How can we encourage true diversity in STEM?

Disability, gender, age, different socioeconomic backgrounds and neurodiversity – they all have a part to play and we need to be encouraging people from diverse backgrounds into the industry if we wish to build and develop a world in which studying and working in science, technology, engineering and maths is an option that’s open to all.

 

Things are changing, of course. According to the Pew Research Centre and using a broad definition of the STEM workforce, women make up 50% of all US workers in STEM occupations, though their presence varies widely across occupational clusters and educational levels. However, the gender wage gap is wider in STEM occupations than in non-STEM jobs and black and Hispanic workers continue to be underrepresented in the STEM workforce – blacks make up 9% of STEM workers, while Hispanics comprise only 7%. Considering that the Hispanic population comprises an estimated 17.8% of the US population, those figures really don’t add up.

 

So, things are changing, but are they changing enough? As co-founder and director of social enterprise Form the Future (FTF) – a social enterprise that exists to inspire young people into fulfilling their potential, Anne Bailey is perfectly placed to offer expert opinion on the subject of diversity in STEM. Of her role at FTF, Bailey explains: “Form the Future is a social enterprise that connects schools with businesses to help prepare young people for their future careers. My mission is to help everyone fulfil their potential, and I mean everyone – whatever their background, whatever their ability, whatever their sex, race or ability”.

 

Bailey has been part of many organisations over the years where she’s been “the only woman in the room”. Indeed, she once joined the board of a hospital as the only female member. By the time she left, however, the board was over half female, which again shows that the industry is moving in the right direction.

 

We quizzed her further on her thoughts regarding what schools, employers and more are doing to cultivate true diversity in STEM and, perhaps more importantly, what more they could and should be doing to help the cause.

 

It all starts with education. You have to get in there early and start to challenge the preconceptions that children, their teachers and their parents have. Bailey says the problem is often with representation. Because certain demographics are not being represented in certain STEM sectors, children and their parents assume those sectors are not ‘meant’ for them.

 

She says: “Often people will say their daughter is really good at maths, but they don’t want her to go into engineering. So she’ll be steered in a completely different direction. We know that young people become aware of gender from a very early age, and are very quick to differentiate what are ‘girls jobs’ and ‘boys jobs’ so we have to get in there early to help them realise that’s not true”. To do that, however, we’ll need role models that might challenge some of those preconceptions to intervene early and show the range of opportunities available.

 

 

The same is also true of socioeconomic diversity. In the US, for example, people generally believe they can do anything (the good old ‘American Dream’). In the UK, social mobility is just not as strong – particularly when it comes to things like STEM. Kids might think those jobs are not for them because they are not top of the class or nobody in their family ever went to university. However,  the reality is that there are opportunities in these companies for everybody.

 

Bailey has seen these preconceptions first-hand during her own dealings with schools. She was told by some schools that “the girls want to be hairdressers and the boys want to be mechanics”. Just because that’s how it’s been traditionally in the past, does that mean that these kids necessarily want that to follow that path?

 

She adds: “If that’s all they know, then frankly we’ve failed to inspire them into the other options available to them. So, we keep working to get in there, bring people from industry in to show what they do and get everyone interested in those jobs – particularly the jobs that are going to be growing and available to them when they finish school. We want to build a future STEM workforce and that means underlining the opportunities for kids who are going through the school system now”.

 

The government has committed a substantial amount to diversity and representation initiatives in recent years. The £1 million Digital Skills Innovation Fund, for example, helps people from underrepresented groups gain the skills they need to work in digital roles. An additional £400,000 was also made available to help older and disabled people gain digital skills. In the US, meanwhile, Intel pledged $300 million to its “Diversity in Technology” initiative to train and recruit women and other underrepresented groups, hoping to achieve “full representation” of women and minorities by 2020.

 

However, Bailey feels we’ve long since passed the time where we can rely on the government or the educational system for solutions. She believes “it really requires the active engagement of businesses and the employer sector to get stuck in and be part of the change”.

