Communications of the ACM
Women Leaders Cite Two Major Reasons For Issues Facing Women in Tech
At the first-ever Salesforce Women's Leadership Summit, a panel consisting of The Honest Company founder Jessica Alba, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King discussed some of the issues women face in the workplace.
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During its recent 2015 Dreamforce conference, Salesforce launched its first Women's Leadership Summit, which was capped off with a hosted panel discussion moderated by "CBS This Morning" anchor Gayle King and featuring YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and Jessica Alba, actress and founder of The Honest Company.
Much of the conversation dealt with the need to provide working mothers with access to maternity leave. Wojcicki, a mother of five, said only 12 percent of women in the private sector have access to paid maternity leave and 25 percent are back to work 10 days after giving birth. Wojcicki said YouTube has found offering longer maternity leave helps them retain women employees. Google currently offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 12 weeks of paid paternity leave. At the session, Alba announced her company will start offering 16 weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave as of January 2016.
Wojcicki and Alba also discussed the barriers keeping women out of technology fields, such as misconceptions about the industry and the need for a more robust pipeline. Both women said they have sent their daughters to coding and computer camps, and agreed more computer science education earlier in life would help level the playing field for women in the industry.
From TechRepublic
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