ON THE SURFACE, TECHS ARE INCLUSIVE. THE QUESTION DOESN’T EVEN ARISE. YET… CAPGEMINI CONDUCTED A SURVEY. ITS RESULTS ARE EDIFYING…

To the question: “Are the promotions and technological career development opportunities offered within your organization inclusive?”, 85% of executives surveyed answered in the affirmative. Looking more closely at the figures, only 19% of employed women and minorities share this point of view … Moreover, barely 24% of women and minorities who exercise technological functions say they have a sense of belonging to their organization. . They are even less numerous (16%) to feel “well represented”. Is there a problem in Tech?

Is there a problem in Tech? Capgemini has looked into the matter. In its study “The key to designing inclusive tech”, the company interviewed 500 technology employees, largely women and people from ethnic minority communities, and 500 managers. Capgemini also spoke to 5,000 consumers, mainly women and people from ethnic minority communities.

Did you say “inclusive conceptions of technologies”?

Digital technologies are increasingly integrated into all aspects of human life. With the integration of these technologies into products and services, exclusionary and biased outputs are also increasingly common, including biases and discrimination of AI compatible systems. Against this backdrop, there has been a growing demand for greater diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce, especially in technology teams that develop and deploy the technologies with which end users interact. In contrast, it is uncertain whether organizations understand the interplay between inclusion and diversity of the tech workforce and inclusive design of technologies.

Clearly, it appears that current inclusion and diversity practices are not working. And the health crisis has not helped. On the contrary. The spectrum of the perception gap is vast. 75% of senior executives believe that women and ethnic minorities feel a sense of belonging to their organization, but only 24% of those employees in tech functions agree. 53% of women and ethnic minority employees feel comfortable sharing their personal experiences with other employees and peers, while only 9% feel the same level of comfort with their leadership.

Gender, color …

Only 16% of women and tech employees from ethnic minorities believe they are well represented in tech teams. In addition, in IT – technology teams, only one in five employees is female and one in six is ​​from an ethnic minority community.

When it comes to career opportunities, the gap between undiversified and male employees and tech workers from ethnic minorities and female tech workers is palpable. So, only 22% of black tech workers believe they have the same opportunity to grow as their undiversified colleagues.

Discrimination based on technology

Go further. Consumers face discriminatory technologies due to deficient diversity and inclusion practices in the technical teams of global companies. In the financial services industry, for example, on average 50% of ethnic minorities believe they have been offered less credit for certain online banking products, compared to 28% of customers who are not from ethnic minority communities. At the same time, in the health sector, 43% of women and consumers from ethnic minority communities believe that they have not been shown health facilities in high-end places or offering highly specialized services.

Inclusive teams to create inclusive products

As a result, consumers are concerned about discriminatory technologies. They are increasingly aware of how their data is being used and the negative impact this could have on them. Thus, 66% of consumers from ethnic minorities say they fear that their personal data will be used to have a negative impact on their employment opportunities.

This is very damaging. And, if we see the question from a management point of view, not very productive. Capgemini has calculated that organizations with diverse and inclusive technology teams are four times more likely to create inclusive products.

The perception gap between leadership and women and ethnic minorities in technology functions on inclusion processes and measures is narrower for organizations with an advanced inclusive culture. When asked whether women and ethnic minorities had equal access to the resources, groups and human resources of employees compared to other employees of non-diverse backgrounds, the perception gap between inclusive organizations and others is important (31% vs. 55%).