To address the IT skill gap, we must change the culture behind it

The male-dominated culture of Silicon Valley is turning women and minorities off from becoming part of the tech space

Changing the face of IT is a seminal issue of the day - arguably up there with ‘understanding the cloud' and ‘scrapping waterfall' in importance. For decades, the industry has been dominated by the Silicon Valley bro culture, which largely excludes women and ethnic minorities: both massive pools of potential talent and new ideas.

Changing recruitment and working practices can help to attract people who are already in IT, but attracting more women and minorities to the sector in the first place is still a challenge. Not only are women underrepresented, for instance, but evidence shows that the gender gap is actually growing.

Monika Fahlbusch, Chief Employee Experience Officer at BMC Software, whose company puts a focus on this issue, told us that "even the women who succeed in that [Silicon Valley] environment act like the men; it's male-dominated, even for some of the females. They do that to thrive and survive.

"I think we'd be kidding ourselves to say that [bro culture] did not reject a lot of women in general, or young women. It didn't create this environment for young women to say, ‘My life dream is to go into STEM so I can go work in Silicon Valley'."

Improving the pipeline

"The pipeline of girls going into STEM is not great. Part of what tech companies need to do is commit to fixing that, otherwise we're going to be facing this problem over and over again," said Fahlbusch. "You have to dig into the pipe to ensure that you have a foundation of talent - and women in general."

Unfortunately, many young women cannot see themselves in the technical field because they lack identifiable role models. Having a mentor that they can relate to is a strong first step in promoting interest in STEM subjects:

"These women need to see themselves in the company; they need to have people who are their mentors, their sponsors, their champions. They need to see themselves in these companies in a big way. You have to be conscious of that… It absolutely matters."

Those role models should be distributed through the company; in the developer office and the boardroom, as well as non-technical roles like finance and HR. "You have to be specific about where you have those imbalances," says Fahlbusch, "and you have to go after it."

Culture change - is it necessary?

Despite all of the negative press around so-called bro culture, Fahlbusch acknowledges that it can benefit some businesses:

"There are elements of that culture - aggressive; open communication; really competitive - [that] are partially why these companies are so successful. I think, as with almost everything, this is a complicated topic. It would be wrong for us to say, ‘Bro culture is bad and must go', [but] it goes without saying that an environment where women don't feel welcome is bad...

"Cultures that thrive are cultures that have harnessed multiple ways [of listening and working]... The culture doesn't change, but we have found multiple ways to listen, communicate and get multiple points of view."

We at Computing want to celebrate the amazing work being done by women in the industry, and inspire the next generation by presenting them with positive role models like Monika. We've now opened entries for our second annual Women in IT Awards, which will be held later this year. Enter now!