SEPTEMBER 2022

WEPs IN ACTION

Contents
1. Context
2. Actions

PRINCI PLE 4

Promote education,
training and professional
development for women

3. Challenges
4. Results
5. Recommendations

CASE STUDY: Thoughtworks China
INCREASING THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN TECH,WITHIN A COMPANY AND BEYOND

LESSONS LEARNED• Commitment and active engagement from management
teams is key to ensuring support for actions to promote
gender equality across the organization.

• Creating a dedicated channel for women to speak up andshare their ideas is critical in historically male-dominatedindustries.

• Setting clear targets helps measure progress.

CONTEXT
Thoughtworks is an international technology consultancy
founded in the United States. By integrating strategy, design andsoftware engineering, it aims to help companies and technology
disruptors across the globe thrive as digital businesses. Foundedin 1993, Thoughtworks has grown from a small team in Chicago
to a software consultancy with more than 10,000 employees in 17
countries. About 2,000 of these are based across seven major cities
in China, where the company opened offices in 2004.
Women are underrepresented in the technology industryglobally, and they face prejudice and other discriminationrelated challenges in the sector. The latest available data in 2018shows that women made up just 6.4 per cent of academicians

1 ┃ Case Study: Thoughtworks China

in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 4.9 per cent of thosein the Chinese Academy of Engineering. There has long been aperception that women are not suitable for technology-based
roles, and their voices often go unheard in the sector. To counter
these narratives, Thoughtworks China has striven to increase therepresentation of women in the industry and amplify their voices.
Among the steps taken, it has created a career development
platform specifically for women technology professionals,
adjusted men-to-women recruitment ratios, and targeted training
and networking at women employees.

ACTIONS
An early step was to focus on recruitment. In 2012, Thoughtworks
China set a target of 1:1 men to women among new hires during
its campus recruitment drives, which are a major source of future
employees. Company speakers emphasize Thoughtwork’s equal
opportunity and gender quota policy during presentations atuniversity career fairs. The policy is reinforced by regular checkins from the company’s Human Resources (HR) staff with its
business departments, reminding the latter to observe this goalin recruitment. To reflect on progress, each business department
holds a meeting with the company’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I)
team once a month.
The company has raised the visibility of women tech workers andwomen’s leadership by creating channels and platforms for them.
In recent years for example, influential global team members havebeen invited annually to share industry insights with the China
offices and to discuss issues of gender bias in the industry. One
such luminary is Thoughtworks Global Chief Technology Officer,
Rebecca Parsons, who was invited to give a virtual talk to Chinabased employees on gender inclusion and industry trends in 2021.
Between 2018 and 2020, Thoughtworks China also ran a project toraise the profile of women employees and broadly showcase theirexpertise. Called Tao Ma Tan, the project invited over 20 women
employee representatives and external women technicianseach year to share industry views and technical insights incompany newsletters or WeChat groups.1 After the outbreak of
the COVID-19 pandemic, an online live broadcast series called#SpeakUp was launched on a podcast platform to cover hot topics
in the technical field, and women tech workers were invited toshare their experience and opinions.
Turning to career progression, in 2020 the company in China set
a target of achieving 50 per cent attendance from its women
employees at the annual leadership trainings organized by its
global side. To support this, targeted invitations are now sent
to qualified women employees, particularly those at middle
management level. Training sessions are organized during officehours and recordings are made available after each session,
which eases the challenges disproportionately faced by women,
particularly needing to train or network out of hours whilebalancing family commitments and unpaid care roles.

1WeChat is a major communication platform in China.

2 ┃ Case Study: Thoughtworks China

These policies and actions have demonstrated a high-levelcommitment to promoting gender equality in Thoughtworks
China, and the company has built on this further by encouraging
the development of an inclusive business culture. Each year,
budget is allocated to voluntary employee-led workplace‘communities’ based on their workplans, while support to thecommunities is offered as part of the company's own operationalworkplan. Notably, external influence is encouraged outsideof the company: during employees’ non-project performance
reviews they are recognized for any influence they generate
externally. This may include articles published in the name of an
employee or events they attend as a speaker, and participationin Thoughtworks community activities is seen as a good way tocontribute.
Among the communities, those of specific benefit to women
include a Women’s Mentoring Club, which connects mentors
with women employees and focuses on personal development
plans, and the She Loves Data Community: a network that brings
together women across China’s IT industry to share informationand learning, including programming workshops. In 2017 theTechLady Community was set up to build a workplace that works
for women within Thoughtworks China and provide an internal
networking and exchange platform. TechLady members haveprovided technical expertise to education projects with PlanInternational since 2019, such as those to introduce students to
STEM or help children prevent online violence.
Finally, reviewing its progress in 2021, the company decided toformalize its approach further: it set the goal of having womencomprise 42.5 per cent of its technical roles by 2022 (see more inResults, below).

