By Kathryn McKenna
VANRATH hosted a well-attended roundtable event in Custom House Square, The Hub, Belfast recently, with 13 representatives from local leading companies in the technology, business and IT sphere in attendance.
Chaired by Lorraine Acheson, Managing Director of Women in Business NI, the organisation spearheading Northern Ireland’s flagship annual Women in Tech Awards set to take place on Thursday 22 May, the proactive discussion provided an opportunity to address emerging challenges in the tech sector and offered the opportunity to network and collaborate on shared objectives and common goals. It also focused on promoting Northern Ireland talent and capabilities across local organisations.
Barbara McKiernan, Managing Director of VANRATH and Kelly Nixon, Senior Tech Consultant at VANRATH, were also joined by: Lorna McAdoo, Group Director, Version One; Mary Mullin, Engineering Leader, Workrise; Sharon Gormley, Engineering Leader, APEX; Kay Gemmert, Engineering Leader, Cloudsmith; Beverely Noye, Site Lead, TPI ICAP; Claire McIntyre, Chief of Staff, Qarik; Cristian Chepsta, Talent Acquisition Lead, Symphony; Hannah Hutchinson, HR Operations Lead, Symphony; Brenda Robb, President and CMO, Blackfog; and Laura McClean, Director, Synechron.
A key emerging challenge centred around hiring, with Lorna McAdoo, Version 1, observing that the local talent pool is restricted. Making the observation that more collaboration is needed, Lorna acknowledges that without radical change, tech companies will continue to recruit from the same talent pool which causes a ripple effect for those within the industry who will subsequently lose the talent, creating a repetitive ongoing cycle.
READ MORE: Barbara McKiernan, Managing Director of VANRATH: How to avoid a bad hire
“We are currently recruiting for over 80 open roles, and this creates a knock-on effect for the rest of the industry as we will be recruiting from the same talent pool,” Lorna explains. “This is where the collaboration piece needs to kick in.”
Lorna explains she would like to see more opportunities being afforded to children who leave education at 16 years of age wishing to embark upon a career, as well as retirees who wish to re-enter the workforce. This is why the flexibility afforded through offering part-time contracts would be key in order to accommodate more diverse groups both into and back into work.
Added to the need for broader flexibility is the percentage of women in the workplace balancing family commitments due to both childcare and caring responsibilities. Whilst the current number of women working within the technology industry in Northern Ireland currently stands at just 23 per cent, work is being done in order to help turn the dial in a positive direction. This includes outreach at a grassroots level with many local companies coming together with schools to encourage more young girls to study STEM subjects and spark an interest from as young as primary school age.
However, stark statistics reveal more women than men are forced to leave the workforce altogether in order to juggle caring and parenting responsibilities, which can lead to women feeling forced out of the workplace entirely.
More flexible working conditions would allow more women to stay in their roles. Lorna comments: “One of the biggest challenges we have is encouraging more women to join the tech sector in Northern Ireland. However, it is also concerning when you consider the amount of women that aren't able to work once they have established their careers. This is because the traditional working pattern makes this really difficult. We should be offering opportunities to job share for example, which is one way which would help a woman balance her career and home responsibilities. My biggest challenge from a hiring perspective is how we hire and where we hire from.”
Rather than requesting a specific headcount for roles, more consideration should be given to job sharing and other flexible working requests. “I think if we all changed our mindset when it comes to hiring this would have an overwhelmingly positive impact on the economy,” Lorna emphasises.
READ MORE: Kelly Nixon - Redundancy is tough, but so are you
More work needs to be done in terms of positive case studies of female returners to work, agrees Lorraine Acheson, Women in Business NI, who reflects increased outreach needs to take place with stakeholders who can influence such decisions as well as education providers and government. “In the women’s space we have been working with female returners for a number of years who have had great success working at Version 1, for instance, who had been out of the workplace for 10 to 15 years previously due to caring responsibilities, and have subsequently studied data analytics at Belfast Metropolitan College and went on to work for local tech firms and enjoyed successful careers. But more case studies need to be carried out.”
The experience essential for the roles also narrows the demographic from which local companies and talent agencies can pool from, Beverely Noye of TPI ICAP acknowledges, which further adds to the recruitment challenge and narrows the scope for diversity.
This is where Software NI has used their voice to express their concerns to the First and deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland on how vital it is for education to include well-rounded and comprehensive learning of STEM and IT subjects from an early age. Laura McClean, Director, Synechron, explains:
“We would encourage everyone to get involved with Software NI. Together with our CEO Neil Hutchinson we are on a mission to put Northern Ireland on a global platform and to make a real difference to create more jobs in Northern Ireland and build our revenue as well.”
You can’t be what you don’t see
Speaking from personal experience, Mary Mullin of Workrise feels more needs to be done to increase awareness of technology and IT career opportunities for young people in schools, where there can still be a tendency to encourage young people to pursue more ‘traditional’ careers such as medicine, dentistry and law. Pupils themselves can oftentimes still view IT and technology subject options through the eyes of outdated stereotypes, such as that it is ‘just for boys’ and ‘only’ involves coding.
