Women in Technology : An investigation into how the demands of a mid-level technical woman’s home life, as well as how their male dominated working team environment can affect their retention rates in American IT organizations

An investigation into how the demands of a mid-level technical woman’s home life, as well as how their male dominated working team environment can affect their retention rates in American IT organizations. Quantitative methods were used in this research report, in the form of an online survey. The survey was used to investigate participant’s home lives and team environments and how they perceived the organisational culture, mentoring and networking opportunities and flexible work policies within their organisation. The results concluded that the barriers to retaining mid-level technical women in the IT indusrty are affected by their family situation and also by their team environment. The most significant findings uncovered the diversity of the women’s family situations and the extent to which this affects; what a woman needs from an organisation, in order to be able to balance home and work-life symentaneously. It also uncovered the affects of having a female manager in relation to females perception of organisational cutlure and how important women feel that mentoring and networking are to their success in the industry