By 2020, Symantec aims to increase the diversity of its workforce, at all levels within the company, by 15 percent (using a FY14 baseline year).
A goal of this nature coupled with efforts by employee-led groups like SWAN, affirms our commitment to gender equality and the advancement of women in technology. Partnering with The Anita Borg Institute and its annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) conference is one of the many ways in which we are working towards this goal. The Grace Hopper conference is the largest technical conference for women in computing and brings thousands of women technologists together to share research, networking and to create collaborative opportunities. I recently had the opportunity to attend the GHC India conference in Bengaluru, India. We sent over 100 female employees (Symantec & Veritas together) from across our India sites to attend and be a part of India’s largest gathering for women in technology. That said, it’s unfortunate that our colleagues from Chennai couldn’t attend the conference due to the catastrophic floods there and their absence was felt throughout the event.
Building our brand
From engaging GHCI organizers early on, to rallying women at Symantec to participate, the Pune SWAN team has been catalytic in encouraging Symantec’s presence at the conference. I’d like to applaud all the efforts that our employees put into idea submissions, reviewing papers, and volunteering their time, skills and expertise as GHC committee members.
Events such as GHCI play a big role in building our brand as a great place to work for technical women and in recruiting future employees. We hosted a career fair booth at the event, which never had a dull moment. Our talent acquisition team members interacted with several individuals over two days to share the great work we do in making the world a safer place. This being a transition year, Symantec and Veritas shared a booth at the fair.
Aim for the stars
During the networking dinner which was hosted for Symantec employees, it was evident that our technologists had a shared observation that Symantec was not aptly represented in the speaker community at the conference. There was a strong sense that “we could do it too”. The Symantec participants feel strongly that our talent in India possesses the in-depth knowledge to confidently address a technical audience and share perspectives as expert panelists. And we must do that.
I urge our technical community and particularly our women in technology to maximize such opportunities and demonstrate our expertise by leading technology conversations and speaking at such events. We have incredible talent in technology and we must set an objective of having two or three technical speakers from Symantec at GHC India next year. Strengthening our employer brand by speaking about the work we do is one of the reasons for Symantec’s collective investment in GHCI and indicates progress against such efforts. In fact even networking with fellow attendees from other organizations presents an opportunity for participating employees to establish Symantec as an employer of choice and at the same time learn from industry peers.
Reach out
Our Symantec community has talented technologists, subject matter experts and potential mentors to guide employees who are keen to participate in technology/ industry conferences like GHC. I am looking forward to Symantec being adequately represented in the speaker community at next year’s GHCI and in the meanwhile I am happy to share some Symantec moments from GHCI 2015, Bengaluru, India.
Sudhanshu Pandit is Symantec's VP, Human Resources, India
Check out photos from the event below:
Symantec women with Telle Whitney, President and CEO of The Anita Borg Institute