Gender Equality and Team Diversity Help to Overcome Crises. My Tips.

Gender equality is a hot topic for a few years already. More companies are taking this seriously, as it brings diversity inside the workforce and increases the creativity from which many challenges can be seen and solved from different angles. Especially in times of crisis, the availability of a broad spectrum of competences helps to adapt and thus survive.

Achieving gender equality is important for workplaces not only because it is ‘fair’ and ‘the right thing to do,’ but because it is also linked to a country’s overall economic performance. Workplace gender equality is associated with: Improved national productivity and economic growth, increased organisational performance, enhanced organisational reputation and more.

Breaking the stereotype that tech is a “Boy’s club”

As an international company, the multicultural environment of Icecat creates a unique atmosphere, filled by “diversity” as we have people coming from different parts of the world. Icecat today has 42.5% women in its workforce, which compares favorably to honeypot’s study: the Netherlands takes the 24th place with only 15.56% women working in the ICT sector. Icecat has more than double the number of women in its workforce. We believe and we stand behind the concept that, diversity in the workspace is crucial for moving forward in a sense of growth and prosperity, especially when people are coming from different cultures and countries. If you want, you can find the digital vibe in our office. In the current crisis environment, it gives a very quick access to different ideas and approaches regarding how to mitigate the business risks related to Covid-19.

Gender equality in the ICT sector

A study from Honeypot, focused on 41 countries that are part of OECD and the EU, quantifies gender comparisons for both the tech industry and the wage gap. In their study, Bulgaria is the leading country with 30.28% of women working in the tech sector, followed by Australia (28%) and Romania (26.30%). The countries with the smallest percentage of women working in the ICT sector are the Slovak Republic (9.29%), Turkey (9.91%) and Israel (11%).

My tips on how to achieve gender equality at workplaces

• Hire diversity – Value, stimulate and hire diverse teams.
• Pay and demand the same salary for equal work – Historically, for every dollar a man receives, women earn an average of 70-90 cents, though recently young women tend to out-earn men.
• Promote a better work-life balance for all genders
• Offer training and mentors to everyone within your business – Do not discriminate either men or women.
• Build a safe channel to report bullying – Employees must feel safe to report sexual harassment and racism without being exposed or dismissed.

In a study conducted by the World Economic Forum, researchers found that at our current pace, it will take 100 years to eradicate gender disparities.

Let’s speed up. Are you implementing some of the points above and contributing to a swift transition?

Stojan Trajkovikj