 

Thankfully, there are numerous private schemes currently being run within the STEM industries to catalyse a more inclusive and representative workforce. Wise UK, for example, is a private scheme that openly campaigns for a greater gender balance in STEM and has a goal to reach 1 million women in core STEM by 2020 (a goal it is on track to reaching). These programmes involve clusters of employers and industry ambassadors that truly want to encourage diversity in STEM.

 

IFTF also operates a programme called Cambridge Launchpad, which gives kids hands-on experience with STEM careers and one-on-one tutelage with STEM professionals. The programme has reached over 6,000 students in the last 12 months alone through 148 events with the help of 25 companies. Of course, this ties back into education, but it’s a scheme that exists to show children from all backgrounds that the industry is an option for them. The idea is for these private schemes to work in tandem with public systems, with the private schemes helping schools to meet some of their obligations around careers in a cost-effective way.

 

Ultimately, a significant change in representation has to start at the top. Studies have shown that diversity at a senior level correlates with better companywide results, and having a diverse board sends a strong signal to the rest of the organisation that there’s no limit on your ability to progress. Bailey feels that it’s once again about representation – being able to see someone who looks like you in a position of power builds that aspiration and that commitment.

 

She says: “If it looks like there’s a phalanx of people who will never let you in then why are you going to bother? You’re actually more likely to leave to progress. That’s why it always correlates with better results for the companies when everyone can imagine themselves aspiring to that level”.

 

 

Diversity is contagious – once you start, it starts to build itself. One of the biggest barriers to getting started, however, is that people are not seeing employees like themselves being properly represented in certain positions. Bailey explains: “If you go to an interview and you don’t see someone who looks, sounds or acts like you then you might not think that’s a place you’re going to feel comfortable. So whether that’s having people who may have disabilities and who are not neurotypical, or simply people your own age and gender – people that you can relate to. If they are there already then you’re more likely to want to join that firm. That would be certainly our hope and expectation: that people will feel that they’re going into an environment where, you know, they can find their tribe”.

 

There is something to be said for someone having to “go first” to open the door and change the culture. Bailey uses the example of the hospital where she was once the sole female board member, explaining: “Our patients were 50/50 male and female, our workforce actually was predominantly female and yet our board at the time was 100% male. So, bringing the female voice into the room was an important way of raising things that are more pertinent to female patients and staff members”.

 

Diversity adoption varies from sector to sector with STEM, of course. In ICT, for example, the general consensus is that we’ve actually gone backwards compared to the 80s when there appeared to be a more pronounced female presence. That same sector, however, has been one of the most enthusiastic when it comes to integrating neurotypical individuals into the workplace. Bailey elaborates: “We do a lot of work with companies like Arm, Microsoft and TTP, and they recognise that (neurodiverse individuals) bring a lot of unique skills to the table”.

 

Whilst the primary onus should be on the employers, cultivating a culture of diversity also means looking at recruitment processes to eliminate bias wherever possible. Of course, there will always be the argument that you want to employ the best people, and background, gender and age shouldn’t matter. But there’s always an unconscious bias at play, which often stops that sentiment from ringing true. Indeed, in a recent Global Information Security Workforce Study, 87% of the women sampled stated that they had either witnessed unconscious bias in their place of work or experienced colleagues making instinctual, incorrect judgements about them based on their gender.

 

 

This unconscious bias can get in the way of us making a truly well-informed decision when it comes to recruitment. The solution is surely to communicate the importance of unconscious bias to the decision makers, ensuring best practice is implemented and discrimination is avoided. We have to remain vigilant if we’re ever going to truly move past it.

 

To drive diversity in the STEM industries there are two major areas that need addressing – the process itself and how AI could be used to help alleviate the problem. On the first note, recruiters should focus on a few key areas such as refraining from using words with male or female associations, having a checklist of criteria so they can evaluate candidates fairly, broadening their horizons when looking for candidates, diversifying the interviewers themselves and utilising non-discriminatory psychometric testing practices. Using AI, meanwhile, means that recruiters can rely on objective, performance-based questions that gather answers completely without bias.

