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So many of us have been busy recently getting our organizations (or our clients) certified for GDPR, CCPA or other “golden” standards for privacy, technology and more; but we are rarely busy with a certification that concerns people, who are really the main factor to the success in technology. 

For the past two years, many of us at DAA have been busy creating the Women in Tech Maturity Model (WiTMM), a gold standard for gender equality for companies in technology. Our goal was to generate an organizational self-assessment that allows organizations to see where they rank in gender equality through topics of parental policies, bias reporting, promotional opportunities, and softer metrics around cultural norms.

Here’s a snapshot of the maturity model that aims to show tech organizations where they are, and provide a roadmap on the integration of gender equality into their policies, programs, and processes.

Women in Maturity Model

This was the fruit of almost two years of hard work and lots of volunteer hours from DAA members that served on the WiTMM team and different task forces; a dedicated team that have decided to take on the responsibility to generate awareness and create a framework for tech organizations to think of gender-balance as a priority and a win for their workplace.

The WiTMM Assessment takes between 30 and 45 minutes to complete. Ideally, a variety of people in each organization fill out the survey independently. This reveals the perceptual alignment within an organization as it may vary between front line workers, management, human resources, etc. The intent is not to publish how each company ranks, but to publish anonymized reports on the state of the industry, give organizations insight into their current situation, and offer advice on improvement.

Many of us talk about diversity in tech, supporting women in analytics or gender balance, and we often mention the 50% and how to hit that number; but in reality, gender equality is beyond that figure! We will naturally hit that 50% when we take concrete steps to achieve gender balance and focus on supporting those women in analytics and tech with policies, resources, connections, opportunities, leadership programs and inclusion cultures. 

It is what we do to support them that really makes the impact. Starting with this assessment, a tech organization can find what it needs to focus on to increase its gender maturity and put their efforts where they count!