623. Women in tech

Why do half of women in tech drop out by age 35?

by Individual Differences and ImpactResearch

In a collaborative report involving Code First Girls and Tech Talent Charter (TCC – a government-supported group of over 775 leading UK businesses and organisations) aimed to gain insights into the UK’s diversity talent shortage – and provide recommendations to address the diversity crisis.

It is revealed that half of the women in tech drop out by the age of 35, adding to concerns about the growing digital skills and gender gap.

Additionally, of the 149 million new jobs Microsoft predicts will be created by 2025 in software, data, AI and machine learning only 20% of the 5.8m newly skilled and qualified graduates will be women.

A few barriers for women in tech (and indeed in any industry) is: maternity leave, and work-family balance.

The top recommendations to encourage women to remain in tech include: flexible working, enhanced parental leave policies, and other female-specific family and healthcare policies and benefits.

Flexible working policies have been shown to have a positive impact on attracting and retaining talent. 

Job ads that include job flexibility in the offering have increased applicant volume by 30% and increased the proportion of female applicants.

88% of the 210,000 UK tech employees from TTC’s data reported having access to flexible work options including: part-time working (83%), job sharing (76%), condensed hours (65%) and remote working 47%). Other options available are a 4-day working week during the summer and uncapped holiday.

Although the availability of the report seems to focus on flexible work arrangements that are already available and female-related healthcare policies, the main solutions that seems to be suggested centre around making the tech workplace less of a ‘boys-club’ and slightly more inclusive to women’s family and healthcare needs. 

What the report doesn’t seem to address is the fact that flexible working policies are already available in almost 90% of tech companies and women are still leaving before 35. 

  • Could it be that there are much deeper underlying causes of women exiting the workplace by age 35 and not returning? 
  • Could workplace norms, narratives and job demands expectations also play a role?
  • Could the flexible workplace practices indeed be contributing to the inability to create work-home boundaries, which lead to higher stress, anxiety and feelings of burnout by the mid-30s, and making it less feasible for a healthy work-family life balance? 
  • Could the job demands that come from an industry that is already suffering from a skills shortage and an inherent need to grow and deliver at pace be significantly contributing to a stressful work environment that works for those in their 20s, but not always so well for those in their 30s? 
Read the press release from the research that was published in BM Magazine here
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Working after hours

Contact with work after hours is linked to family conflict, distress and sleep issues

by Individual Differences and ImpactResearch
'Are communications about work outside regular working hours associated with work-to-family conflict, psychological distress and sleep problems?'
Extracts and summary of the research by: Scott Schieman and Marisa C. Young (2013)

Key quotes from the research:

  • ‘…work contact is associated with higher levels of work-to-family conflict, distress and sleep problems.’
  • ‘…simultaneous exposure to high pressure and contact [with work after hours] heightens arousal that , in turn, poses a greater threat to one’s sense of equilibrium, energy, and mental or physical resources that either one does on its own.’
  • ‘…job pressure might exacerbate the impact of work contact…[in] that both pressure and contact – as different but interrelated demands – draw on the same limited volitional resource…’

Summary of the research: 

Those who are in constant contact with work in private time are more likely to experience conflict with the family by reducing the level of finite time and energy workers have outside of work. Increased work engagement also increases psychological stress and exacerbates sleep issues.

 There are some caveats to this: 

  • Workers who have the ability to manage their workload, such as job control (i.e. flexibility as to when they get the work done) and autonomy (i.e. when and how they get their job done) are less impacted by work contact after hours
  • Those who have more challenging roles that are require the learning of new things, include creative elements, span a variety of different tasks and get to use their skills and abilities are less likely to experience family conflict, be stressed and have sleep issues 
  • In contrast, those whose roles are overwhelming and/or highly pressured intensifies the work contact after hours and exacerbates family contact and sleep problems. 

Having a highly pressurised job or one that is overwhelming is more likely to lead to greater levels of work contact after hours, which reduces the amount of time spent with others. Even that time with family is spent in a state of stress which also reduces the amount of recovery sleep received. 

