OLYMPIC VALLEY — Their counties are working hard to hire and retain women in technology jobs, but more still needs to be done to bring women into their workplaces, five female IT executives said Monday at the 2019 California County Information Services Directors Association Fall Conference near Lake Tahoe.
The executives — Santa Clara County CIO Ann Dunkin; Alameda County Assistant CIO Sybil Gurney; Tulare County Lead Network Administrator Susan Keoseyan; Santa Cruz County Assistant Director of the Information Services Department Tibi McCann; and moderator Peg Yeates, Tulare County CIO — also recommended strategies and best practices to audience members hoping to hire more women in their own IT shops. Among the takeaways from “Elevate Awareness & Action: Women In Tech Panel”:
• Demographics varied, but no county rose above the 40th percentile in terms of women in IT. At Santa Clara, about 44 percent of employees are female, and about 42 percent of IT employees are women. Alameda County has about 3,200 “professional employees,” Gurney said, and about 68 percent of those are women, but in IT only around 29 percent are women. In Tulare about 60 percent of its roughly 5,000 employees are women. About 40 percent of people in IT leadership roles are women, though only around 20 percent of women are in management roles as a whole. In Santa Cruz County, nearly 60 percent of the 2,276 county workers counted last year were women — but in the 60-person IT shop, which includes video operations, only 31 percent were women overall.
Concern over those numbers has led Santa Cruz to mandate that each county department should reflect the overall county population — which is more than 50 percent female, McCann said, describing that as a “hard nut to crack.” The county has mandated administrative review for any department that does not have 50 percent women, she added, which has meant IT officials must interview the top 10 candidates for a position; create a memo explaining the recruitment; and document candidates’ strengths and weaknesses before offering a job.
“One of our biggest challenges as we try to recruit is, the list may have absolutely no women on it,” McCann said.
• Not surprisingly, the agencies are working to meet this problem head-on. Santa Clara will roll out Technology Services and Solutions (TSS) University in “coming months,” its CIO said. The formal training program aims to “ensure all employees acquire the skills required to identify, evaluate and leverage emerging technologies,” Dunkin said in a county TSS Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2020-2022, released in May. Alameda offers an eight-week summer internship program to 11th- and 12th-graders — and each is responsible for delivering an IT project. This year, five women took part, and solutions included an app to help the homeless find shelter, and an election results viewer.
Gurney called that a “stepping-stone” for teens and said: “And even if they don’t come back to Alameda County, we feel that we’ve helped put more women into … the technology environment.”
Santa Cruz has partnered informally with Cabrillo College, a community feeder to the University of California, Santa Cruz. It's piloting a formal mentorship program in its Human Services Department and has worked to make the IT work environment more flexible and welcoming — integrating all of IT into a cohesive workspace, implementing flex time, and being cognizant of child-care needs.
That said, Yeates pointed out that her agency isn’t just “out to hire women,” but “the best candidate for the job.”
“It’s concerning that we have so few women, young girls who are coming into this industry,” she said, adding: “I think in some ways it’s a little intimidating to come into this industry.”
• None of the panelists painted an overly rosy picture of IT work. But in response to male IT executives' interest in possibly steer their daughters into IT, they offered a plethora of advice and ideas. Asked what to do about the “intimidation factor,” and the likelihood of making a mistake and being held accountable, Yeates and McCann recommended identifying female role models who have been successful in IT and finding mentors for young women.
“She’s still going to have to be twice as good as the men she works with to get noticed in any field. I think that’s the important message — do what you want because … no field is easy for women still,” Dunkin said.
• The group also advised male IT execs not to use the rise of the “Me Too” movement as an excuse to not help women. Use good judgment, said Dunkin — hold a mentoring session in your office, with the door open. And don’t “mansplain,” said McCann, referring to the idea of over-explaining something an employee may already know.
Yeates advised parents in the audience to teach their daughters how not to get “talked over” in meetings and at work.
“This is intellectually challenging work. It’s hard work sometimes,” she said. “It’s always a challenge, but it’s enjoyable work. You always feel like you’ve accomplished something.”
