Softronic is investing in increasing the proportion of women to 33% by 2025 in order to be a sustainable and equal company. We are going to meet Theres Hesselgren-Zaar, a Talent Manager, who explains how Softronic is working on this issue and why it is an important part of our sustainability work.
Softronic has a sustainability goal to increase the proportion of women to 33% by 2025. Why?
“Everyone benefits from a more equal gender balance. Diversity enriches, creates dynamism and improves innovation capability, which both promotes gender equality and enhances the working climate. Diversity also contributes to success and profitability; using our different perspectives and unique differences, we produce better services and products, and enhance our customer focus and decision-making abilities.
The fundamental goal of our diversity work (which includes a more even gender balance) is to maintain and further develop a culture and a workplace where everyone has the same opportunities and rights. The competition to recruit women in the IT sector is fierce, so it’s extremely important for us to be an attractive employer.”
What different measures are you taking to achieve this?
“We have set ourselves tough, challenging goals, which will require a lot of work. First of all, we’re working on further developing our workplace/environment so that our employees appreciate it even more. This will make them want to remain and continue their career here. If you work for a company where you enjoy your job and have equal conditions, you’re naturally going to tell female developers, project managers, etc. about this.
One way of attracting women to Softronic is, for example, our annual Women’s Lunch, where we invite women of all ages and explain how we work at Softronic and what we can offer.
We actively consider diversity when recruiting new employees. When appointing managers, it is particularly important for there to be female candidates included in the selection process.
The diversity aspect is always decisive if the skills of the applicants are otherwise equal. We also educate our managers in gender equality, for example, by inviting different speakers. We work with women’s networks as well.”
There’s a Women’s Lunch planned for 22 April. Can you briefly tell us what this involves?
“Our Women’s Lunch is an annual tradition where we meet at the office for a wonderful lunch, which gives us a chance to provide information and have a discussion. However, this year it’s going to be a digital event. At this lunch you’ll meet some of the female employees working for Softronic, who will explain how we develop innovative IT that our customers can use to make the world a little better – what we call GoodTech, what it is like to do our trainee programme, how we work with sustainability, what we can offer, etc.”
What roles are you looking for primarily?
“We’re always looking for systems developers for .Net and Java. Experienced project managers and testers are also in demand.”
What do you think is the most important way for companies to attract women to the IT sector?
“There needs to be a genuine commitment. Everyone can write wonderful gender equality policies and describe diversity work, but it is the real, genuine work that will shine through and produce results.”
How did you end up in the IT sector yourself?
“I wasn’t actually looking for work specifically in the IT sector. The reason I ended up at Softronic was because I saw an exciting job advert for HR. I had many years’ experience in the consultancy sector, where I’d been both a recruitment officer and a managing consultant, and the rest is history.”