Having a more rewarding role, that allows a worker the ability to work around other life commitments, and provides a level of personal growth and feeling valued is more likely to lead to lower levels of stress and better sleep, even if the worker has regular contact with work during private hours. 

Read the original article here

If you are unable to access the web page, you can read a PDF of the article here.

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Generational Differences

Are there generational differences in expectations of work technology use after hours?

by Individual Differences and ImpactResearch
'Technological Tethering, Digital Natives, and Challenges in the Work-Family Interface'.
Extracts and summary of the research by: Andrew D. Nevin and Scott Schieman (2020)

Key quotes from the research:

  • ‘…mobile technologies have facilitated the extension of traditional working hours, reflective of workers being “technologically tethered” to their jobs while at home so that they are more accessible than ever to their employers … constant connectivity has become normalised in today’s society and ingrained in organizational cultures by fostering unrealistic expectations of worker availability, which has contributed to current norms of excessive job contact, multitasking, and working overtime’.
  • ‘…the modern worker represents one who is technologically tethered, that is, restricted by traditional separations of physical work and home environments while being digitally available for job contact and monitoring at all times … through technology, fast-paced work demands are “no longer bound by time and space” and have begun to transcend fixed work schedules … often workers cannot choose to disconnect from their devices, which reduces their autonomy and ability to cope with work stress’.
  • ‘…widespread expectations have emerged about the ability of digital natives to better manage technology-based tasks in the workplace and to handle increasing communication demands via work extending technologies.’

Summary of the research: 

‘Digital Natives’, i.e. those who have grown up using technology on a daily basis, are thought to be better more digitally intelligent and have superior digital skills than older ‘Digital Immigrant’ workers. 

This stereotype has been popularised by the media, who showcase them as needing constant stimulation, being more tech-savvy and more likely to use tech to learn and communicate with others. This has led to the perception that they are more likely to adapt to workplace tech demands, better at multi-tasking and more likely to seek out tech-centric roles.

However, the analysis of this research concluded that there was no difference in the generations in terms of their ability to cope with workplace technology use after hours.

Structural ageism assumes that older workers are less able to adapt to newer technologies, however, this study refutes that sentiment and suggests this assumption instead leads to discriminatory experiences amongst digital immigrants and can lead to reduced productivity. 

The study showcases that neither digital natives nor digital immigrants are able to cope with their workplace tech-tethering, which is synonymous with the modern workplace. 

Digital Natives are not better at balancing their various life roles and are as likely to either cope or struggle with role multitasking and constant workplace connectivity. 

The study did confirm previous findings that women are more likely to experience higher levels of role conflict through after-hours work tech use.

It also confirmed that those in higher status roles were more likely to subscribe to the ‘ideal worker’ norms that encourage overwork, increase work hours and workplace technology use after hours. These workers need both a more individualised and a more active commitment to work-life balance strategies. 

Read the original article here

This is not an open-source document and will need purchasing to read the full original article.

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Personality and Tech

Technology use and personality type

by Individual Differences and Impact

According to research, some personality types are more prone to certain technology use behaviours e.g. those who have a higher neurotic personality trait can become fixated a little more on checking and responding to emails and messages from work on a regular basis, even during private time.

They may also tend to worry about the message itself, how to fix the situation or what the person who sent the message thought about them, and what impact this may have on their job.

They will often keep on checking emails and messages for a response to the last message sent because they worry about it until they get the response.

Hints and Tips:

If you are a bit like this, it could be worth not uploading work emails to your mobile device and switching your computer off at the end of the workday. Keeping emails on your computer and having to switch your computer on after hours in order to access emails – means you are slightly less likely to look at and engage with them after hours.

Have a separate work and personal mobile. This way, you can switch your work phone off at the end of the day.

Have an easily accessible workbook that you can jot down things that you forgot you need to do the next day. Try not to be tempted to turn your computer on, or pick up your mobile to quickly make a note. It’s all too easy for that to turn into a 3-hour work session that takes you away from your family or from your own recovery.

