A report developed by the company highlights the lack of female talent in technical roles. Therefore, GE aims to overcome the gender gap by 2020.

GE has announced its goal of having 20,000 women in technical roles by 2020 and guarantee gender equity in its technical and leadership training programs. The program will significantly increase the share of women in engineering, production, IT and management roles, a necessary step to deal with the gender unbalance in the technical area and complete GE’s transformation into a digital industrial company.

Despite efforts made by the technological and industrial sector, the education policies and the social debate around this matter, advances are slow. The technical sectors are still dominated by men and the channel to attract talent are insufficient to face future needs.

GE estimates that, without a larger female presence in the technological and industrial areas, the deficit of specialists will grow, affecting productivity and decreasing the potential of new solutions that transform the development model.

A GE report points out the problem of the lack of female talent in technical roles. Currently, only 14% of engineers and 25% of IT professionals in the United States are women. According to data from the US Bureau of Statistics, even though 55% of graduates are women, only 18% of graduates in computer sciences are women. In addition the report highlights the economic benefit that comes from addressing this issues in the industry. The main conclusions are:

• Women still are underrepresented in large technological companies: only 13% to 24% are in technical roles and just 17% to 30% are promoted to leadership roles;
• Even though there is a larger share of women at university (55% against 45% of men), the share is a lot smaller in technical areas.
• Around 40% of female engineers give up their profession, or they simply do not access that field;
• According to OECD, reducing the gender gap could increase the GDP up to 10% by 2030;

Marco Annunziata, GE Chief Economist says that “if we do not include more women in the technological and industrial area, there will be a significantly negative impact in the sector. Therefore, it is a problem that must be actively addressed by companies”.

GE’s plan to reduce the gender gap includes actions such as revising its business schools’ portfolio in order to align to the need of profiles with digital industrial skills, and the creation of a Technology Council to work on future retention strategies, focused on professional development and the promotion of opportunities.

Source: ComunicaRSE