Women are the powerhouse of the economy.
Companies with more women in senior roles are measurably more profitable and more innovative than male-dominated businesses. Women-led businesses outperform, by up to three times, those companies led by men. They are more productive, make better decisions, and have more engaged, happier employees who stay in their jobs for longer.
Women are not just the powerhouse of the STEM economy, they create healthier, fairer and more successful companies.
Leaving in droves
Despite their superior performance, women are leaving STEM in droves. Over half of women in science, engineering and technology careers will leave their industry in mid-career, despite loving their jobs. Why? Because they can’t see a future.
Companies that don’t hire and promote sufficient female talent are not just leaving money on the table, they’re spending unnecessarily: Replacing a single employee costs £30,000, mostly money lost on getting the new recruit up to speed.
The female advantage
Companies that take equality seriously, that nurture and promote female talent, will be most successful in the 2020s and beyond. They will have a gender-balanced workforce, better gender pay gap data, higher profits, better products, and lower staff churn and lower recruitment costs. They will also have a happier workforce that is more productive and innovative. And in a world where publicly traded companies last only ten years on average, you need every bit of advantage you can get.
The Finding Ada Network
The Finding Ada Network, a new mentoring and knowledge sharing network for women in STEM, provides a best-in-class mentoring platform and supports women with exclusive content and private member’s forum.
Members benefit from a structured mentoring plan, with regular check-ins to keep them on track. They will also enjoy a mobile app, profiles, automatic matching, meeting scheduling, goal setting, task lists and more.
And exclusive content covering careers advice, personal growth, and professional development ensures that women have access to the information they need to improve their leadership and soft skills.
Make mentorship work for your business
Decades of evidence shows that mentoring is effective at increasing staff promotion and retention rates, as well as increasing job satisfaction and productivity. Both mentors and mentees are more likely to be promoted and to stay in their jobs. Indeed, mentorship provides a 5x higher rate of promotion for mentees, a 6x higher rate of promotion for mentors, and a 30% improvement in staff retention.
And with the Finding Ada Network, we can rapidly onboard groups large or small, getting your staff invited and on board in a matter of minutes. This means that if you want to dip your toe into mentoring, we can spin up a pilot and get you going fast! If you’re already convinced that mentoring is the way to go, then our program gives you more than any other mentorship network.
So if your business is based in the United Kingdom or New Zealand, and you want to provide mentoring for the women on your staff, get in touch with me here on LinkedIn or by email at suw@findingada.com.
If you’re a woman in STEM, or a small business who’d like to bring up to five women on to the network, you can sign up right now.
I am sad to announce that I have, with the agreement of my Advisory Council, taken the difficult decision to cancel the Ada Lovelace Day Live! 2020 event at The IET on 13 October.