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intro and extrovert

How introversion and extroversion affects remote/hybrid workers

by Individual Differences and Impact

We don’t often consider how personalities, can play into how we ‘do work’ and remote/hybrid working in particular.

A lot of research has been done trying to find out how personality type is linked to engagement with technology and apps. Results are often vague or contradictory. However, there are some useful insights that we can consider. One of these is how introverts and extroverts fare while remote or hybrid working. 

Introverts

We tend to think of introverts as shy and extroverts as outspoken. But, from a psychological point of view, introverts are those who find that interacting with others drains them of energy. They need to spend time on their own to recharge. Someone can be really sociable and also be an introvert.

They find working in an office really tiring and find remote working to be easier and less tiring than working in an office. They are more likely to revel in the lower levels of colleague engagement that remote working affords. They may also feel more emotionally and mentally tired when they have to attend extended periods of video calls or have to attend to a constant stream of messages and emails. In the same way as people coming over to the desk on a regular basis, having to keep a messaging window open on their screen all day, can become really tiring.

Hints and Tips:

If you are more of an introvert, try closing your email or messaging apps for chunks of time during the day. If this needs a conversation with your manager and colleagues to let them know that you need blocks of focussed time, then chat with them about when the best time would be for you to do this.

Others quickly get used to you being available via email during specific hours each day, and they often work around it, or they just call if there is anything really urgent that needs dealing with.

Extroverts

In contrast, extroverts tend to get their energy from spending time with others. Someone can be quite shy but also be an extrovert.

Extroverts need regular face-to-face contact and engagement. They are more likely to, therefore, set up online meetings, or go to every online meeting set up by others. They tend to spend a lot of time on, and distract themselves with a lot, of emails and messages.

Sending and reading messages substantially reduces overall concentration and productivity levels. Additionally, extroverts are also more likely to be bored, and frustrated and often, therefore, more likely to play games, spend time on social media and distract themselves with many tasks at once.

Because they get energy from being around others, they are the ones more likely to want to return to the office full-time and are less likely to understand why others prefer not to.

Hints and Tips:

If you are more of an extrovert and required to work remotely most of the time, make a conscious effort to allocate time to focus on engaging with others during the day. Simple things like going to a local coffee shop to work for a few hours or going to your local store and chatting with the teller can help.

Doing this may reduce the need to dabble in excessive messaging and emails, playing games and checking out social media. It may also help you become more focussed and productive once you have received the ‘social fix’ you need.

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zoom fatigue

Lessons from Lockdown – Zoom Fatigue

by Individual Differences and Impact
Zoom fatigue

One of the terms that was bandied about a lot during Lockdown 1 was Zoom Fatigue. This was because many of us were experiencing higher levels of emotional and cognitive exhaustion after spending large portions of the day on Zoom calls. 

In his research on this topic, Nick Bloom of Stanford University found a few reasons why we experience video meeting tiredness: 

  1. The Mirror Effect – with the camera on, our peripheral vision catches our movement, our facial expressions, the way we’re sitting, the fall of our clothes, etc, and we are constantly adjusting and readjusting our appearance, which subconsciously weighing up how we see ourselves and how others see us. It is tiring having to constantly self-adjust both posture and facial features – especially when we are spending most of the day on video calls
  2. We all have Personal Boundaries – our brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual distance. Faces on a laptop that feel too close to us, infringe on the personal boundary space normally reserved for close friends and family. It can subconsciously feel like those on the screen are invading our perceived personal space. The psychological desire to counteract the physical boundary infringement takes its mental toll
  3. We physically move less – unlike actual meetings where we generally move more and tend to walk to a meeting room. In physical meetings we are often also looking around the room, subtly engaging with others close to us and sometimes getting up to get something to drink etc. In video conferencing, we sit still, staring at the screen. If we move, others notice it and we feel too self-conscious to do so in order to avoid attracting too much attention, so we try to minimise all movement during the call. Then we switch to another meeting, sometimes without even getting up to stretch, refill a glass or take a natural break. 
  4. We often only see the faces of meeting participants. This means we cannot read other body language cues, requiring greater mental energy to process and interpret the conversation by filling in the gaps of information otherwise given through non-verbal behaviour.

