What specific initiative are you doing to attract diverse talent?
What is your biggest challenge regarding diversity in your company?
These were some of the starting points that Paula Coto, executive director of Chicas en Tecnología, proposed to the 20 referent organizations that participated in the 4th edition of the Breakfast for technology companies. “Connecting the ecosystem for the talent of the future.” was the topic that brought together professionals from different areas to co-create and think of strategies that allow the development of women and diversities in the technological field.. With hard data on the gender gap in science and technology, Paula Coto presented the main challenges to be solved in terms of innovation, leadership and diversity in the industry: “When we talk about diverse talent, we're not just talking about bringing women and diversities into our companies, we're also talking about what kind of technology we want to build.”, he said. And as a first approach to the subject, he proposed various group work dynamics so that people from different organizations could exchange experiences, ideas and initiatives.
The morning of the face-to-face meeting also included a panel of experiences by representatives of the following companies Salesforce, J.P. Morgan, Free Market y Shifta, The participants shared the best practices implemented in their organizations to incorporate talent and solve problems related to gender and diversity. Bárbara Martínez Castro, Regional Talent Acquisition Manager at Mercado Libre, explained the importance of diverse teams in the creation of innovative technology solutions to provide answers to all users. For this reason, Mercado Libre seeks to be a diverse company not only in the technology sector but also in other areas: “We want to create and accompany talent from the seedbed, to think about the whole journey of the people.”, said Barbara. Álvaro Fernández Río, Tech Hub Recruiting Lead at J.P. Morgan, shared his experiences and lessons learned from the incorporating diverse talent into the organization and how they are working to help women who have left the labor market in the last two years to reintegrate professionally. “For J.P. Morgan, inclusion and diversity are important not only when girls start working but when they re-enter the workforce.”, said Alvaro. On behalf of Salesforce, Melina Ruggeri, the organization's Recruiting Manager, shared strategies and initiatives to guide the talent selection process and to help the company's employees in the selection process. to ensure transparency and fairness in the processes: “During the selection process people are evaluated fairly, according to their competencies, their qualification for the position and their willingness to learn.”. And it added up: “Today we have to work in a complex labor market so sharing initiatives is very helpful.”. The Panel closed with the participation of Miriam Frias, Chief People and Culture Officer at Shifta, who shared her experience working on projects to incorporate trans people and shared how to make decisions to include diverse talent in work teams. “Four years ago we had the first conversation with Girls in Technology and we put the issue of diversity on the table with senior management. From that we asked ourselves what we had to contribute, and the answer was knowledge.”, said Miriam, who added: “Diversity has to be there from the moment we start building a project, the best thing is to look for allies that act from other environments to build diversity.”.
“Welcome to the conversation.”, These were the words of the executive director of Chicas en Tecnología to start the group dynamics between representatives of the different organizations. And, as an early summary, that was the hallmark of the entire event: dialogue, exchange, attentive listening and active participation of people and organizations that work in different areas to make the technological professional environment diverse and inclusive. Because understanding the motivations and interests of new talent and creating work spaces for them to develop is a challenge that must be solved collectively..
