"Today, all IT companies should be equal"

At Knowit Decision Stockholm, every second employee is a woman. However, this is not the result of a single effort but of years of striving to be the best workplace - for everyone.

Being a workplace with an equal gender distribution is something that many employers strive for today, but few are successful. According to IT & Telecom companies, only 29 percent of employees in the IT industry are women, the proportion of developers is even lower at only 22 percent. Today, all employers want to provide equal opportunity, but most still have a long way to go before the goal is reached.

Unique in the industry

Knowit Decision in Stockholm does not have this problem. There are as many women employees as men, which is something unique in the industry. How did this happen?

"Not through any targeted venture towards women, says Lisa Lind, CEO Knowit Decision Stockholm. Instead, it is because of many years of work to create an attractive workplace, for everyone. Knowit is simply a great place to work; our employees are happy and they tell their friends and acquaintances. This has led to the fact that, today, we have many women among our applicants, which is reflected in recruitment. And we never apply quotas - we simply hire the best candidates for us.

One such candidate was presumably Ebba Björklund, who started working 2 years ago. Now, she one of the youngest in the company and, at 25, the youngest in the management team. 

"For example, at the system knowledge day, I noticed that many, especially girls, had the wrong idea of what it is like to work at an IT consulting company. They asked, for example, whether it is possible to combine the job with leisure, or if it is possible to start a family in the long run. It was like, hello, isn't it obvious that you can? Many of our employees have children and this fear of constant overtime is completely unfounded. With us, you should be able to do your job during 40 hours per week, otherwise something is wrong and then it's up to us to solve it!

Read more in the article: "Why so many want to work on creating intelligent businesses."

Work ethics

Knowit Decision consciously works for employees to feel good and participate in creating a better work environment. In the recruitment process, all applicants can meet at least one man and one woman for the interview, and all new employees will be trained during an orientation period, both in different tools and in the consultancy role. Junior consultants, especially, are given assignments with one or more experienced colleagues, for security as well as for someone to consult with and transfer skills. In addition, a lot of different activities are organized to build community and cohesion, and so that consultants, who are normally out with different customers, still have the opportunity to meet each other.

Moreover, Lisa Lind is careful to point out that anyone who believes that only women who are attracted to 'soft values' are completely off the mark;

"Our goal has been to be a modern company, with fresh values, exciting work tasks, and competitive and fair salaries. And this is not a new idea, we have an equal gender distribution even among our senior employees. This is an active process that has taken time and which we are continuing to develop and improve. To talk about 'female' or 'soft' values ​​is to diminish women and their ambitions."

Ebba Björklund adds:

"In fact, it is remarkable that equal gender distribution is something to pay attention to in 2016. It is obvious to us that we want to work with the best and that it happens to be evenly distributed - that isn't so strange, is it? The question instead is: why isn't that the case with everyone else?"

Would you also like to have a career in an equal opportunity IT company?
Contact us at Knowit!

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