Tag Archives: Talent Works

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62% of women in technology have experienced toxic work cultures within the last five years

  • Toxic environments are identified as the most common factor that put women off tech roles, with 21% citing frequent experiences
  • Only 17% feel that a lot of progress has been made to attract women to tech roles in the last five years

Manchester, UK; 8 March 2022: The majority of women in technology have experienced toxic work environments, with 21% experiencing it frequently. That’s according to Talent Works, the Recruitment Processing Outsourcing (RPO) provider, which surveyed women in technology on their experiences on recruitment and employment in the UK.

The results, released today on International Women’s Day, make for concerning reading, after campaigns like Women in Tech have been running for well over five years.

When asked what puts women in technology off taking a role, a toxic culture was the most common answer (36%). A healthy work culture tops the list of female desires to feel supported in tech (59%), followed by the gender pay gap being addressed (56%) and seeing more women in leadership roles (54%).

An overwhelming percentage of respondents said the responsibility to create organisational change lies with the top (74%), 73% noted that they would be more likely to join a tech firm that has female leadership.

Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, President of TechUK, commented: “Encouraging women into the tech sector is critical. Diverse voices must be at the table when designing our digital future, otherwise we risk creating a world that doesn’t work for everybody. Sadly, these results today show that culture remains the biggest barrier to Inclusion, and if anything, the pandemic has worsened the diversity gap. Against the context of the UK skills shortage, it’s time for organisations to actively create conditions for women and minority voices to thrive and to differentiate through hiring strategies that support diversity and inclusion.”

Elena Hill-Artamonova, Research Manager at Talent Works, commented: “Although there’s been a focus on attracting women to tech roles, the working environments in many organisations are toxic and women aren’t confident that enough is being done to support them. It’s the responsibility of leadership and middle management to create healthy working environments that support women and encourage them to both apply and stay in tech roles. Without this, the industry is at risk of further reducing the number of women in tech.”

The application process also has a considerable impact on whether women in technology apply for a role, with 66% of respondents being confident that they can spot a toxic work environment during the application process. 52% of women also feel that companies create gendered job adverts (for example, using masculine and feminine words).

“At a time of intense skills shortage in technology, companies are neglecting some of the best talent right here, and the solution might be a cultural change and hiring more women to lead the charge from the top,” Hill-Artamonova concluded.

Europe, HR News, News, Recruitment, Recruitment News, Talent Management, UK

FinancialForce partners with Talent Works to enhance employer brand and grow engineering talent

  • Data-led approach allows FinancialForce the agility to hire in competitive landscape
  • Partnership sees FinancialForce deploy global hiring campaign to entice technical expertise

Manchester, UK; 7th February 2022: FinancialForce, the leading provider of customer-centric business applications across finance, services, and customer success teams have announced its 2022 hiring programme with Talent Works, a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) partner. Together they will develop FinancialForce’s people brand and UK recruitment engine, hiring for innovation roles in Engineering, Product, Sales and Research and Development (R&D).

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with EMEA headquarters in Harrogate, England, the cloud Salesforce platform company chose Talent Works to support its growth. Following unprecedented demand for roles in technology and R&D, the business is hiring at least 70 roles within its Engineering, Product and Sales teams.

With hiring globally now a candidate’s market, FinancialForce was aware that its offering to prospective hires had to go above and beyond the norm. Leveraging Talent Works’ data-led approach allowed them the agility and flexibility to understand the desires of candidates and removed points in the recruitment process that might have seen offers rejected. It also enables FinancialForce to see location demands in the new remote working environment.

Talent Works was able to offer on-the-ground support for FinancialForce’s US talent acquisition team when hiring for roles in the UK. Supported by Talent Works’ SVP, Jody Robie offered senior insights and strategy to improve engagement and understanding of the candidates in the market. The Talent Works team then built a digital recruitment marketing campaign targeted specifically to Software Developer candidates communicating innovation messages to technical applicants, and helping FinancialForce to differentiate the roles from others out there on the market.

Kathy Erickson, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at FinancialForce, said: “The recruitment landscape has changed in the last two years, and I’ve never lived through such a busy market, with businesses struggling to fill the gaps in their teams. At FinancialForce we recognised the need to outsource our efforts to ensure we were able to reach the right talent. Being based in the US while searching for talent in the UK has been a hurdle that we have only been able to overcome with the help of Talent Works acting as an extension of our team. The consultative approach of Talent Works has been invaluable, working with us to produce the best outcome for our team in the UK.”

Neil Purcell, CEO of Talent Works, added: “We don’t anticipate hiring to slow down anytime soon, and because of this businesses need to continue to evaluate their hiring and recruitment processes. Even with brands as recognisable as FinancialForce, businesses still need to understand that candidates are looking for so much more than just stability and salary. Understanding what exactly these differentiators are for talent is crucial in hiring success, and without data at the heart of recruitment then many will fall foul to rejections and competitors getting the upper-hand.”