Context: Addressing women's under-representation in the soft-ware industry, a widely recognized concern, requires attracting as well as retaining more women. Hearing from women practitioners, particularly those positioned in multi-cultural settings, about their challenges and and adopting their lived experienced solutions can support the design of programs to resolve the under-representation issue. Goal: We investigated the challenges women face in global software development teams, particularly what motivates women to leave their company; how those challenges might break down according to demographics; and strategies to mitigate the identified challenges. Method: To achieve this goal, we conducted an ex-ploratory case study in Ericsson, a global technology company. We surveyed 94 women and employed mixed-methods to analyze the data. Results: Our findings reveal that women face socio-cultural challenges, including work-life balance issues, benevolent and hos-tile sexism, lack of recognition and peer parity, impostor syndrome, glass ceiling bias effects, the prove-it-again phenomenon, and the maternal wall. The participants of our research provided different suggestions to address/mitigate the reported challenges, including sabbatical policies, flexibility of location and time, parenthood support, soft skills training for managers, equality of payment and opportunities between genders, mentoring and role models to sup-port career growth, directives to hire more women, inclusive groups and events, women's empowerment, and recognition for women's success. The framework of challenges and suggestions can inspire further initiatives both in academia and industry to onboard and retain women. Women represent less than 24% of employees in software development industry and experience various types of prejudice and bias. Even in companies that care about Diversity & Inclusion, “untying the mooring ropes” of socio-cultural problems is hard. Hearing from women, especially those working in a multi-cultural organization, about their challenges and adopting their suggestions can be vital to design programs and resolve the under-representation issue. In this work we work closely with a large software development or-ganization which invests and believes in diversity and inclusion. We listened to women and the challenges they face in global soft-ware development teams of this company and what these women suggest reduce the problems and increase retention. Our research showed that women face work-life balance issues and encounter invisible barriers that prevent them from rising to top positions. They also suffer micro-aggression and sexism, need to show com-petence constantly, be supervised in essential tasks, and receive less work after becoming mothers. Moreover, women miss having more female colleagues, lack self-confidence and recognition. The women from the company suggested sabbatical policies, the flexibil-ity of location and time, parenthood support, soft skills training for managers, equality of opportunities, role models to support career growth, directives to hire more women, support groups, and more interaction between women, inclusive groups and events, women's empowerment by publishing their success stories in media and recognizing their achievements. Our results had been shared with the company Human Resources department and management and they considered the diagnosis helpful and will work on actions to mitigate the challenges that women still perceive.
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This content will become publicly available on February 1, 2025
Challenges and Opportunities to Address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within the Professional Construction Industry
The construction industry has been a predominantly White/Caucasian Men community with a very low representation of women and people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds. Even though companies have been implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements for many years, we still believe it is neither a diverse nor equitable field. To better understand how DEI statements declared by companies have been understood and recognized by employees, a survey was deployed nationwide to understand how professionals in the construction industry perceive their organization's DEI statements or policies. A complete data set was built from 249 participants. 75% identified themselves as men and 25% as women, and nobody identified with other gender identities. More than 80% of participants were White/Caucasian, 4% Black or African American, 4% Hispanic or Latinx, and 6% Asian. Participants are currently working in small (24%), medium (30%), and large (46%) construction and design companies located across The United States. Regarding the number of employees, companies are small, less than 99 employees; medium, between 100 and 499 employees; and large, more than 500 employees. Also, companies were grouped into four main types, building construction companies (67%), transportation construction companies (6%), special trade contractor companies (17%), and design companies (10%).
For more than 65% of professionals in the construction industry who participated in this study, DEI was mainly related to proper representation of women and minoritized populations in the workforce; Merit-based transparent recruitment and promotion; equality, social justice, and nondiscrimination policy statement; and equitable payment and compensation. Other factors such as proper representation of women and minoritized populations at the top management level and payment structure transparency did not emerge from the results. We also found that 70% of professionals identified DEI statements in their companies and 30% of professionals did not identify or did not know about DEI statements. Looking at the company size, 85% of professionals in large companies identified DEI statements in their companies, but 71% and 42% of professionals in medium and small companies identified DEI statements in their companies, respectively. According to the company type, more than 80% of professionals working in design companies recognized DEI statements in their companies, but around 60% in construction and special trade companies.
We can highlight that large companies have established policies and practices that result in better socialization and recognition of their DEI statements than medium and small companies. Also, construction and special trade companies need to strengthen their DEI statements and increase the representation of women and people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds. Results from this research give an idea about the current state of DEI in the construction industry and would contribute to the current effort to increase the diversity of the nation's construction workforce.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2201642
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10525724
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Construction industry connecting professional and educational communities diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Arlington, Virginia
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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