Tech firms sign up to best practices for women

This year International Women's Day sparked a fresh wave of concern about the shortfall of female ICT professionals and the lack of women on the board's of big businesses.

As a result, the European Commission has encouraged five major ICT companies to sign a Code of Best Practices for Women and ICT that will make technology jobs more attractive for women.

In 2007, the EC began encouraging telecoms and internet companies to attract more women in the sector.

Signed by Alcatel-Lucent, Imec, Orange-France Telecom Group, Microsoft and Motorola, the new code is the first set of practical initiatives to enhance women's experience in technology based careers.

The EC stated concern that by 2010, there is expected to be a shortage of 300,000 qualified engineers in the European Union but that still less than one in five computer scientists are women.

"The signing of this Code of Best Practices is a first step towards making high-tech jobs cool for girls and getting more women into the ICT sector. I congratulate those companies that today have the courage and conviction to commit to this code, that will enrich the ICT sector by making it more female-friendly," said Viviane Reding, European Union telecoms commissioner.

The initiatives the companies will employ include: mentoring programmes during maternity leave that will help women keep up to data with the latest technology developments, practical help in balancing family and work-life that will offer flexible working hours and home working, and ICT forums to offer women support on job searches, advice and mentoring.

The code also set targets for the recruitment and promotion of female ICT professionals and aims to attract more girls at school and university into the high-tech sector.

The EC said it will closely monitor the implementation of the code and will assess it in a year's time. "Such good practices need to be complemented by firm targets," said Reding.

"One practical way to do this is to boost the representation of women in the Boards of ICT companies," she added. "Today only seven per cent of board members in the 116 major ICT companies are women. Therefore, let's set ourselves a target to double this by 2015."

An EC report on Monday highlighted the broader inequality in the workplace that still exists between genders and has led the EC to launch an European-wide campaign to promote good practices on the pay gap from around Europe and distribute a campaign toolbox for employers and trade unions at European and at national level.

For example, 31.2 per cent of women still work part-time compared to 7.7 per cent of men, and women predominate in industry sectors where wages are lower. Women are also under-represented on the board's of big businesses where men account for nearly 90 per cent, and the report said this figure had "barely improved in recent years". Across the EU economy, women earn on average 17.4 per cent less than men.

The EU Equal opportunities commissioner Vladimír Špidla, said the gender pay gap needs multiple solutions. "Tackling it requires action at all levels and a commitment from everyone concerned, from employers and trade unions to national authorities and every citizen," he said.

At the European Parliament's committee on Women's rights and Gender Equality on Thursday, vice president of the EC, Margot Wallström, also referenced the lack of women in governments.

In the governments and parliaments of the EU's 27 Member States, less than a quarter of the ministers and MPs are women, and still today only about a third of MEPs are women.

An interactive debate on women and elections has been launched on the EC Debate Europe web-site that will run until the 25 March.

"I hope many of you will take part and will bring the debate in the streets and squares of Europe," said Wallström. "If women are not equally represented at the policy-making tables, the policy agenda will be set by men, and we loose out on the knowledge experience and ideas that women have," she said.