
Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that - userium
Website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stayintech.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stayintech.com&#x2F;</a><p>Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career. Our goal is to decrease that number and help companies increase diversity of their workforce.<p>See which companies take diversity seriously, and find a better job in tech.<p>If you have any questions or feedback, we&#x27;d love to hear from you!
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MrTonyD
I read an article in the New York Times about unpublished research. A major
company hired researchers to figure out why they had fewer women employees.
They found that women quit more than men. Surprisingly, women had exactly the
same work issues as men - poor management, lack of work-life balance,
unreasonable demands, unreasonable expectations. But women, more often than
men, had the freedom in their life to quit - while more men simply didn't have
that option.

The company, realizing that the research would require that they treat their
employees better, buried the research and started a PR campaign to talk about
how they try to hire more women.

So we really need better regulation of companies - so that we can improve life
for all of our citizens. I would like to see laws requiring employees on
boards, limiting working hours, requiring higher pay for part-time vs. full-
time workers, and perhaps required training for all managers for "low power
distance" management. Really, I'm for anything that might improve quality of
life for our citizens. We live in a time of extreme automation - why are so
many of us forced to work in such poor conditions?

~~~
dozzie
> But women, more often than men, had the freedom in their life to quit -
> while more men simply didn't have that option.

It would mean that women have it better than men, which is not a popular
narrative today.

~~~
sridca
Indeed. Roy Baumeister has written about it (where I first picked up the fact,
having grown blind to it all my life):
[http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm](http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm)

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Mz
I applaud your effort. I have upvoted this.

I will suggest you devote more effort to developing a means to talk to
companies about "best practices" and how to do this better. Try to frame it in
a non judgey fashion. Try hard to avoid sounding like you are moralizing.
People will interpret your position that way anyway simply because of the
space you are in. You will need to kind over compensate for that to have any
hope of being heard as not being on your high horse about this.

I liked the Design for Diversity section. At the moment, all the titles I am
seeingseem to be about web and app design. I hope you have plans to also write
about how companies can design the company to attract and retain a diverse
work force.

Let me suggest you do your best to find good research and to frame it in terms
of what is in it for the company. I like your bit about how much job turnover
costs. You need more in that vein. Case studies of how to do this sell and how
it promotes success for the company would be a good thing.

I don't know where I saw it recently, but I have seen stats that correlate
diversity to profitability. This would be another good angle to high light:
Hey, all you Programmers, you are leaving money on the table.

If I ran this, I would be angling to help non diverse companies do this better
as a means to further my mission and grow my user base/potential paying
customer base. I will suggest that helping companies find "low hanging fruit"
\-- I.e. relatively painless ways to promote diversity -- would be a great way
to start enticing companies down the slippery slope of goodness here.

~~~
userium
Thank you, great advice. Companies who we have talked with have done work with
e.g. improving their maternity leave policies, adding remote work
opportunities, making job ads more gender neutral and building diverse hiring
teams.

Companies seem eager to improve, many of them ask us what more could they do
to successfully to attract and retain diverse talent.

We are in the process of writing more content, also about what companies can
do to attract and retain a diverse workforce.

You are absolutely right, finding good research is paramount and framing it in
terms of how it benefits the company.

We have lots of work ahead in contacting and adding companies on the website,
to have a useful resource for users. But the feedback we have gotten so far
from users is very positive and ensures us that we are on the right path.

Thanks!

~~~
Mz
This is the article with the stats I referenced and it is based on a study:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2015/12/06/why-
divers...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2015/12/06/why-diversity-
and-inclusion-will-be-a-top-priority-for-2016/#5dbb3f574bd4)

Best of luck.

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lettergram
Do you have any statistics on why they leave tech?

From my experience, in a big tech corporation, there are two major issues:

1\. Women starting out (fresh out of college) don't appear to want to be
software engineers, yet do it to pivot to another job.

2\. They decide to have children, which often means they leave work for a
time, and decide never to come back (although the offers are there)

Everyone should take diversity seriously, but I am curious if you have any
hard stats on why women leave in the first place? That'll actually allow this
problem to be solved.

~~~
userium
Research shows that women leave tech due to various reasons, e.g. working
conditions (no advancement, low compensation), work-life balance (too much
travelling, commuting), or the company environment (cultural "fit") [1].

Based on discussions we have had with users each story is unique. Many of our
users are worried about getting "too old" to learn the latest technologies,
and are trying to figure out how to get to a managerial position.

Many of our users have also told us that by switching to a company that
promotes women, and supports diversity in other ways, was a better fit for
them. A career in tech can be very rewarding if you find the right environment
/ company / job.

[1] Harvard Business Review (2008) The Athena factor: Reversing the brain
drain in science, engineering and technology
[http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-...](http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-
Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-
technology.pdf)

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userium
In the intro we wrote quite shortly about our company, so here is some more
information about our motivation for doing this:

It's known that diversity improves organisational performance and
competitiveness. Diverse teams improve ROI, increase innovation and solve
problems better.

Still only 25% of the IT workforce are women, and over 40% of them leave tech
mid-career. We think people who build technology should represent the people
who use it.

There is a lack of talent in STEM, so in addition to attracting new talent, we
need to find ways to retain current talent, who will build the future of
technology. A career in tech can be very rewarding if you find the right
company and job.