‘Zoom fatigue’ played, and continues to play, a large part in why we feel exhausted at the end of the day – especially if we spend too much time on video calls. 

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Please get off your phone

We need to minimise our phone use

by Individual Differences and Impact

There are a number of articles around at the moment about Burnout. They all have good points and good advice to follow. However, there is one small thing I would like to point out. Research has shown that employees are not always aware that they are heading toward burnout.

Although there are a number of reasons people burn out, a lot of the blame is laid at the foot of increased workloads and workplace job pressure. Yes, this is true, but we forget that we are also to blame for ‘allowing’ this to happen. E-anxiety that is one of the causes of burnout comes from excessive email monitoring in private hours.

Monitoring emails and work-based communication when you should be taking time out from work can have a detrimental effect on you as a worker, your significant other and your family. Signs of burnout are often manifested first in home-based conflict. Partners and children start getting frustrated and annoyed with you not being fully present with them, prioritising a project or work colleague/supervisor over them.

Catching burnout before it catches you is something we can do something about. Some people say that they have no choice, but they actually do. We can put our phone down, turn off notifications, switch the phone (or computer) off, walk away, do something else, be more present in our private time. You are not irreplaceable at work, you are irreplaceable at home.

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Automated Behaviour and Cyber Security

Have we established muscle memory around remote working and what impact does this have on us as individuals?

by Individual Differences and Impact

A number of us have been working remotely for the past 18 months. We often hear statements around how work has ‘shifted’. With that phrase comes the expectation that we’ve had plenty of time to adapt to this ‘new normal’ and should be working effectively and efficiently at this stage. Haven’t we all become used to this way of working?

There is a perception that remote working is now an established norm, but it isn’t. Our working environment is still in constant flux. It is still shifting. It will still be shifting for a few years yet – until we become more certain around how to manage this epidemic. Even then, it will take another few years before we establish and start entrenching specific workplace norms in line with variations of hybrid working practices.

When it comes to our everyday functioning and adapting, the processing part of our brain has limited ability to process conscious, intentional activities. Every time something changes in our environment and how we do things, we have to adapt and readapt. Think about when you start a new role or take up a new hobby, you have to really think about what you are doing until it becomes a habit. Then you do a lot of it without thinking. It becomes automated behaviour.

However, things have been in constant shift and flux since March 2020. Our children are at home schooling. They are at school. It’s term time and lateral flow tests. They’re on summer holiday. Do they need masks or don’t they? Do I have enough tests in the house or do I need more? Am I going into the office this week or working from home? Do we still need to keep 2 meters apart? Why are they (not) wearing a mask? Should I elbow bump, or can I shake hands with them? Is that meeting in Zoom, Teams or Google Meet? Where was that link? What day am I in the office this week again? My programme doesn’t seem to be working, where did I write down how to fix it? What’s the name of that new IT person again?

We continuously absorb sensory information through all 5 of our senses. Our working-memory has to work hard to filter out a lot of that information, while simultaneously processing our thoughts, actions and behaviour. We cope best when we are able to automate a large portion of the behaviour we do every day. From making hot drinks, to driving our car, to finding our way to the office/home, to most of life’s ‘little things’ that we don’t give much daily thought to. If these things shift, we have to consciously think through how to perform and execute them effectively. This takes up substantial cognitive effort and can lead to cognitive exhaustion if we aren’t able to automate much of our daily behaviour.

