Member Article

Celebrating women in tech for International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated globally to commend the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

Marked annually on 8th March, IWD is a day dedicated to celebrating and raising awareness of women’s achievements, acting as a lobby for accelerating gender equality.

Women make up only 16% of IT professionals in the UK. North-East headquartered managed IT service provider razorblue, challenges this.

The firm’s workforce includes 21 females, significantly beating the industry average. Over a third of which are in managerial or director roles.

razorblue strongly believes in promoting equality and diversity through their workforce and continues to grow their team in this way.

According to recent studies, by the time both women and men are in their 50s, women are half as likely to remain in STEM roles compared to men. The report indicates that work/ life commitment is the biggest factor at play here but noted that the difference was minimised when women felt their organisation supported them.

Joanne Finkeldey, Head of People at razorblue commented: “Working in tech, we generally do see a lack of applications from women. This is something we are working to actively increase and promote through showcasing real examples of how women can thrive within this sector.

“We employ people based on their talent and attitude, gender does not and never will play a role in our recruitment process.

“We take great pride in the development of our employees and the flexible working environment we offer to all staff and do everything in our power to maintain a positive company culture that encourages a healthy work/ life balance.”

The theme of this year’s International Women’s day is “Choose to Challenge” and encourages everyone to call out gender bias and inequality, to help create an inclusive world. From challenge comes change.

Dan Kitchen, CEO of razorblue commented: “Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions. But as a busines we can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, broaden perceptions and improve situations through embedding these actions into our core values and making sure each individual we employ shares the same values.

“In today’s digital age, there have never been more opportunities for people to grow and achieve based on their abilities and ideas, rather than their gender.

“Each one of our employees has been appointed based on their merits and their ability to do their jobs extremely well. It is important that we do not stand still and do all we can to encourage women into this field to enable a truly diverse workforce. “

Client Support Engineer, Lacey Aitken commented: “I think if young generations see more women represented within the technology industry, this will solve the gender imbalance. “Working in tech industry is so fast-paced and means I learn something new every day, this is what makes it so exciting.

“My advice to younger females would be to just go for it and be yourself! Just because you may be working in a more male-driven environment does not mean you need to change. If we put our mind to something nothing can stop us.”

The firm continues to support various diversity inclusion programmes to promote and help young women get into the technology industry.

razorblue are proud sponsors of the upcoming HelloWorld event at Teesside University which aims to showcase careers in the technology sector to young women.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Peachy Digital .