Lack of time prevents women from upskilling

It’s a no-brainer that organizations that are providing their employees the knowledge of tech-savvy skills today, are likely to thrive and attract promising talent. For firms, upskilling is one of the significant ways to build a futureready workforce; and for professionals, it is a way to keep themselves and their skills updated in alignment with the industry and market demand. Unfortunately, women all across the globe face varied challenges and issues in upskilling themselves, especially when it comes to emerging and new-age technologies. Wiley’s innovative bridge learning solution, Wileynxt surveyed women professionals to understand the scope, interest, and challenges in regard with women upskilling in emerging technologies. The survey also aims to find out how new-age technology courses are helping women professionals to carve their own career trajectories.

Here are the important highlights of the report — Women Empowerment Through Upskilling. Approximately 79% of female respondents have shown interest in emerging tech courses and 21.43% feel that there are not enough options available to upskill themselves.

When it comes to upskilling courses, the majority of women i.e., 64.29% and 60.71% have demonstrated interest in opting for courses in artificial intelligence & machine learning, and data analytics respectively. These interest areas were followed by product management i.e., 46.43%, full stack development (35.71%), cloud computing (25%), cybersecurity (21.43%), fintech (17.86%), and blockchain technology (14.29%). When asked about what holds back women from taking up tech courses, surprisingly, ‘lack of interest’ was not the reason for any of the women professionals. The real challenge, as highlighted by approximately 36% of women is the lack of time. Almost 47.83% said that the absence of flexible workplace policies acts as a hurdle, 18% chose lack of opportunities, 14.29% selected lack of resources and lack of support from the employer, whereas 7.14% expressed their inability to upskill themselves as they are not the decision-maker for their investment or career choices.

Almost 75% of women professionals said that the motivation to take up upskilling courses is driven by their desire to get better opportunities outside the organization and to get better raise within as well as outside their current companies.