Although we have indeed already built up some normative practices around remote working, each shift that we have to do requires us to extend higher levels of cognitive effort that takes ‘processing power’ that otherwise could be used to fulfil ‘deeper work’. To get into the flow that allows us to be productive, acquire any new skills or think deeply about our work, we need to have a lot of our day-to-day behaviour shifted into automatic functioning. This is the reason we develop habits and routines, it is also why we allocate spaces in our house (or our desk) for specific objects. It means they are easier to find, and we don’t need substantial cognitive effort to locate them.

We get stressed when things are different, or we have to think consciously about a particular process. Just think about how stressed you can get when you can’t find something you are looking for (especially if they aren’t in their normal place). Every time we ask people to shift how they do things, increases their levels of non-automatic behaviour and raises stress levels. It is cognitively exhausting to be regularly stressed in this way and when the majority of our behaviour isn’t given time to become automated.

So, all of this shifting, shifting and shifting that is constantly happening around our ways of working, and the continuous need to adapt to workplace norms, means we have to think so much harder about things that should otherwise be automated behaviour. It leaves us with less cognitive energy and capacity to focus on our ‘real work’ and to think deeply about the problems and issues we have to resolve. These extra cognitive thinking efforts and additional stress from shifting workplace norms, reduces our ability to be vigilant and spot errors in our work and fraudulent emails. Things we would otherwise have spotted, because we have the cognitive thinking-space to do so, we are a lot less vigilant about.

This is one of the reasons why we are generally experiencing higher levels of cyber scams and those who may otherwise be super-vigilant, are less able to do so. It’s not just that our home-based online security is at lower levels than we’d have in the workplace. It’s that our general cognitive ability to spot and correctly respond to phishing emails and scams is substantially compromised by how much harder we are having to think and adapt to our daily workplace and homebased shifting demands.  

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Parental Fatigue

Parental Burnout, an unintended consequence of a pandemic

by Individual Differences and Impact

‘Parental Burnout’ is “an exhaustion syndrome, characterised by feeling physically and mentally overwhelmed” (first identified by Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak in the early ’80s). Simultaneously working, managing a home and raising children involves complicated and frequent role-switching. Each of these roles requires different cognitive functioning and does not allow the brain enough time to deep-dive into the productive functioning that each requires. This means that what we do takes longer and does not to the same level of quality that deep-diving allows.

Research conducted by Seville et al. (2020) during Lockdown 1.0 showed that although fathers took on a much greater role (versus pre-pandemic) in home and childcare, mothers took on a proportionately greater level of responsibility (30% versus 47% respectively). Mothers were more likely to engage in active childcare such as meals and bedtime, whereas fathers were more likely to engage in more passive childcare such as playtime and screentime.

Stories have been emerging for some time now of parents experiencing deep levels of Compassion Syndrome, which leaves parents feeling overwhelmed, stressed, guilty and isolated. A few ‘real-life’ stories are told in a recent Guardian article. Compassion Syndrome has historically been associated mostly with those in the care industry. However, parents are starting to experience this in untold measure, especially when they are also managing a diverse team of staff.

In reality, we don’t know we are experiencing burnout until we actually do burnout. It is essential to start putting some strategies in place to give you time to mentally and emotionally recover each day to help mitigate against long-term stress and burnout:

* If possible, carve out at least 30 min’s of alone-time each day – although playing electronic games can help with feelings of ‘escapism’, it still uses up cognitive energy doing so – put your phone down and use the time to rest your brain. Take a bath, go for a walk, sit on your balcony or in the garden, listen to an audiobook, engage in a hobby or craft, bake… the key is to ‘switch off’ the analytical, thinking part of your brain and give your creative, divergent part of your brain a bit of exercise.

* If you don’t already do so, start journaling. If you don’t have time to write things down, do voice recordings. A big part of therapy is the process of ‘releasing’ the thoughts from your head. Running water is a lot fresher than stagnant water. Ruminating tends to stagnate thoughts.

* Try putting a few more firm boundaries in place, both for you and for family members. If possible, delegate more tasks. Done is better than perfect.

