- Women of NATE Chairwoman Introduction
- WON Profiles: Nikki Gronau
- Upcoming Events
- Recent Event Highlights-International Women's Day
- Featured Article - Female Role Models in Tech Attract More Diverse Talent
Release:
April 1, 2020
Women of NATE Today Newsletter
Volume 2, Issue 3
Life is a series of peaks and valleys. It is in the valleys that we find out what we are made of. It is a challenging time. I have found that in challenging times, we rise up and become our best selves, both personally and professionally. I am seeing that every day, as our company rides out this storm, everyone has each other's backs and are helping in the office, in the field, and in the community. Having the right people around you is imperative to a job well done and doing the best for you and your company. Likewise, building our community of Women of NATE has never been more important. Please reach out if there is anything that we can do for you. We will do our best to help. We will get through this and be better than ever.
The Women of NATE Leadership Summit scheduled for Monday, April 20, 2020, at the Gleacher Center, in Chicago, Illinois has been rescheduled for Monday, September 21, 2020. All registrations will transfer to the new date, so if you previously registered you won't need to do anything further to register.
The WON Leadership Summit will be a day of education, inspiration, and celebration. Reach out to your co-workers and professional friends, and make a weekend out of it. We have a lot to look forward to. To register for the Summit on Monday, September 21, in Chicago, go to https://natehome.com/membership/women-of-nate/won-leadership-summit/women-of-nate-leadership-summit-registration/. We hope to see you there!
Andy Page Lee is the Women of NATE (WON) Committee Chairwoman and the Vice President of Operations for Lee Antenna & Line Service, Inc. in Springtown, Pennsylvania.
WON Profiles: Nikki Gronau
Nikki joined the NATE Administrative Team in January 2011 and serves as the NATE Resource Manager. Nikki’s day-to-day responsibilities include researching articles for upcoming issues of Tower Times, brainstorming new ideas to promote NATE and safety in the industry, conducting multiple conference calls to ensure groups stay on task, and collaborating with other staff members in their areas of expertise to ensure our members are being taken care of in a timely manner.
Outside of work, Nikki enjoys spending time with her family and friends and reading. She is also a big fan of watching her daughters play softball. You can find her on the sidelines keeping the scorebook and cheering them on. Go Valley City Vikings! Go Brookings Outlaws!
What do you think are the best skills that you bring to your job?
A can do, will do attitude.
What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?
Never miss out on chance to tell the people closest to you how important they are. You never know when the opportunity to do so will be gone.
What is a goal for yourself that you want to accomplish in the next year?
Normally, I am a people pleaser and put other’s needs before myself. This year my goal was to be selfish and become a better person by taking more time for myself mentally and physically.
What are you happiest doing, when you are not working?
Watching my girls play softball and enjoying it.
What is your favorite line from a film?
Nobody puts Baby in the corner - Dirty Dancing
What job would you do if you didn't have to make money?
Working with Hospice by caring for others in need.
Favorite quote?
Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
What do you do with friends in your spare time?
Enjoying a spa day and shopping with friends catching up on each others lives.
What are some causes that you care about?
Anything with children.
What have you learned from working at NATE?
Before I started working at NATE, I didn't pay much attention to cell phone towers. Now I see them everywhere. Since my first day of work, I have learned so much about the industry and continue to learn something new every day.
Upcoming Events
Join WON on Monday, April 20 for a Live Webinar
On Monday, April 20, 2020 at 3:00 PM EDT/2:00 PM CDT/1:00 PM MDT/12:00 PM PDT, Ericka Spradley will conduct a live Women of NATE (WON) webinar titled “Ditch Perfection: How to Win at Work”. As the Chief PowHer Officer/Founder of Confident Career Woman, Erika is an experienced Coach, Author, Interview Trainer, former Hiring Manager and Career Readiness Adjunct Professor who exists to help organizations improve their bottom line through professional development resources while simultaneously helping individuals achieve career success.
Winning at work isn’t impossible for women, we simply need to be equipped, empowered and encouraged to do so. If you’re ready to win, you definitely don’t want to miss this webinar!
Please note: Attendees will be emailed a participant guide for this webinar.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Brought to you by GoToWebinar®
Webinars Made Easy®
Recent Event Highlights
On Sunday, March 8, Women of NATE Gather for International Women's Day
If you would like to be profiled in an upcoming issue, nominate someone who should be featured, submit articles about improving position skills, or work for a great company that supports women in technology, please email WON Committee Liaison Nikki Gronau at nikki@natehome.com for consideration.
