As one of the world’s leading software companies, VMware believes it has a responsibility to drive diversity and inclusion through the industry.

By Kathy Gibson

Jean-Pierre Brulard, senior vice-president and GM: EMEA at VMware is passionate about the subject and has made huge strides in driving the inclusion message in the markets he is responsible for.

While most companies agree that women are not well-represented in all echelons of the technology industry, Brulard points out that the roots of the problem are a supply challenge.

“We have a specific issue in that only 20% or 25% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates are women. It is difficult to have parity when there is such a small percentage of graduates.”

To address this challenge, its necessary to incentivise young girls to go to computer engineering, and VMware has a number of global and local initiatives.

An example is the Code for Joy initiative in Ireland, where girls between the ages of seven and 17 into the world of coding with free online training and mentoring from VMware engineers.

All VMware employees are incentivised to dedicate up to 10 days per year to volunteer programmes and many of them use the time for outreach training and skills development.

The company also partners with Stanford University on the WT2 (Women Technology Transfer) programme, which encourages young women to take up coding.

In the US, VMware is partnering to reach black and latino women, who are even more poorly-represented in the industry that other groups.

In many countries, particularly emerging markets, women leave the workforce when they marry or have children.

In India, VMware has launched a programme that aims to get 15 000 women back into the workplace by 2020.

“For many women, it is difficult to come back to work once they have had children.

“We are offering free online training that they can do from home, to get the skills they need to return to work.

“India has recognised that it has a talent gap and is looking to this unexploited talent pool to help plug it.”

Closer to home, VMware signed an agreement with the African Union (AU) at the recent VMWorld conference in Barcelona.

The company has developed the VMware IT Academy: Virtualize Africa programme that will roll out IT programmes in every major university on the continent.

Through the programme, VMware is collaborating with key stakeholders across academia, government and industry to equip African students with the technical skills and certifications required to succeed in the digital economy.

Strathmore University –  @iLabAfrica Centre in Kenya is already implementing the programme and is integrating a range of VMware developed courses into its curricula that cover topics such as virtualisation, cloud computing, AI and IoT. This is facilitated through subsidised software licenses and certification vouchers from VMware.

“Initiatives like this are important to fuel the talent for tomorrow,” Brulard says. “This continent is full of promise, and we need to help create the talent pool to help Africa grow faster.”

As a company, VMware “drinks its own champagne”, as Brulard puts it. “This is a corporate initiative that is embedded in our organisation. Today, 40% of the vice-presidents in EMEA are women.”

It’s not just a tick-box exercise, either, he adds. Having a more diverse and inclusive workforce and leadership is good for business.

Earlier this year, Vanson Bourne did a survey for VMware, polling 3 600 companies in 12 countries about diversity and the role of technology.

“The outcome showed the 66% of respondents – mostly Generation Z – consider digital tools one of the reasons they would be attracted to, or stay with, a company.

“When you take just the women in the survey, that rises to 80%.”

A massive 70% of respondents felt technology is an important investment for companies to make in order to attract and retain people; and 80% would like to see better collaboration between HR and IT to enhance the digital employee experience.

“When we compare revenue growth, the companies that adopted digital tools, grow 60% faster than others.

“This shows that a digital workplace is not just important for attracting talent but as a business growth tool as well.

“More specifically, for the inclusion gap, technology creates conditions for flexible working, so women can have a better work life balance.

“This means that with VMware’s workplace solutions, we are reaching to objectives in one: promoting diversity in society; and bringing women back to work.”

Brulard stresses that inclusivity has to be something the organisation lives, and he conducts workshops with his own team to identify and eliminate conscious and unconscious biases.

And he urges organisations to go beyond diversity, but to embrace inclusivity. “Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusivity is being asked to dance,” Brulard concludes.