The four foundersA survey by Women in Wireless into female leadership within the industry has found that many girls believe there are still significant barriers to achieving their full potential.
Among the findings, 83 per cent of ladies aged 35 to 54 said they think that it can be harder for girls to reach their careers than men. This figure dropped right down to 65 per cent among 18 to 34 year olds. 66 per cent of greater than 600 people surveyed believe that organisational culture is the foremost the reason for this is that women are underrepresented at senior levels. This was followed by an absence of career development opportunities.
The survey found that only 1/2 large corporates provide external training to their employees – this figure is barely 31 per cent in SMEs. an identical number don’t help their staff to set career development goals. Not surprisingly for an always-on industry, 44 per cent said they suspect that their work-life balance is poor.
The four founders of girls in Wireless, Jen Macrae of Mastercard, Rimma Perelman from MEF, Rhian Pamphilon of Accenture and Jen Hiley from Infosys Lodestone mounted the organisation a year ago to attach, develop and promote women in wireless and digital. The complete results and more thoughts from the founders would be available within the next issue of Mobile Marketing Magazine, which comes out in early June. Read it online at no cost or order a duplicate here.
Jennifer Macrae said: “The survey results are a decision to action for the industry at large to lift awareness of gender diversity issues here and help develop programmes that basically address the problems that ladies are facing within the rapidly evolving wireless and digital media industries today.”
“While,” Rimma Perelman added, “the data highlights that girls in our industry would get advantages from more proactively undertaking the correct mix of non-public initiatives to accomplish a satisfying career. To this end, WiW UK might be calling upon the consequences to develop tailored programmes on issues equivalent to leadership, personal effectiveness and career planning in collaboration with industry.”
At the launch event hosted by Telefónica Digital, who also helped to analyse the effects, Macrae outlined future plans for a industy-wide think tank to appear into the flaws raised by the survey. Also they are in discussions with quite a few organisations seeking to establish a market for mentors.
The Mayor of London’s head of corporate diversity strategy, Shahid Bashir, spoke at the panel about his role convincing big companies of the business case for increasing diversity. He said: “The hot topic is ladies on boards. So that you can change the culture you wish senior-level leadership and commitment from the head. The workplace mimick the behaviour in their leaders.”
Women in Wireless is a volunteer led organisation supported by women working in companies including Mobile Entertainment Forum, Accenture, Mastercard and Telefónica.