Home to a flourishing and highly skilled IT industry, Sri Lanka was ranked #2 Global Ecosystem for Affordable Talent in the 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER by Startup Genome. This report shows that Sri Lanka is ideal for finding tech talent. However, only about 25% of these highly skilled individuals in the IT industry are women. While Women’s Day helps raise awareness about gender disparities, progress is made on all 365 days a year towards #BreakingtheBias.
For Gapstars, a software development company, it is not just about Women’s Day. Rather, their focus is on illuminating women and uplifting them on their career journey. Through its policies that promote diversity, equality, and workforce inclusion, Gapstars is leading by example. Moreover, its efforts offer a blueprint for companies to implement the same. Thus, addressing the gender gap in the local IT industry, which once solved, would benefit countless generations to come.
A brief glance at the gender gap in tech
The tech industry is infamous for having a gender gap in its workforce. Globally, only 27% of women would consider a career within technology as opposed to 61% of men. However, not all who consider entering the industry go through with it. This trend could be partly due to a lack of widely known role models. According to a PwC study, almost 80% of students cannot name a famous woman working in technology, but less than 30% are unable to name a man.
Working towards fixing the gender gap
Addressing the gender gap requires the entire technology industry to change infrastructure and work cultures to create an inclusive environment. Fundamentally, we must look at increasing female participation within the IT industry, challenging existing gender biases, and improving retention rates of female employees. These are all serious challenges that cannot be resolved overnight. Nevertheless, it’s essential to start and make incremental progress towards resolving these issues. For those companies looking to take those initial steps, Gapstars offers a blueprint to move forward.
Increasing the number of women in IT
Female empowerment is a big part of Gapstars’ identity. As the company grew its workforce, it emphasised providing equal opportunities. To that end, it critically evaluated its hiring process to remove any bias. As a result, 25% of the company’s workforce is female. Further, over 48% of their growth and support teams are women playing pivotal roles in its success. Yet, eliminating bias in hiring is merely the first step.
Building an inclusive work culture
Empowerment begins with belief, trust, and understanding. These attributes are the fundamental building blocks of the culture at Gapstars and are freely expressed towards all their employees, irrespective of gender, age, race or religion. To that end, the organisation encourages women to look at their careers as part of their identity and not a byproduct of family-oriented responsibilities. By offering flexibility, empathy, and recognition, Gapstars pushes the women in their workforce to be the best they can be. From these efforts, the company has built a high-performance culture that recognises hard work, passion and commitment, irrespective of gender.
More opportunities for women to grow in their careers
Beyond the above, the IT industry also faces several challenges in ensuring the sustained growth of female participation. To tackle these issues by offering career growth opportunities, Gapstars launched an initiative called the Gapstars Academy, which now plays an instrumental role in creating a learning environment in the company. The initiative allows ideas to be shared within teams and the broader organisation, which helps everyone learn from success and challenges alike. While technology is their essence, the academy looks at various topics ranging from personal branding to financial management to emotional wellbeing. The decision for this variety is the core belief within Gapstars to give the best for its employees to live fulfilling lives beyond their careers.
Joining #BreakingtheBias
Promoting opportunities is just as crucial as providing opportunities. The experience of one woman can help to inspire several. Hence, it’s essential to give women a platform to showcase their journey, expertise and talent. Such actions would help young girls learn more about their opportunities in the tech industry and encourage them. It also encourages other tech companies to make a change for the better.
To that end, Gapstars have planned a few collaborations for this month. The women of Gapstars will be joining the stages of Diversity Collective, Google Women Techmakers and the Women in Tech Meetup as speakers and panellists across areas stretching from technology to talent acquisition to management skills. During these events, they wish to show that the revolution that began years ago is still in action and progress.
Overcoming cultural stigmas and stereotypes that have been ingrained into us since a young age, Gapstars moves to stand tall as an example of diversity and inclusion. They have much more in store for the future of Sri Lanka’s tech industry and the aspiring women in IT. Moving towards a more inclusive future, their efforts offer a blueprint for organisations to Break the Bias.