Diversity is more than a quota: Turbine Kreuzberg increases diversity and inclusion as a software company.
Diversity is more than a quota of women and a rainbow flag — let me tell you how Turbine Kreuzberg faces the challenge of increasing diversity and inclusion as a software company.
If diversity were a place, it would be Berlin-Kreuzberg. This is where the most diverse people and cultures meet and exactly where our headquarters, Turbine Kreuzberg, is located. Last year, our management team announced that the software agency’s most important strategic goal is to become more diverse and hire, not only more female talent, but an overall more diverse people. More specifically though, I want to focus on the female goal. By 2025, the team should consist of one-third women. Ambitious goal? No problem, we love challenges. But what do we want to do differently to find the unicorns in the IT industry?
Currently, Turbine employs more than 140 people, spread across three locations in Berlin, Faro and Bishkek. Men make up a significantly larger share of the workforce. Only a few IT positions are held by female employees, but the team is enriched by a variety of nationalities. For us, diversity is not limited to the gender of the employees. When we talk about inclusion, we mean it. We like to think we can create an environment where all employees can be 100% themselves and have a sense of belonging.
But where does our diversity journey start? To determine a status quo, female Turbinies from different departments, with different lengths of service and at different locations were asked in interviews how they perceive diversity at Turbine Kreuzberg, how comfortable they feel as women in their teams and what measures they would like to see taken in the future. The responses from the interviews were very positive and informative. All of the women were able to report that they felt very comfortable and only rarely had the feeling that they were treated differently or seen as less competent because of their gender. The compatibility of work and family was named as particularly positive. The greatest wish is to have more women in their own teams, to offer further education and training on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion for all colleagues, and also to see women in management positions. And you know what? Just to simply have more female energy around because, let’s face it, a well-balanced everything is, in fact, everything.
In the mighty words of Emma Watson, we asked ourselves, “If not now, when?” To break down and strategize, we formed an Awareness Team and collectively developed a strategy in a 4-pillar workshop based on: Recruitment, Internal Awareness and Education, Professional Development and Advancement, and Culture and Policies.
Recruitment:
Recruitment is a particularly important driver of our diversity goal. In order to hire more women, more women must be reached and actively approached on places like LinkedIn. In the internal interviews, it was frequently criticized that there is often only one woman in the development teams.
As a first step, our Team Architects have made job descriptions more gender neutral and formulate job requirements more open. Statistics show that women are more likely to refrain from applying for positions if they do not meet all requirements. Men, on the other hand, meet 3 out of 10 and still feel they are a good enough fit to apply. To reduce this phenomenon, we added our “Check, Check, Uncheck” box to job ads.
We targeted our social media posts to the female audience by featuring and interviewing more female team members. Female interviewees and background voices also aim to subconsciously appeal to female future Turbinies.
In addition, we didn’t miss the chance to go to events in person again and present ourselves as an employer. At WomenHack Berlin, we took on a little adventure and conducted numerous job interviews in a speed dating format. Our specially branded bandanas went down very well with the female visitors. We met more cool queer talent at HelloFresh’s FreshPride event and at Unicorns in Tech’s afterwork events. In spring 2023, we plan to host our own DEI Meetup in our office, together with DEI Advocates Berlin.
Internal Awareness and Education:
We see awareness as the first step in gaining acceptance among our employees. First, we wanted to build up expertise as an awareness team so that we could provide advice and support when questions arose. Then it was a matter of recording the knowledge and making it easily accessible to all employees. We regularly share current articles and statistics on diversity and gender equality topics within the company and hope to be able to initiate one or more discussions.
In addition, we provide a central Diversity Library located in our internal Confluence for our employees to revert back to. This breaks down the major topics of diversity, equity and inclusion into smaller sections using short and simple content pieces with definitions, statistics and graphics. Further links provide colleagues who are hungry for knowledge with even more details. This year, company-wide workshops, masterclasses and catch-up sessions with selected target groups are to follow, designed to help and empower people to live even more inclusively in their everyday work.
Professional Development and Advancement:
Thanks to a great Learning & Development team, established in May of last year, we have the chance to develop junior team members into experts with clearly guided career paths. In this way, we can develop women into senior positions in the future, as requested in interviews with colleagues, and as is the Turbine way.
Culture and Policies:
At Turbine Kreuzberg, we are very proud of our culture, which has been able to evolve positively despite growth and a hybrid work model. Our work structures as well as the trust our management team places in our employees were particularly praised in the employee interviews. Turbine Kreuzberg offers flexible working time models and working locations in order to be able to combine family and career in the best possible way. Our employees can also take parental leave without a guilty conscience. When revising our Code of Conduct, we actively involved employees and offered open feedback sessions. Our female colleagues were particularly pleased about the creation of a closed Slack channel for them, in which all non-male Turbinies can exchange ideas across locations and plan next Coffee Breaks. In Berlin, we held the first female dinner in December 2022 which brought up some very interesting talks and exchange of experiences. Next on the activity agenda is one fun-filled night of karaoke.
Since we took a closer look at DEI work at Turbine Kreuzberg in September 2022 and developed a strategy, we have already been able to take away the first lessons learned. For instance, inclusive language does not begin and end by replacing “Hi guys” in group chats with “Hi everyone”. We must always keep in mind the linguistic and cultural differences between Germany and Portugal, as well as Kyrgyzstan. In addition, there is no one-fits-all solution in implementing DEI initiatives. Not all best practices from other companies fit us. Open communication with all employees is super important. The goal of achieving more diversity is a change management process that requires employee buy-in. As you probably already know, diversity work is not possible as a lone wolf. We were able to successfully implement many ideas with the support of our Team Architects, Learning and Development Specialists, our Brand & Communication Team, and the new Awareness Team.
In summary, just hiring more women in a software company does not necessarily lead to more diversity and satisfaction of the female team members. An inclusive work environment is a prerequisite for an empowering work one. Meetups greatly help to build a network of, and understand the female employee market. Furthermore, employees need the space to understand the “why” and the “how” of diversity measures. Through continuing education, training, open communication and opportunities for participation, this is possible. Development prospects and flexible work structures bind women, as well as people in general, to a company for a long time because this is what they want from an attractive employer. With support from upper management, and a strong team that wants to advance diversity, DEI initiatives will be successful and, to be honest, would be half the fun to plan and implement.
Stay tuned to see how our team evolves. The journey has just begun! We’re sure you’ll see us at another meetup soon here and there, or just drop by our offices and/or digital channels.
