On Friday, March 17th, we organised a workshop on recruiting and retaining women in ICT at The Office in Luxembourg, with the support of our partner Digital Luxembourg.
Our Co-founder and Managing Director, Marina Andrieu, introduced the workshop by speaking about the situation of women in the entrepreneurial sector and stereotypes surrounding the low rate of women’s hiring in the ICT field. She created an interactive conversation where all the participants gave their opinions and shared their experiences. This exchange gave them a better understanding of the current situation in the professional sector. She then explored possible solutions for retaining women in the company after they have been hired, such as reducing the pay gap, greater flexibility to allow for a balance between family and professional life and, above all, promotion opportunities.
All our participants learned more about work culture, emphasising the importance of forbidding any form of sexism in the workplace with a no-tolerance policy regarding inappropriate comments, jokes… Moreover, it is necessary to encourage women to be more visible, to give them a safe space to share their feelings between them but also with others in schools for example, to raise awareness about all they can fulfil as a woman.
We were grateful to welcome Anne-Claire Buléon, a Business Leader with experience in the acquisition of highly skilled professionals in the European market. She was the co-speaker during this workshop and she talked about the different strategies to recruit more women in ICT. She elaborated on the importance of having a strong identity to attract people when you are a company/organisation that wants to recruit, especially women. Adopt a neutral tone when publishing job offers and use an AI for CV selection. She encouraged recruiters to showcase more women at all levels to allow others to have role models in the field of Tech, thus making girls and young women more willing to discover and embrace ICT jobs. Making women with leadership in the company become ambassadors, for example.
With this workshop, WIDE ANDCO continues to raise awareness about the working conditions for women in tech and to bring attention to the lack of women in this sector which is endlessly evolving and touching all sectors. Equality between women and men at work is not yet reached so we will continue to raise awareness about inequalities and how to reduce them to create a better impact in society.
