As International Women’s Day rolls around once more, this year’s theme of ‘Breaking the Bias’ is a reminder that we still have a long way to go to achieve gender balance in fields that have up til now been dominated by men. One way to achieve this balance is to encourage and support more women into STEM roles, writes Sally Elson, head of people advisory and talent at MYOB.

As a SaaS (software as a service) company, we know the best way to develop products and services to help our customers is to bring together diverse teams with diverse skill sets and ways of thinking. Yet, a key problem facing the technology ecosystem as a whole is bringing more gender diversity into STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

One way to ‘break the bias’, the theme of International Women’s Day this year, is to encourage women into STEM roles and provide an environment they want to stay in. Something that’s also vital to business success.

Women severely lacking in STEM fields

According to the STEM Equity Monitor released in May 2021, the proportion of women working across all STEM-qualified industries only increased from 24 per cent in 2016 to 28 per cent in 2020.

We know female employees are far less likely to leave an organisation if they know they can have two or three careers within the one business, and feel a sense of belonging which comes from having truly diverse teams.

It’s not good enough to have one female in a team of eight men, we need to make sure we have real diversity rather than tokenism.

Traditional pathways to learn STEM skills and commence careers in the tech industry are not bringing in enough diversity in talent. The STEM Equity Monitor shows women made up less than a quarter of students studying STEM in 2019 (22 per cent of enrolments and 24 per cent of completions of total STEM VET and university enrolments).

The DevelopHer program

At MYOB we developed a specific program, DevelopHer, to redress the gender imbalance and support women in STEM careers.

We’ve seen firsthand the impact that giving women opportunities to upskill can have on the business. The DevelopHer program has been going for five years in Australia and launches for the first time this year in New Zealand. The program provides successful candidates with a paid full-time internship, balancing study at RMIT with learning at MYOB, and on completion, a full-time role with MYOB as an associate developer. The program provides candidates with supportive mentors and is designed to offer an optimal learning environment that will see them thrive.

Since the inception of DevelopHer, 84 per cent of graduates from the program have stayed with MYOB and 89 per cent of these are still in software development fields. The 2021 STEM Equity Monitor shows five years after graduating, men with a STEM qualification are 1.8 times more likely to be working in a STEM-qualified occupation compared to their women peers. We’re proud that our program upskills women, as well as helping them thrive at their newfound career and stay within the industry.

Mehak Mahajan completed the DevelopHer program in February this year and said the decision to go back and study was a challenge she’s extremely grateful she took on.

“While I was working in marketing and analysing trends through various software, I started to wonder how these platforms were built and found myself wanting to know more. I love challenges and that’s when I decided I wanted to pursue a new career in the technology industry,” said Mehak.

“I could never have imagined I would learn so much in six months. The supportive environment you are in for DevelopHer, with mentors and friends helping you along every step of the way, had me constantly improving and excited about my future career in the sector.”

There is still work to be done. At MYOB we are focused on expanding the DevelopHer program to allow more women the opportunity to upskill and we are looking at more ways to provide that sense of belonging to women in the industry.

How small businesses can help improve diversity

Small businesses can also play a role in increasing gender diversity. Some ways to start include:

• Creating a workplace where all people feel welcome.
• Ensuring your team is aligned with the company’s diversity goals and understand the positive impact it will make – diversity must come from a genuine desire rather than ‘checking a box’.
• Regularly reviewing your employee base to ensure your diversity targets are being met.
• Checking job advertisements to ensure neutral language is used that will appeal to all candidates, regardless of gender.
• Looking at where you’re advertising open roles to ensure diversity in candidates applying.

Small and medium businesses don’t have to have large programs to make a difference. Sometimes the first step is simply looking at the makeup of your business to see where you could focus efforts to improve diversity. There are resources available to help small business owners in their diversity efforts at business.gov.au.

It might be the first step towards breaking the bias in your workplace.

Applying for DevelopHer

The DevelopHer program is open to women of all ages, backgrounds and skill sets. For many it’s an opportunity to re-skill and change careers, though women can apply straight out of school if they wish.

On completion of the course, participants receive either a Graduate Certificate of Application Development or credits toward a Computer Science Degree from RMIT — plus full-time employment at MYOB as a Protégé Developer in the MYOB graduate program, The Future Makers Academy.

Successful applicants will commence their study in July through to November, with an elective in the New Year. Applicants will then join the February 2023 protégé cohort in the MYOB Future Makers Academy.

For more information or to apply for the DevelopHer intake head to: DevelopHer Scholarship and Graduate Program. 

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https://www.kochiesbusinessbuilders.com.au/workplace-gender-equality-scorecard-reveals-women-remain-underrepresented-and-underpaid/