Encouraging women to fulfil their full potential is just good business sense

Sarah Windrum is co-founder and CEO of Leamington Spa-based The Emerald Group, which specialises in technology support and consultancy. Passionate about business, she is also passionate about women in business and encouraging women to pursue business careers.

But in 2016 many workplaces remain populated largely by men. Some progress has been made, not least in the technology sector, but much more is needed.

And Sarah believes that only a collective commitment from business, education and local government will do.

 Five years ago, 24 per cent of the workforce in the technology industry were women.

That figure is actually going backwards. It is now 19 per cent.

And that is symptomatic of one the biggest issues facing the business world in 2016.

We all need the right people going into the right careers, but at the moment, by failing to exploit much of the vast talent in the potential female workforce, we are seriously limiting our economic capability.

It's a ridiculous situation to have in the 21st century, and it's just bad business sense. We need to turn this situation around and it can be done, but we need a proper collective commitment to do it.

In my own sector, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths(STEM) are subjects which girls traditionally tend not to associate with. But there is no reason why they shouldn't. It's simply not right that 90 per cent of the technology workforce is male. There are far more women with more potential to do well in our industry than are currently in it. Here at Emerald we have June who came from a retail environment and is now an engineer going for her Apple accreditation.

Young women today look ahead and still think it's going to be hard. They think they are going to feel lonely and isolated - and sometimes they wouldn't be wrong. But they discount themselves because they think about all the disadvantages rather than the advantages. That is such a shame.

A big win here is local champions. Many schemes are national or London-focused and I feel they are not working fast enough, so we need to tackle the situation locally. At Emerald, we have visited local schools and those visits were brilliant because the young people are so switched on. I don't think we give young people enough credit. They know technology and can see the progression in it. Sometimes it's a case of educating parents to understand that actually this isn't just kids messing around on an iPad - they can make money here.

As businesses, we can do our bit by getting into schools, but a collective view is needed because the issue belongs to us all. I would like to see local government take more of a lead. Stacy O'Connor at Warwickshire County Council and David Butler at Warwick District Council have been very good and a more integrated approach is starting to happen - but I am impatient!

There are many examples of what we are trying to get away from. I was recently invited to an event about global entrepreneurs and clicked on the email and saw an all-male panel. Why would I want to go to that?

Look at the House of Commons. Of 650 MPs, only 191 are women! If I was a young woman thinking about going into politics and turned on Prime Minister's Question Time and saw a sea of men of a certain age, I would think: “I can't do that.”

In my own field, I sometimes see things go out about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and it will be a picture of a construction site with men in hard hats and I think “No, that's not STEM! What are you saying to the next generation?”

It's all about balance. It isn't about having a female-only agenda or a token woman. It's about making something balanced and better.

Take us at Emerald. Two years ago I was the only woman. I wouldn't say I made a conscious effort to employ women, but I made a conscious effort to look at people's personalities and work out what was missing from the team. Now we are 35 per cent women and that has created a much more supportive environment. It has brought supportiveness out of the men in the organisation so we have a properly rounded team. There is banter in the office, of course, and everybody will rib everybody else, but now it is a much better balanced organisation.

That's the point. It's all about balance. You don't want quotas for quotas sake, but it would be nice to think that all organisations had this sort of balance. They would all benefit from it, not just in terms of a more contented workforce but in terms of productivity and profit!