Women working in tech continues at a snail’s pace:
Another factor impacting on the amount of tech talent available globally is the number of women entering the sector and working in leadership roles:
- This year slightly more of the digital leaders surveyed (12%) identified as female – as the figures continue their painfully slow journey upward. The average proportion of females within the tech team is just under a quarter which shows some promise for the leadership of the future.
- However, not all the actions being taken by digital leaders to improve diversity are having an effect. Mandating shortlists and quotas are largely disregarded or not working. The research found that the most successful strategies for improving ratios are driven through culture, training, support networks and reporting.
Remote working is a double-edged sword:
- Whilst the Harvey Nash Group report found that WFH has massively improved work/life balance and productivity, at the same time mental wellbeing, staff engagement, collaboration and inclusivity have taken a big hit – with 6 in 10 digital leaders reporting a decrease in the mental wellness of their tech teams. To combat this, 39% of digital leaders have increased their investment in health and wellbeing programmes.
Other key findings from the world’s largest dedicated digital leadership survey include:
- Sustainability needs more traction – Although global boards recognise that cleaner, greener technology will improve their carbon footprint, it is placed second to last in the list of priorities for their technology teams. As a result, only one fifth (22%) of their digital leaders have reduced the carbon footprint of their own technology to any great extent. The report says that reducing the carbon footprint of power-hungry tech represents both a huge challenge and opportunity for companies and their digital leaders.
- An age of disruption – The pandemic has forced organisations to re-imagine the way they do business. Creating new products and services has become a top three board priority for the first time since Harvey Nash’s research began. Half of organisations have major plans for transformation in the next two to three years.
- Cloud leads investments in technology – Although Cloud is now regarded as a mature technology rather than an ‘emerging’ one, the number of digital leaders with some kind of implementation jumped from 69% in 2020 to 90% today. At the same time, the number of implementations of new technology such as IoT and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) more than doubled from 2019. Those either piloting or implementing quantum computing also gained some traction from a small scale – more than doubling from 3% to 7% since 2019.
- The fuzzy organisation – The report says that businesses are emerging from the pandemic with their people in disparate locations, more technology embedded within the cloud and their supply chains diffused. This makes it harder to delineate the ‘boundary’ of an organisation and presents a new challenge for all digital leaders.
About the Report
The 2021 Harvey Nash Group Digital Leadership Report is the world’s largest and longest running survey of senior technology decision makers. Launched in 1998 and previously called the CIO Survey, it has been an influential and respected indicator of major trends in technology and digital for over two decades. This year a survey of over 2,100 digital leaders took place between 8th July 2021 and 11th October 2021, across 87 countries.
To download a full copy of the results, please click HERE.
About Harvey Nash Group
Harvey Nash Group are the leading global provider of talent and technology solutions.
We’re equipped with a unique network, that realises the potential where people and technology meet. We partner with organisations to realise the enormous value from talent and technology, building digitally savvy, agile organisations.
About CIONET
Established in 2005, CIONET is today, the largest private network of CIOs internationally. We have established leading communities of practice in 25 countries across Asia, Europe and the Americas. With the active support of our national advisory boards, we have built a flourishing community of 10,000 technology executives.
About MIT CISR
Founded in 1974 and grounded in the MIT tradition of rigorous field-based research, MIT CISR helps executives meet the challenge of leading dynamic, global, and information-intensive organizations. We provide the CIO and other digital leaders with insights on topics such as business complexity, data monetization, and the digital workplace.
