How can Diversity in engineering teams support a significant growth agenda in Tech Consulting?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have been the hot topics on the growth agenda for Technology Consulting Organisations for many years. Having a diverse and inclusive workplace include a working environment filled with diverse backgrounds, skills, and knowledge, that can significantly affect business goals and expansion. It requires a continuous commitment from the organisational leadership to action in order to translate into meaningful progress and is essential for creating a culture where employees feel informed, included, respected, and valued. However, there’s no ‘one-size fits all’ answer to address the diversity gaps that exist in the workforce today.

Diverse engineering teams have always proven to uplift the creative capabilities and elevate more innovative ways to problem solve. In turn, this results in higher quality products that are accessible to more customers – all of which is good for business and for people. An inclusive culture also encourages ongoing feedback, which is key to the software development and engineering process and can result in better software and services delivery. Gender equity, diversity and inclusion in engineering teams and tech leadership in particular, is key to drive forward the digital transformation projects for the technology consulting organisations and meet business needs and compete.

The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2020 benchmarked the presence of women (compared to men) in some of the Key technology frontline roles as follows:

• Engineering roles: 15%
• Cloud computing roles: 12%
• Data and AI roles: 26%
• Cyber security specialists: 19%

Only 24% of women are in the leadership roles for technology industries with more men being hired than women in these positions. Noting another fact that the Graduate enrolments in the overall ICTs are 1.66% for women compared to 8.22% for men.

In 2022, the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2022 stated that gender parity will not be achieved for the next 132 years at the current rate of progress, whereas the trends leading up to 2020 indicated close to 100 years to achieve the same goal. This is mainly due to the devastating impact of Covid pandemic causing generational loss that occurred between 2020 and 2021, and as such the progress towards closing the gender gap has stalled in most countries.

On the other hand, the proportion of women working in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) industries in Australia has slightly increased compared to previous years, according to the?STEM Equity Monitor 2022. But it is still a low representation overall.

Either way, these metrics are not indicating a sustainable future for the current and the future generations. Hence, creating a culture of diverse, equitable and inclusiveness is not just the right thing to do anymore, but it is a non-negotiable priority for the leadership teams.

What are the key challenges around teaming in Tech consulting organisations?

Two key areas to focus on –

Talent scarcity & skillset mismatch - Highly technical skilled workforce with niche skills in areas such as cloud computing, platform engineering, Data & AI, Cyber security, machine learning, data science, and analytics have always been in high demand. These roles have majorly driven the outsourcing requirements for technology consulting organisations. On the downside, there are qualified teams but do not meet the specific skillsets required which is not helpful either.

Above and beyond the core technology talent demand, there’s also scarcity of quality candidates across most industries in our post COVID economy. Not having the right people in place puts pressure on how fast any company can move regardless of whether you have the budget. If you don’t have the right talent, you are unlikely to achieve your vision.

Employee work-life balance - With the insufficient capacity of required talent and increasing workload on existing tech teams could result in lack to motivation, productivity, quality outcomes and leaving unhappy team members, and ultimately customers.

What are the key driving factors for increasing diversity in engineering teams?

Engineering is ultimately all about helping the world become a better place. Building diversity in engineering is further enhancing the standards for this professional practice that shows diverse perspectives, combined with an inclusive culture, enable better decision-making, drives innovation, and helps organisations remain competitive and resilient amidst changing market dynamics.

Multi-disciplinary teams - A diverse engineering team means access to a wider technical talent pool with different backgrounds, soft skills, and point of views for better innovation. This in turn, helps build knowledge in the teaming and enhanced creativity.

Better problem-solving skills to deliver new solutions for future generations - People with diverse mindsets are better equipped to tackle a myriad of problems arising in the world today. This is extremely critical for the engineering industry in any domain to achieve maximum efficiency of the innovative solutions delivered for the future generations. It also provides an opportunity to learn from one another due to the disparity of mindsets.

