “Brogrammer”? WOMEN IN TECH STATUS QUO @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
21. WOMEN IN TECH STATUS QUO As an industry we can do better than this! @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
22. How to create an inclusive corporate culture? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
23. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 1. Top-down: make inclusion a company-wide goal. 2. Bottom-up: start a women in tech group. 3. Mentorship and set career goals. 4. Ensure fair recognition. 5. Ally training. CREATING AN INCLUSIVE CULTURE Overview
24. Top-down approach: Make inclusion a company-wide goal If you want your employees to care about inclusion, show that the company cares as well. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
25. IMAGE COMPANY-WIDE INCLUSION “Play well with others” - One of Yelp’s core values @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
26. Promoting people who lack the skill to make employees feel welcome prevents your company’s culture from being inclusive. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 COMPANY-WIDE INCLUSION
27. Q: How do we know if this is effective? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 COMPANY-WIDE INCLUSION COMPANY-WIDE INCLUSION
28. Build → Measure → Learn COMPANY-WIDE INCLUSION @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
29. Bottom-up approach: Start a women in tech employee resource group Increasing women’s sense of belonging and creating more opportunities. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
30. Increasing women in tech’s sense of belonging and creating opportunities: @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 1. Provide a safe space. 2. Offer networking opportunities. 3. Act as a professional amplifier. WOMEN IN TECH GROUP
31. Provides women in tech a safe space, because it is hard to fight against the system when you’re only 1 person. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 WOMEN IN TECH GROUP
32. Create networking opportunities that can increase visibility to women in tech’s careers. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 WOMEN IN TECH GROUP
33. A professional amplifier @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 WOMEN IN TECH GROUP
34. Mentorship and Setting Career Goals Provide women in tech access to senior management, opens up opportunities and increases visibility to career paths @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
35. My experience with mentorship @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 Virginia Tam Software engineer at Yelp MENTORSHIP AND CAREER
36. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 My experience with mentorship MENTORSHIP AND CAREER
37. My experience with mentorship @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 Gülsüm Can Incoming software engineer at Yelp MENTORSHIP AND CAREER
38. My experience with mentorship @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 MENTORSHIP AND CAREER
39. Access to senior leadership @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 1. Provide employees visibility. 2. Help set career milestones. 3. Receive good feedback. MENTORSHIP AND CAREER
40. Ensure Fair Recognition The success story of the open source project “Yelp Love” @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
41. ENSURE FAIR RECOGNITION "Women in tech are less likely to get their ideas green-lighted for development than men (30% vs 37%)." - Center for Talented Innovation 2014 @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
42. "The amplification strategy at the White House: when a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author." - The Washington Post 2016 @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 ENSURE FAIR RECOGNITION
43. The success story of the open source project Yelp Love @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 ENSURE FAIR RECOGNITION
44. Ally training Strengthen an inclusive culture through allies. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
45. We try to show all employees how they can be good allies and encourage one another to speak up and point out things that are not fair to others. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 ALLY TRAINING
46. www.yelp.com/careers/ Offices @ Hamburg London San Francisco We're Hiring!
47. An inclusive corporate culture is only achievable if all people are on board. @yennycheung #OpenExpo18 CLOSING
48. Thank you! @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
49. Questions? @yennycheung #OpenExpo18
50. https://chelseatroy.com/2018/05/24/why-your-efforts-to-ma ke-your-company-inclusive-arent-working/ References https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/the-real-reason-wo men-quit-tech-and-how-to-address-it-6dfb606929fd https://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/impactge nderdiversitytechbusinessperformance_print.pdf https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20160213 @yennycheung #OpenExpo18