 

Another key challenge for the STEM industries is that, in certain sectors, diverse candidates are simply not applying. To underline this point, Bailey uses the example of a company that makes electron microscopes. The average age of their employees is around 56 and they’re not getting any female applicants or any young applicants. So, in order to rectify this, her team worked with them to generate more interest from more diverse school leavers to join their apprenticeship scheme. She says: “They were really eager to get a mixed group of ages, ethnicities and genders because they wanted to start building a future workforce”.

 

Bailey sees value in what is referred to by some people as “tokenism” – the practice of bringing a person from a certain background in because they might be able to see things from a different angle and kick-start a new trend. She explains: “A bit like my experience of being the first female member of the board, (tokenism) can break a pattern and open you up to new possibilities”.  

 

You want to have the best people, but you must also realise that sometimes what you’re looking for doesn’t look exactly like you think it should. For example, someone with Asperger’s syndrome might struggle in some aspects of a role but might also have a valuable skill set and a major depth of skills in other areas that could really change the way your business operates. Bailey adds: “That genuinely mixed workforce gives you the chance to get everything you need out of the whole tribe, rather than the individuals who come perfectly packaged”.

 

 

Ultimately, we’re all individuals. The important thing is that we recognise what everyone wants and needs, help them learn what they need to do to be successful in the workplace, and then respect that. Just because you sit in a particular box in terms of colour, gender, ability, ethnicity, religion or sexuality, you’re still an individual. Sometimes we can get wrapped up in the labels that we apply to people, and fail to see the individual that sits behind those labels.

 

Bailey is on the board of the East of England Institute of Directors, which had a meeting recently on the topic of ‘inclusivity’. This meeting opened her eyes as to how diverse the topic of diversity truly is. She explains: “All the women in the room were quick to sound out about the importance of diversity, but I almost felt sorry for the three men in the room. Were they feeling excluded because they were “pale, male and stale”?”

 

However, part-way through the meeting, one of the ‘men’ actually spoke up and admitted that he himself had been recently diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. It only became apparent when his own son was diagnosed, and his own son entered the workforce. Bailey adds: “What that experience was like for his son wasn’t always positive initially, because people didn’t understand his needs. And that brought home for me the fact that, just because you might be a white, middle-aged, middle-class man, that doesn’t mean you don’t also have diverse and unique needs”.

 

According to a 2017 survey from Indeed, ageism will likely be the latest diversity hurdle for businesses, with 43% of the 1,011 employees polled admitting they were worried about losing their jobs due to their age. Even more damning, 36% reported that they had experienced an instance where they felt they were not taken seriously by a colleague or a manager because of their age. For STEM industries, it might hit the hardest, with a survey by STEM specialists Modis finding that 39% of STEM professionals believe that age disparity is the greatest conflict in their field.

 

Modis CEO, John Marshall III, said in a company statement: “With more than half of STEM professionals ranking age and gender as the largest diversity struggle in their fields, employers need to be aware of these concerns and aim to make purposeful changes if they want to attract and retain top talent”.

 

Having a range of ages in the room is so important because different generations have a different take on work, and want a different deal. Bailey adds on the subject: “You need to have people at different stages of life in the room – whether that’s respecting the long-term experience that older workers bring or the novel ways of working and the technological know-how that young people can bring to the workforce”.

 

It’s an exciting time right now to be working in STEM because there’s so much positive momentum. Ironically, given the sour sentiment towards it in the sector, Brexit might actually encourage us all to focus more on our home-grown talent and there are definite advances being made in terms of diversifying the sector from all angles. But there’s certainly a lot more still to be done.

 

People are interested in diversity for the same reasons that it matters – the more our organisations can reflect the communities we serve, the better we’re likely to be able to deliver for their needs. However, diversity (or a lack thereof) isn’t an issue that can be solved overnight. Nor is it one that can be solved on a company by company basis. It needs a concerted effort that the industry gets behind, enforces and takes seriously.

 

Sometimes progress takes time and it can feel a bit glacial at times, but it is really happening and once it finally takes hold, our workforces and business performance will undoubtedly be all the better for it.

 

To discover how Identifi can help your organisation attract the best diverse talent, contact us today or learn more about our Psycruit online assessments.