Self-care is so important. Don’t wait until breaking point before reaching out to family, friends, or colleagues. Reach out to the Mind Charity or Samaritans or try searching on PsychologyToday, BPS or BACP databases for a therapist near you or one you think could help you. Video therapy is a norm now, and finding the best therapist in a different part of the country is better than finding an ok therapist near you.

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Zoom Video Fatigue

Zoom Fatigue and Non-Verbal Overload

by Individual Differences and Impact

Video conferencing has become a major part of remote and hybrid working. The term ‘zoom fatigue’ quickly caught on during the early stages of the first 2020 lockdown. Being in meetings most of the day in the office had shifted to being in meetings most of the day on video calls. Some of us potentially increased the number of meetings they had each day. As someone recently commented to me “you’re now only 1-click away from the meeting, so it feels easy to be involved in every one of them”. 

As we know, video meetings are different from in-person meetings. There are no opportunities to have a quick whispered conversation about a point with someone, it is difficult to interrupt the speaker with questions, and you aren’t always able to see everyone who is in attendance at the meeting. In an academic article from Technology, Mind, and Body, Jeremy Bailenson highlights four potential (although hypothetical) causes of Zoom Fatigue. Below is a brief summary of the four points suggested by Bailenson in addition to some hints and tips on how to potentially manage zoom fatigue. 

Gazing up-close for long periods of time *

In face-to-face meetings, attendees spend a limited amount of time staring directly at the speaker or at every person in the room. In zoom meetings, attendees spend the majority of the meeting looking into the face of all participants on the screen for extended periods of time. The up-close, intense, and direct eye-gaze, normally reserved for family and close friends, but is now being employed for colleagues and strangers for extended periods of time each day.

Extra subconscious mental processing *

Non-verbal behaviour, such as body language, is a subconscious, complex and integrative part of face-to-face communication. With video conferencing, we need to make an intentional effort to both read and communicate these otherwise effortless non-verbal cues. Viewing only a face and upper body means we have to work harder to read and translate the reduced body language cues. Moreover, more mental work has to go into interpreting eye and body movement that may differ on a video-grid screen to that in face-to-face interactions.

The 'mirror effect' *

Although there is always the option to ‘hide self-view’ on zoom, the default for video conferencing software is the ability to constantly see your own reflection during a call. Research has show that this self-focus and evaluation of their reflection, can lead to more pro-social behaviour, but can also lead to higher stress levels and can prime women (more than men) to experience depression.

Physically less mobility *

In face-to-face meetings it is acceptable to move in the chair, stretch, get up or even refill a glass or cup. In these meetings participants can generally see everyone else in the room. In a zoom call, there is a very narrow ‘cone’ of view that participants need to remain in for the duration of the call. Being forced to sit in a camera’s view reduces movement. Additionally, excessive movement does encourage visual attention from others, so it is often ideal to remain as stationary as possible.

A few hints and tips:

Individuals:

  • Try turning on the ‘hide self-view’ option on your camera once you have positioned yourself in the correct place in front of the camera.
  • If you use a laptop, use an external keyboard, allowing you to distance yourself from the faces on screen.
  • Blocking out sections in your diary that allow for breaks between zoom meetings can give you time and opportunity to move around more. 
  • Attending only the meetings you need to, rather than attending just because you can, will reduce the possibility of you being expected to attend more meetings than you really need to participate in. 

Teams: 

  • Allow participants to turn off their camera’s (in addition to muting themselves) if they are not actively talking. This will give them the option of getting up, moving around and writing notes without feeling ‘watched’. 
  • Setting out explicit video conferencing norms and keeping track of changes in implicit norms will help employees and managers to create a much healthier relationship with video conferencing tools. 

Although there are some behavioural norms around video conferencing that will naturally evolve and become part of how we do remote working going forward. Some of these norms have become nuances across various business cultures, depending on company and team policies. It will take time to develop a uniform video conferencing culture. In the meantime, it may be that teams (or even companies) need to develop and implement explicit ‘rules’ and norms that help to manage video meetings and reduce employees’ resulting fatigue levels. 

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