~~~
danielvf
I thought the latest meta studies showed that there was not a significant
positive correlation between diversity and organizational/team performance? I
was doing a SciFi diversity gaming challenge, and went reading papers. I was
really surprised to find that

"The evidence based on meta-analyses, which systematically aggregate the
results from all relevant studies, tentatively suggests that gender diversity
within teams does not exert any influence on team performance (Webber &
Donahue, 2001; Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007; Joshi & Roh, 2009; Schneid et al.,
2014). A notable exception is the meta-analysis by Bell et al. (2011), which
evidences a negative association between gender diversity and team
performance..."

~~~
userium
> "I thought the latest meta studies showed that there was not a significant
> positive correlation between diversity and organizational/team performance?"

Yes, however diversity can create better performance when it comes to 'out of
the ordinary' creative tasks, e.g. product development. There are benefits for
innovation and getting fresh ideas. But there are different types of diversity
that can generate various sorts of conflict, which affect how a team performs.
The benefits of diversity don't occur overnight, but can improve performance
if managed successfully. [1]

The studies you mentioned (Horwitz and Horwitz, 2007; Joshi and Roh, 2009) had
mixed findings because they observed different aspects of diversity (e.g. age,
gender, ethnicity, and demographic diversity) and analyzed the relationship
between these and team outcomes.

[1] Jayne & Dipboye, 2004. Leveraging diversity to improve business
performance.

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throweway
Why is it bad if people leave tech mid career? I cant imagine cranking out the
hiroglythics myself for too much longer. Especially as non managerial it is
low status.

~~~
userium
> "Why is it bad if people leave tech mid career?"

It's known that gender diversity improves organisational performance and
competitiveness. Diverse teams improve ROI, increase innovation and solve
problems better. Still only 25% of the IT workforce are women, and over 40% of
them leave tech mid-career. We think people who build technology should
represent the people who use it. There is a lack of talent in STEM, so in
addition to attracting new talent, we need to find ways to keep more of the
current talent, to build the future of technology. A career in tech can be
very rewarding if you find the right company and job.

------
ryporter
This just looks like a job board with ads for companies. Of course they are
going say that they take diversity seriously. What have you done to curate
this site? I expected to see some sort of data about the companies.

~~~
userium
> "Of course they are going say that they take diversity seriously."

Actually this is what we were also worried about, but we have been in contact
with many companies, and not all of them see diversity as a priority. Those
companies who take diversity seriously are excited about our mission and want
to showcase their company to our users. We have had long conversations with
all the companies on our site, and heard what they are doing to support
diversity. But you are right, there is so much more we can do, and we can't
wait to go forward with this.

~~~
ryporter
Fair enough. I should have instead claimed that many companies will inflate
how much they care about diversity, some to large extent.

For adding content. I was about to suggest creating a diversity ranking, but
of course this has already been done (e.g., [1] and [2]). How do you intend to
become a thought leader in this space?

[1] [http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-
top-50-companie...](http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-
top-50-companies-for-diversity-2015/)

[2] [http://fortune.com/best-workplaces-for-
diversity/](http://fortune.com/best-workplaces-for-diversity/)

~~~
userium
> "How do you intend to become a thought leader in this space?"

Those are great resources. However, our users are mostly from the USA, Canada
and Europe, which is why are planning to add companies and jobs from all of
those locations.

In user testing we found out that women would like to see targeted job ads for
them. Research shows that men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the
qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them [1]. If a tech
job is advertised directly to women in tech, it lowers the barrier for
applying for a job.

There are lots of campaigns and initiatives for encouraging young women to
start tech careers, but we are taking a different approach by encouraging
women to stay in tech.

[1] Harvard Business Review (2014) “Why women don’t apply for jobs unless
they’re 100% qualified” Source: [https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-
for-jobs-unless...](https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-
unless-theyre-100-qualified)

------
lillukka
"Still only 25% of the IT workforce are women, and over 40% of them leave tech
mid-career. We think people who build technology should represent the people
who use it."

I agree, upvoted this. Good luck.

~~~
userium
Thank you!