TIMELINE
2012

Jan
2017

The TechLadycommunity isfoundedThoughtworks
China sets a gender
quota in campus
recruitmentMar2018

Dec
2018

Feb
2021

2020

Thoughtworks
China signs theWEPs

The Tao Ma Taninitiative is launched  

A leadershiptraining gender
quota is setMar2021

2021

The She Loves
Data community
is founded

The Women MentoringClub is founded

A goal is set forbringing 42.5 percent of women
into tech roles

CHALLENGES• By attending job fairs targeting women graduates.

An under-acknowledgement of women’s expertisein tech, which impacts their development in theindustry and reinforces the bias of ‘tech not being
for women’. For example, there is a much higher
proportion of male speakers compared to women
speakers in many industry events, with women
speakers more often challenged by the audience.
When speaking at such events, women are much
more likely to discuss work-family balance, insteadof professional and technical topics.

• By ensuring that HR communicates regularly with eachbusiness department to raise awareness and promote
gender balance in the workforce, and each businessdepartment has a meeting with the D&I team once a month.

• By inviting women employees to share their insights in
the industry and planning each conversational topic oneon-one to make sure it’s tech focused.
• By externally monitoring the topics that women
technologists are asked to speak about when attending
events organized by other organizations and negotiatingwith event organizers when needed.
• By ensuring that content produced by women
technologists is promoted and published on a variety ofexternal platforms.

• By checking in with the organizers regularly, mainly via
the focal point for communities, HR staff and D&I staff.
Communities can become inactive over time.

3 ┃ Case Study: Thoughtworks China• By inviting communities to participate in relevant
events co-organized with other organizations, to keep
momentum going.

HOW IT WAS ADDRESSEDCHALLENGE

A low percentage of women employee
candidates, and gender balance not being aconsideration for business departments.

• By cooperating with schools and universities, including
China Women’s University, and by sharing experiences ofworking in the STEM field.

RESULTS
In 2021, the leadership training comprised over 46 of training
sessions across nearly 6 months and eight of the 16 participating
employees in China were women. “This is a process of selfreflection and self-breakthrough,” said one female participant,reflecting on the benefits of the training. “With the continuous
guidance and feedback of an external coach, mentors and teammembers, we can establish a deep understanding of leadership,
interact and learn with each other in different teams, and broaden
our vision and mindset.”
As of February 2022, women accounted for 35.7 per cent ofmanagement positions and 40.23 per cent of technical roles,

compared with 37 per cent in technical roles when the goal wasset. During a recent wave of promotions, women made up almost
half (45 per cent) of the new advancements.
In the last four years, women have exceeded or almost matched
the number of men recruited at Thoughtworks China, as below:••••

2021 university recruitment: men (198), women (239)2020 university recruitment: men (122) women (116)2019 university recruitment: men (79) women (82)2018 university recruitment: men (53) women (50)RECOMMENDATIONS• Secure corporate commitment from the onset, as it is criticalto advancing gender equality within a company. Suchcommitment involves setting indicators for the developmentof women employees and raising the gender awareness of all
employees with communications approaches.
• Encourage commitments to support gender equality as partof employees’ annual workplans where relevant, or in theworkplan of the department or company, to help monitor andensure that action is taken.
• In order to ensure the advancement of more women in anorganization, it is important to increase the influence of womenleaders in and outside of the company, help amplify theiradvocacy for women’s career development and leadership, andpromote them as role models.

THE ROLE OF WEPs
Thoughtworks China believes that promoting gender equality and supporting women’s growth and development in the technology
industry are essential corporate social responsibilities. WEPs are a vehicle for corporate delivery on the gender equality dimensionsof the 2030 Agenda. As a comprehensive framework, WEPs have helped Thoughtworks China identify areas for improvement andinformed their diversity strategy and gender programme development.

4 ┃ Case Study: Thoughtworks China

Principle 1

Establish high-level corporate leadershipfor gender equality.

Principle 2

Treat all women and men fairly at work– respectand support human rights and nondiscrimination.

Principle 3

Ensure the health, safety and well-being of
all women and men workers.

Principle 4

Promote education, training and professional
development for women.

Principle 5

Implement enterprise development, supply chain
and marketing practices that empower women.

Principle 6

Promote equality through community initiatives
and advocacy.

Principle 7

Measure and publicly report on progressto achieve gender equality.

#WeEmpowerAsia
weps.org
weps@unwomen.org

Funded by:

Produced by:

Women’s Empowerment
Principles@WEPrinciples

United Nations’ Women’s
Empowerment Principles@UNWomenAsia

In support of:

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the European Union, UN Women or the United Nations

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