Highly motivated teaming and enhanced productivity – A purpose-led engagement will not only elevate productivity but also enable greater retention rates and loyalty, resulting in a consistent and stable manpower. This consistent manpower is directly correlated with both stronger profitability and value creation for businesses today. In fact, a study found that employee innovation levels increase by 1.7x when employees feel included at work.

Exceptional Customer Satisfaction – Ultimately, the success of any business is all about its happy customers. Research demonstrates that companies with an inclusive culture attain a greater customer satisfaction. Equality, inclusion, and diversity act as key strategic drivers for engineering clients everywhere, meaning that a diverse workforce is a huge part of retaining your clients.

How to create and foster an inclusive culture within engineering teams?

Leading organisations that focus on an inclusive culture consider the following factors–

• How to cultivate a workplace that values and supports equality and diversity
• How to adopt equality and diversity among its hires
• How to encourage and create more leaders to act as role models in an equal and diverse research environment.

Here are some of the simple, but very powerful ways to infuse the leadership teams and culture with the mindset, skillset, and tools needed to build greater equity, and then diversity and inclusion:

Encourage women in engineering teams – There have been incorrect assumptions that engineering cannot be a sustainable career for women. Address perception barriers to improve gender & cultural diversity and celebrate the women who are leading in this area by sharing their stories and inspiring others. Organisations that prioritise achieving greater gender diversity are more likely to report growth, perform better, and have an increased competitive edge in addressing market demand. It is critical that women get the equal opportunity as men to lead and drive high profile engagements and ensure this is visible across the organisation.

Promote and diversify technology leadership roles – Engineering roles are not just to operate on the ground but have a clear career progress pathway towards the executive leadership. Having representation of diversity and mentorship at the top will not only set an example for future leaders, but also pivotal in building the teams that are diverse and equitable and are sustaining an inclusive workplace culture.

Enable core engineering excellence through diverse teams with no geographical barriers - If not already established, enable a diverse engineering competency that provides an arena for the engineers across the firm to come together and learn & share their knowledge across the industries. This team could play a vital role in driving the engineering leadership and the future engineers through eliminating inefficient practices and cutting implementation time for new skills and technologies, enabling best practices around quality products and services to customers, help generate re-usable tech assets for the organisation.

Talent hires with diversity focus and retain current diversity - Hiring more and more tech teams is not just the ‘one stop’ solution to building diverse teams, but rather a critical part of the process. Attract the diverse talent through a well thought outcome-based approach to hiring. Encourage the recruitment team to identify candidates with diverse backgrounds covering both inherent and acquired traits. Once hired, infuse diversity and equity training as part of the induction process. Also, do not just use DEI to attract new employees; look out for initiatives that make your current employees inclusive, too. Providing equal chances to upskill is key and making sure the current teams are not falling behind such as, missing out on promotions or even keeping up with best practices.

Promote Inclusive team culture with space for feedback and psychological safety - An inclusive workspace, growth opportunities, and open communication are key for retaining underrepresented talent. Promote Inclusive visual agendas on the teams through in-house presentations and welcome the under-represented talent to contribute. It is the most important characteristics of high performing team that requires them feel safe in providing feedback and perspectives in driving creativity and new viewpoints to approaching a problem or building a solution.

In summary, Leading Technology consulting organisations today are looking for new, more innovative ways to attract talents, retain, engage, and enable a diverse workforce. By identifying a few key actions in the DEI initiatives based on unique context and needs of their business and customers, leaders can fast-forward positive, more equitable outcomes and begin to fully see, appreciate, and engage all their talent.

Personally, I have had the privilege working with some of the great technology leaders globally who have always invited my perspectives and inspired to infuse thought leadership to drive DEI growth in engineering teams. As a Technology leader, I strongly believe in the value of above views in building a better working world with a sustainable future for generations to come.?

Louisa Francis Brett Squires Blair Delzoppo Steve Psichalos Kathryn Politis Cameron Wall Brendina Saul (GAICD) Joanne Walker Janaka Dissanayake

The views reflected in this article are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.