August 26th is “Women’s Equality Day,” designated by the U.S. legislature in the early 1970s’ to commemorate the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
Although that convention was held more than 170 years ago, like many areas of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I), there is always more we can do. At Qlik, we wanted to honor this year’s day by discussing how we’re taking concrete actions – which is crucial to any corporate effort around DE&I.
Qlik already emphasizes policies and actions on issues that matter to women in the workplace: the importance of bridging gender compensation gaps, the need to have internal opportunities and growth available to women, and – probably most important of all – the value of female representation. And given we live in the tech sector, where gender disparities are known to be pronounced, we make it our mission to continually revisit our work toward gender equality.
One of the ways we track progress and keep ourselves honest is through our DE&I scorecard (as seen below1), which illustrates gender representation across all levels of the organization, from non-managers to directors and above.
Our efforts really come to life throughout our teams. This year, our Global Products and Technology (GPT) team is implementing a variety of programs and tactics to attract, recruit and retain diverse talent in this vital function. Karen Fowlie, VP CTO Office, who is leading the GPT DEI effort at Qlik, notes that GPT’s gender diversity efforts now and moving forward will focus on:
In addition to filling new tech roles, we are also undertaking multiple efforts to ensure we’re retaining and enriching the employment experience for women at Qlik, including:
One exemplar of our pride in women at Qlik is Elif Tutuk, VP of Innovation and Design, whose ideas around collective intelligence was recently featured in Fast Company.
These are just a few examples of Qlik’s ongoing commitment to ensure women are treated equally and fairly in the workforce. To quote Elizabeth Candy Stanton, one of the founders of Seneca Falls Convention, “To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect, of credit in the marketplace, of recompense in the world of work….” The world of work at Qlik is one where women can flourish and contribute, and we are proud of the DE&I programming here that contributes to making Qlik an employer of choice for women. As always, we will continue to lead and do more, such as creating more flexible employment possibilities for women that choose to have children and then want to rejoin the workforce – they are just as qualified as any other applicant, and we want to include them in our Qlik family.
To that end, Qlik is hiring with an emphasis on attracting female applicants for technology-based/R&D-based positions. Please take a look at our openings by visiting this page.
1. Qlik 2020 Impact Report