Female Role Models in Tech Attract More Diverse Talent
Does your company have female role models?
One of the challenges to developing businesses with more levels of diverse talent is based on the talent you have today and where they sit in the organization. When women seek opportunities, they often research the company in a variety of ways both online and through their network before even applying for a role. If a quick look at the leadership team and their direct reports show a homogenous view, they are often less confident that the organization knows how to engage and foster diverse talent.
Many people lean toward environments where they feel represented. Many correlate your existing staff with how inclusive your organization is or is not.
Students Are More Confident with Female Leaders
It starts in school. Girls are often less inclined to choose to participate in competition and business ventures if they don’t have a female role model. In the recent article, Most Gen Z girls and women lack a key success lesson in their education, we learn that when women resist putting themselves out there in competitive environments at the school level, that can hinder their performance later in their career.
Women represented just 22 percent of students participating in venture competitions, but when they do compete, female students succeed. Of the ranking teams (first, second and third place) in competitions, 51 percent had a woman founder and 32 percent had a woman CEO.
The study showed that women were less inclined to participate and yet when they did, they were more likely to win.
“Anything early on that requires you to be competitive has a direct correlation to developing swagger,” George Brooks, Americas Leader, People Advisory Services at EY said. “When I look at the key new attributes, entrepreneurship and resilience carry over to the business world.”But he said it is clear from the low participation rates in business competitions among women that girls need to be encouraged. “They need someone to be their role models and give them a nudge,” Brooks said, especially since the results show that when women do compete they outperform men.
Attract Female Role Models
Carrying that idea of female role models helping to encourage women in the workplace, I work with business leaders is to help them create a culture that is attractive to other women in tech. Although it has been proven in a variety of surveys that having a more thought diverse team benefits profits, advancement, cohesion and the work environment; company leaders still struggle to attract and retain a strong female contingent.
In an article by Sharon Florentine published in CIO, she offers 6 Ways to Attract and Retain Women in Technology. One of those ways is by having female role models.
…having female leadership – visible, accessible female leadership – can help attract and retain talent, according to Palo Alto Software CEO Sabrina Parsons.
“I often have executives from other companies call me and say, ‘How do you recruit and retain women? The skills gap is huge, and we know women have these skills, but we just can’t get them to apply. We want them, but we don’t understand what we’re doing wrong,'” Parsons says.
When Parsons took over as CEO, she set about recruiting and hiring other women into Palo Alto’s executive leadership and to the engineering team (across the industry, women make up only a small percentage of software engineers).
Adding a woman to its development leadership team made a big difference when it came to who was applying for positions with her organization. “Once we had Lara [Fields, chief product architect] on board, we absolutely began to get more resumes from other women. Now, 30 percent of our engineering group [is made up of] women. I don’t know if other women are looking at us and saying, ‘There’s a woman at the helm, there are a number of women in leadership positions. Hell, yes, I want to apply!’ but that’s the feeling I get,” Parsons says.
Just adding ONE woman in a leadership role made a huge difference. Changing our habits and patterns of hiring is a slow process; like changing the direction of a cruise ship, too quick a change can capsize the ship. However, we need to move past awareness to action.
It’s a Chicken and Egg Situation
Okay, but if there aren’t women leading tech companies now, how does a company attract women leaders? Deloitte has found a great way to address this problem with the Buddy System. In another article offering 6 Ways to Get Women In Leadership Roles and Keep Them There, the author, Cynthia Stuckey, shares their program:
Deloitte makes diversity and gender equality an important aspect of training. The company matches senior leaders (mostly male) to rising female talent for one to two years. The objectives are to build confidence, create visibility of talent internally, and provide access to stretch assignments.What makes Deloitte’s program successful is that the company measures the results of the coaching efforts and holds each coach accountable for the success of his assigned leader in developing new capabilities and expansions of networks. The results are then directly tied to the coach’s performance review and compensation.
Their Buddy System is a great way to begin to move the needle. This is a challenge for the long haul, it is a journey, but as always, the journey begins with the first step. If you are interested in learning how your company can attract, recruit and retain women in technology, check out some of the programs and workshops available from Tech Savvy Women.
For specific strategies on recruiting diverse talent, check out my recent Smart Business article: How to use some creative strategies for recruiting diverse tech job candidates.
Author: JJ DiGeronimo
Article Appeared on Tech Savy Women:
https://techsavvywomen.net/female-role-models-in-tech-attract-more-diverse-talent/
