According to the #WomenintheWorkPlace2022(1) report, women continue to be extremely underrepresented in technical roles today. The report also reveals that the rate of women working in engineering and technical fields has decreased even more compared to 2018 data. In the United States, more women than men graduate from college each year. Each year, including in the San Francisco Bay Area a greater percentage of women graduate with degrees in technical fields in USA. But tech companies in this space remain largely male-dominated: less than 20% of most engineering teams are unfortunately still female.
Even in the midst of economic uncertainty, there was widespread consensus that STEM fields would continue to offer rich opportunities for generations to come. While before Covid-19, STEM careers were already an important target for employees, companies have witnessed the importance of this field more deeply during the pandemic process. As economies recover after the pandemic, career opportunities in the STEM field have become even more important (2).
The underrepresentation of women in leadership in STEM fields is seen as an important obstacle in trying to bring new and diverse faces to the field (1). It can be said that individuals working in the field of technology, where women are in a minority, realized that mentoring experience in this field is indispensable for a sustainable career goal. Building and developing mentor relationships can reverse this situation. Studies indicate that the best way to connect mentees to their mentors in the field of mentoring is on-the-job learning opportunities (2).
According to recent research (2), individuals who are involved in on-the-job learning gain a multitude of opportunities. These opportunities also give young adults the opportunity to explore their STEM careers outside of school in a meaningful way, allowing them to better understand the reality of a career in their field of interest. Companies that provide these opportunities have the opportunity to invest in the new generation workforce and have the potential to hire people who are already interested and experienced in the field they are training.
As Yıldız Holding, we identify the competencies of our female employees, support their career plans, carry out training and mentoring programs, provide all the necessary resources to increase their professional development opportunities, and monitor their development through our monitoring and evaluation processes. Our mentoring programs in this field;
Job@ Yıldız Holding: We care about and prioritize providing equal opportunities to young talents with our JOB Internship & New Graduate Recruitment Program, which has been going on for 10+ years. Hundreds of talents who stepped into their careers with us, in addition to improving their professional competencies; It also creates added value in their personal development with the mentoring support they receive. To date, 54% of the young employees included in the JOB@YıldızHolding mentoring program are women. In order to sustain our determination to create equal opportunities for young talents, we also support function-based equality of opportunity by collaborating with our stakeholders such as the Women in Sales Network.
Mentor to Million Women: With the Mentor to Million Women project, which we started in cooperation with TurkishWin in June 2022, our female employees working in the field of STEM receive mentoring support for 1 year. Our female employees, who are included in this global sharing platform where world citizen women inspire and empower each other; contributes to increasing the impact and accessibility of our in-house social responsibility projects on diversity, inclusion, and employee engagement. As both Mentor and Mentee, we support our participants to provide a two-sided experience on this journey.
Referances
(1) https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/Women_in_the_Workplace_2022.pdf
(2) https://jfforg-prod-new.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/WBL_Principles_Paper_062416.pdf