When Eliza Khuner, a former data scientist at Facebook, asked HR if she could work from home part-time after the birth of her third child, the response was swift and firm: no to working from home, no to working part-time, and no to taking extra leave.
Khuner felt she had little choice but to resign. In frustration, she posted in a Facebook group for employees worldwide describing her predicament. Within seconds, her phone started buzzing with more than 5,500 employees voicing their support. Later, she would write about this experience for Wired. Once again people reached out, but this time from a range of companies across the tech sector. It was clear this problem was industry wide.
Half of women working in tech say they have experienced gender bias or discrimination, according to the Women in Tech’s latest survey and, at board level, only 13% of the global Fortune 500 senior tech executives are female.
Christine Armstrong, speaker and author of Mother of All Jobs, which features anonymous interviews with senior-level women on career and family, says the fact the tech sector is overtly masculine, young and has a prevalent long-hours culture is alienating women.
“Tech companies should be leading the way around productivity and helping to combat the ‘always on’ culture by setting clearer boundaries around work and life, but that is rarely the case,” she says. “Instead, companies such as Facebook don’t even have a policy around working from home. What sort of message does that send?”
Sanchita Saha, founder of Citysocializer and Shello app, says tech firms are in the ideal position to champion the flexible working that working parents need. “It should be an easy one to implement as standard policy because the online collaboration, project management and communication tools that are already being used (Slack, Trello, Google Docs etc) are ideal for successful remote and flexible working,” she says.
The culture of presenteeism is, however, all too prevalent. Khuner says she was not surprised Facebook denied her request for part-time hours. “I had already noticed that those options were missing from Facebook’s family-friendly policy. But if you want to change the status quo you start by asking,” she says.
Khuner also feels that she, and millions of other women like her, are being penalised for having children. “I think there’s a stigma associated with caring for your own children. I have internalised this, and often feel if I’m not working a paid job then I’m wasting my potential,” she says. But raising a family is challenging, skilled work and should be recognised as such. “Society shouldn’t tell you you’re not valuable just because your work isn’t paid,” Khuner says.
So how can mothers in tech continue to advance their careers? More flexibility, better training for returners, more comprehensive childcare or a change in organisational culture?
Armstrong isn’t convinced that flexible working is the answer. “We need to look at the link between the total number of hours worked and productivity,” she says. “If someone is nominally working four days a week but doing a full-time job in that time and being paid less, they shouldn’t have to just suck it up.”
It is, says Armstrong, the nine-to-five culture that needs addressing and the fact that the way we work has changed considerably. Many people are now expected to respond to work emails 24 hours a day. “Whether that’s been implemented by the patriarchy or not, it’s not working for any of us, especially mothers, and it’s having a major impact on our mental health and wellbeing.”
A big part of the problem is that two-thirds of mothers are still the primary carers for their children and there is often a drop-off at middle management level or when women take a career break to have a family.
A report by training provider Digital Mums, published in November last year, indicated that one in four (28%) mothers faced a skills gap that prevented them from going back to work after having children.
Half (49%) of the 2,000 mums surveyed said they had done no formal training in the past three years, with cost being the biggest barrier.
Gabriela Hersham, co-founder of Huckletree, a co-working space for tech and creative startups, says, however, that helping working parents doesn’t have to come with a whopping price tag. “We offer all primary caregivers the right to work a four-day week on full pay until their child turns one,” she says. “We believe that these parents will work to a more productive shortened schedule and that they’ll massively appreciate this support and the flexibility it offers them.”
Sheridan Ash, women in tech leader at PwC UK, says returners programmes, while very important, should just be one part of a process of supporting women who want to have a family. “Employers need to look in detail at the whole journey of women in their organisation, including attracting, retaining, developing and advancing them,” she says.
One of the biggest challenges is that girls and young women are put off pursuing tech careers in school. “We need to really understand what was turning girls and young women away at such an early stage in their lives – lack of knowledge about a tech career or a lack of clear role models,” Ash says.
It, ultimately, comes down to overcoming stereotypes and deeply held prejudices in the tech sector, Saha says. “Women who are working in tech have already defied the gender ‘norms’ by the fact they are there in the first place and they should be given the same respect that men who have kids get, with the added kudos and support of having another important job as caregivers alongside fulfilling their work commitments.”
This was something Saha struggled with when she had her children. “Even as CEO I felt under pressure to prove myself to my all-male board and deliver more than before. So I returned to the office within six to eight weeks of having children, which placed huge time pressures on me – especially as I chose to breastfeed them both for the first six months, meaning I had to pump and freeze milk at work.”
Finding accessible and affordable childcare is also a significant barrier for working parents, especially women. “If quality childcare is in place, and there is a sense of support from management, then acquiring new skills and building confidence should not prevent women from progressing,” Saha says.
It’s also worth remembering, says Lauren Allison, CEO of #techmums, a not-for-profit organisation that helps to upskill mothers through digital literacy programmes, that some of the biggest leaps in tech have been because of women. “Women invented, shaped and defined the world of tech,” she says. “Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr and Jean Bartik, to name but a few and the majority of software engineers in the 1960s were female.”
If we’re ever going to change the narrative then more women, says Khuner, need to speak up. “We need to let the industry know that keeping women in the workforce requires more flexibility and a change of perspective. I realise that most people don’t have the luxury to quit like I did. That’s why I am speaking out for all of us. But others have to add their voice too.”
