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CIE FEMALE VOICES INITIATIVE
Best Practice by Accenture
RECRUITING WOMEN FOR CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING
Attracting and recruiting female talents for tech roles is a well-known challenge in Switzerland. We took this on across Austria, Switzerland, and Germany (ASG) and launched the Female Voices initiative for the ‘Cloud Infrastructure Engineering’ domain. The initiative’s goal is to encourage and enable female colleagues with a deep tech expertise to take on speaker roles for external conferences and events. Our female tech experts on stage become much-needed role models and help us to ultimately both reduce the overall gender tech gap and attract and recruit more women. The Female Voices community has expanded from 20 members in December 2019 to 70 members as of April 2022.
This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2022.
What we all want: more women in tech
The Swiss gender tech gap is palpable and naturally mirrored in our Accenture ‘Cloud Infrastructure Engineering’ (CIE) workforce. Following through on our commitment to gender equality, we strive to address and reduce the gender tech gap both in CIE and in Switzerland overall. With a mere 22% of Swiss STEM graduates being female, the question lingers: How to best achieve our ambitions?
Role models: you can’t be what you can’t see
The pool of female tech experts is limited. If we had solely focused on recruiting and winning over the available women in tech, we would not address the overall issue of too few women in our industry. That is why we set on a role model approach that is designed to encourage women to either pursue a career in tech in the first place or to consider a career change to a technical field.
The role model approach is based on simple psychological facts: Exposure to female tech experts increases the likelihood of young women to consider a tech career path for themselves. We have many amazing female tech experts working in CIE. The idea behind the CIE Female Voices is to leverage this strength: By enabling and encouraging these colleagues to be a role model and to inspire other women to pursue a career in tech.
Swiss tech experts on stage
Our CIE Female Voices community encompasses more than 70 colleagues in ASG, with 12 women working in our Zurich office. The Female Voices have delivered keynotes and/or workshops at more than 90 external events since the launch in late 2019, reaching some 5000 people. Some of our Female Voices have been interviewed for magazines and even participated in online campaigns that were seen by several thousand people. The content of each appearance depends on the format and on the Female Voice’s area of expertise. Some have given a keynote on lean quality management at the renowned SAEC days conference, others have talked about data engineering at the e-fellows IT Day to name a few examples. On top of that, the CIE Female Voices community also organizes and hosts events on its own, e.g., bring-your-friend-to-work evening events.
Creating the CIE Female Voices – a-step-by-step guide
- Nomination: Ask your leads (e.g., your department heads) to nominate 1-2 of their female team members to become a Female Voice. Female Voices represent their team externally and the nomination is thus a sign of appreciation.
- Onboarding: Welcome each new Female Voice individually and conduct kick-off events.
- Enabling: Enable all Female Voices with trainings on keynote delivery and stage presence and with individual one-on-one coaching.
- Engagement: Keep the community engaged with regular networking events and upskilling sessions.
- Hosting: Consider organizing and hosting your own events as a community.
Our operating model: a mix of pull and push
Our CIE Female Voices are speakers at external events. Hence, a strong collaboration with our Accenture recruiting and marketing team is a given. As soon as an event is foreseeable, our dedicated recruiting colleagues publish the event details in a virtual event calendar accessible to all Female Voices. Following the ‘first come, first served’ principle, Female Voices who are interested can sign up for the respective event. Additionally, open speaking opportunities are regularly promoted via mail and are presented in quarterly update calls. Our recruiting team also reaches out to colleagues individually if they need a specific profile.
After a great job on stage
At most events an Accenture recruiting colleague accompanies the speakers to take all questions and requests regarding the CIE application and recruiting process. However, many Female Voices know that they have done a great job on stage when they receive personal requests on social media platforms. As soon as the person interested has all the information they need and they want to apply for a job at Accenture, we provide the candidate with an application template that is addressed to our Accenture recruiting colleagues.
What Else helps to attract women for tech roles?
It’s easier for our Female Voices to encourage women to apply for jobs in tech when they include Accenture’s renowned Jump-Start trainee program in their talks. The Jump-Start trainee program offers graduates and career changers six to eight weeks of intensive training in the respective field (e.g. for Google Cloud Consulting) and prepares them for the role.
Key factors for success
The CIE Female Voices initiative is a success story within Accenture ASG. This is partly due to the strong moral commitment of our Female Voices to close the gender tech gap. Another beneficial factor is the constant appreciation by our leadership, the strong sense of community among the Female Voices and the close collaboration with the recruiting and marketing team.
We would be happy to share more on our CIE Female Voices initiative. Please contact Carolin Oetzbach at carolin.oetzbach@accenture.com.
This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2022.
#empowerthegrassroots #recruitment #rolemodels #womenintech
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