What Does An HR Conference Have To Say About Women?
Earlier this month, PowerToFly’s chief revenue officer, Caroline Turner, attended HR Tech 2016 among approximately 8,000 other attendees. As HR leaders plan for 2017, the conference inspires innovative thinking and new transformations. Over 400 companies exhibited, including 40 emerging growth startups!
Caroline collected many insights but there were six major themes and trends that came from the from the conference agenda:
- Making Sense of HR and People Data
- Engaging and Retaining Talent
- Succeeding with Modern HR Technology
- Design and User Experience Comes to the Forefront
- The Continuing Impact of Marketing on HR and HR Tech
- Rise of Women in HR Technology Leadership
Because we have built the fastest growing platform to propel diversity recruiting and hiring, the ‘Women in HR Technology’ theme for the conference spoke directly to all us at PowerToFly. Our hiring platform is propelling recruiting teams to new heights — helping them find, interview and hire more women in tech.
Caroline was energized by the session line-ups of women executives blazing trails at their respective companies, including SAP, Cornerstone OnDemand, Ceridian, Paychex, The Devon Group, Fuel50, MOVE Guides, YouEarnedIt, and more. As echoed during the sessions, a lot of the challenges facing women in their tech careers are attributed to the talent funnel and mindset of hiring for “cultural fit” that leads organizations to simply reinforce existing imbalances. It is so encouraging to see that more HR leaders than ever are building a business case for diversity because data (from Kellogg Insight and many other sources) tells us that companies with gender-diverse workforces are more adaptable —
“and lead to better decision-making and creating shareholder value. Companies with gender balance have a competitive advantage. We cannot hope to build strong, stable companies and products if the workforce doesn’t represent society as a whole … it’s simply the right thing to do.”
We couldn’t agree more. And speaking of data — we asked one of our own internal data scientists, Zlatka Staykova, to analyze social engagement during the HR Tech show, which resulted in this amazing ‘wordcloud’ she produced.
Among the 6,400 tweets — 4,700 unique words (3,000 of the words were encountered more than once), the word ‘women’ appeared only 116 times and the combination of ‘womenintech’ was only 17 times. Despite the fact that ‘women’ were not the hottest topic during the show, diversity in hiring does matter!
It matters so much that PowerToFly is partnering with Business Insider on a new Facebook Live series to discuss diversity in hiring with the people in a position to do something about it. We’re thrilled to welcome Global Director of Diversity at Facebook, Maxine Williams, as our first guest — tune in on October 26th on Business Insider’s Facebook page.
If you are looking to hire more women in tech, talk to us at PowerToFly. Join the many innovative companies who are as passionate about hiring women as we are!
PowerToFly works with companies who are making diversity their top priority in hiring, and creating inclusive workplaces and supportive company cultures. Haven’t posted a job on the PowerToFly hiring platform yet? It’s easy! Choose a plan here.
Start hiring from the community of 100,000 women on our platform and from our women networks — millions of women looking to join companies that care about diversity and inclusion.
