Why are women, blacks and Hispanics leaving tech?
First-of-its-kind study tackles this costly question,
Toxic workplaces — where harassment, stereotyping and bullying occur — are driving away women and people of color, undercutting technology companies’ efforts to increase diversity and costing an estimated $16 billion a year.
That’s the conclusion of a firstof-its-kind study from the Kapor Center for Social Impact and Harris Poll that explored the reasons people leave tech companies.
“The study is an important first step in understanding how turnover and workplace culture contribute to the lack of diversity we are seeing in the tech industry,” said Allison Scott, the study’s author and chief research officer at the Kapor Center.
All major tech companies track retention data, but they do not make it public.
There’s been an outpouring of firsthand accounts of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, bullying and racial bias online and in lawsuits. These strongly suggest high rates of turnover among the very groups companies are struggling to keep as they try to change the demographics of their mostly white and Asian male staffs.
According to the “Tech Leavers” study, nearly eight in 10 employees who left tech jobs reported experiencing some form of unfair behavior or treatment, while 85% observed it. And 37% said they left their jobs because of it. Other findings:
Women experienced and observed far more unfairness than men.
Nearly one-quarter of underrepresented men and women of color experienced stereotyping, twice the rate of white and Asian men and women.
Nearly one-third of underrepresented women of color were passed over for promotion, more than any other group.
LGBT employees were the most likely to be bullied (20%) and experience public humiliation (24%), and 64% said it contributed to their decision to leave.
Men from underrepresented groups, such as African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, were most likely to leave because of unfairness (40%).
Underrepresented women of color were significantly more likely to cite unfairness as a reason for leaving than white and Asian women (36% vs. 28%).
The study reinforces earlier findings that the tech industry is like a sieve for underrepresented groups.
Women, African Americans and Hispanics are underrepresented in all occupations within the tech sector when compared to the U.S. population and the private sector as a whole.
Among the top-grossing companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google, black and Latino employees combined represent 3% to 5% of employees, numbers that have not budged in three years, the Kapor Center found.
Cat Perez, a gay Latina who has worked in tech since 2012 and took part in the survey, said she has seen the toll toxic work environments can have on morale.
She worked at one company where a male colleague frequent- ly adjusted his genitals in meetings. At another, the chief executive made inappropriate comments to attractive women applying for jobs; women were excluded from key meetings, important assignments and social outings; and women who complained they felt unsafe with a male client who verbally harassed them were told to keep working with him because he was a “big spender,” said Perez, 36.
Ellen Pao, who brought an unsuccessful gender discrimination lawsuit against one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful venture capital firms, triggering a national debate on the treatment of women, said everyone knew this sense of unfairness was prevalent in tech — particularly with regard to women and underrepresented people of color.
“Now we have the data to understand the scale of these issues,” said Pao, now chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Kapor Center and a venture partner at Kapor Capital.
The industry is shelling out an estimated $16 billion a year to replace employees who leave as a result of unfair treatment.
Improving work culture and adopting a comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategy can reduce attrition.
Nearly two-thirds of employees who left tech said they would have stayed if their employer had fixed its culture.
“Tech has a huge problem with a culture of disrespect that plays out differently based on different demographics,” Kapor Center cochair Freada Kapor Klein said.
“What that means,” she said, is that “it can be changed.”