Claire McIntyre, Qarik agrees, adding that from experience IT as a subject offering can vary drastically from school to school, with many schools today being particularly encouraging, up-to-date and informed of IT whilst others, frustratingly, don’t even offer it as a subject.
“We often speak of the talent pipeline but this needs to start as young as primary school age for young girls who have an interest in tech to be encouraged. Particularly as girls this young can start to suffer from confidence issues, which makes it even more vital that IT is promoted at this pivotal age to help improve self-confidence in girls by pursuing something they are good at and have an interest in.”
This is where events such as the inaugural CyberFirst Empower Girls event are key in raising awareness of the fast-growing cyber security and wider technology sector, advises Lorraine Acheson, Women in Business NI.
READ MORE: Victoria Logan on holding the first ever CyberFirst EmPower Girls event at Windsor Park Stadium
The CyberFirst Empower Girls event, supported by Aflac Northern Ireland, will see 500 Year Eight girls from across Northern Ireland engage with a wide range of local companies and organisations involved in the CyberFirst Schools and Colleges initiative, led by the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland on behalf of the UK National Cyber Security Centre.
Set for Tuesday 29 April at the ICC Belfast, this year marks the second year of the annual, much-anticipated event, which was attended by the First Minister, Michelle O’Neill and deputy First Minister, Emma Little-Pengelly, during its debut last year. Arguably NI’s most prolific examples of female leadership, the Ministers spoke of the importance of the tech sector in Northern Ireland and urged the pupils in attendance to “wake up every morning and challenge yourselves, every single day.”
Careers are not linear lines
Making both women and men more aware of the opportunities to change careers and enter the tech sector at a later stage in their careers is also something which needs more attention.
Careers are not linear and there are lots of opportunities for those joining the sector who may have valuable backgrounds and gained ‘soft skills’ in other sectors, Mary Mullin, Workrise, outlines, to the agreement of the roundtable participants, who add that this is why apprenticeships which are on the rise, are particularly vital.
You also don’t need to be technical to work in the sector, explains Claire McIntyre of Qarik, who describes the positives of her own career pathway which has led to an advanced understanding of the business from top to bottom. Other opportunities within the tech sector include: administration, HR, recruitment, communications, accountancy, sales and more.
On that note, it is queried whether more needs to be done in order to train sales people in selling specialist tech equipment which requires in-depth technical knowledge, with programmes already launching addressing this specific challenge. This includes selling internally, rather than just externally, explains Laura McClean, Synechron. “I think this plays into Northern Ireland as a whole not being good at being able to shout about how brilliant we are.”
READ MORE: Experience verses potential - Which hire is right for you?
We need to showcase our companies and role models which exist, agrees Barbara McKiernan, VANRATH, adding that in turn, raising the profile of female leaders in tech will help to inspire young girls.
This is in line with the mantra: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Barbara explains: “We need to continue to increase awareness of our companies and public understanding of our brands in terms of exposure in order to showcase what we do.
“By shouting more loudly it is also an opportunity to showcase our female role models in leadership positions who can help inspire the next generation.”
Hiring challenges
Trying to address the diversity piece can be difficult, especially when trying to achieve a 50 / 50 gender balance when recruiting in a field of under 30 per cent female, says Beverely Noye, TPI ICAP, who adds that interestingly in her experience the teams that have been really successful with women are those teams led by women.
In answer to this, perhaps more can be done in terms of teaching mentoring and encouraging others to instil the mindset of teaching others within organisations, Mary Mullin of Workrise contemplates, citing the difference it makes when a company ethos has a focus on career progression as well as highlighting the visibility of more junior staff. “Visibility should not just be give to the most technical, senior engineer, but a well-rounded picture of all of the team who are contributing to the company’s success,” Mary explains.
“We bring up technical people to become leaders so we need to ensure we are bringing up the right people to help inspire others,” agrees Claire McIntyre, Chief of Staff, Qarik.
Gaining help and support for companies from advocates is key, with further support needed from external stakeholders.
Growing talent
Overall, one of the overarching themes of the day’s discussions involve around Northern Ireland’s needs to continue to grow its talent. There is an ambition challenge, with many content to remain in their current roles rather than pushing for more.
“We have talent in spades but we can’t be content staying stagnant – we need to push for more,” explains Beverely, TPI ICAP. “We need our talent to understand that they are capable of delivering more than they are delivering today. Part of this is collaboration across the board and it is also inspiring new talent behind them in order to combat the ambition challenge and shortage in the talent market,” Beverely concludes.
“We need to get better at profiling and pushing ourselves,” Barbara McKiernan, VANRATH, agrees.“Taking part in events such as today, as well as awards and conferences, will all help to push our company profiles and inspire new talent and collaboration.”
For more information on VANRATH, NI’s leading expert recruitment agency, visit: syncni.com/company/vanrath for Views, Interviews, Jobs and more.
