Women in IT keen to develop political ësavvyí

77% of women working in IT do not feel they have sufficient skills to manage in a political context within the workplace. This figure comes from a recent ìPolitical Savvy for Women in ITî event held by online job board and networking portal www.womenintechnology.co.uk in association with Socit Gnrale.

The main skills that women wanted to develop were their confidence in both handling and identifying office politics. ìI tend to ignore politics and avoid it in the officeî, said one attendee while another commented ìI want to gain the ability to analyse and understand the political environmentî. ìKnowing the difference between gossip and politicsî and ìmanaging the egos of others in a testosterone fuelled workplaceî were also on womenís wish lists.

The research also highlighted how office politics had affected many women in their jobs with 53% of attendees saying that they had been the victim of labelling, stereotyping or sabotage at work. When asked how they had responded in a politically savvy way to a situation, many answered that they simply had not; they had changed their job or had taken legal action.

ìI kept my job and hoped someone would notice that I was different and I started labelling and sabotaging the person myself. Neither workedî said one respondent while another commented ìWe do what women always do ñ overperform - outdo the critics but this is energy sapping and not always productiveì

Maggie Berry, Director of womenintechnology.co.uk, said, ìThis political savvy event was a great success and provided many women with practical tips for dealing with office politics and answered many of their questions. All our events aim to empower women who are working in a male dominated industry and hopefully the attendees felt this was another step forward in us doing that.î

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