When it comes to workforce composition, few industries ever completely mirror the society within which they exist. This is especially apparent in the IT industry, which despite a chronic skills shortage and the ongoing efforts of many participants to boost its diversity, continues to be largely homogenous.

One employer that has taken up the challenge to build a diverse team is TAFE NSW's chief information officer Fiona Rankin.

"Trying to get the balance in terms of a diverse team is invaluable, but it is very challenging at the moment," Rankin said.

"While it was picking up for a period there, it seems to have dropped off big time in recent years, which is a real shame. I'd like to see more women coming up the ranks, but I am just not seeing the applications coming through the door."

According to Rankin, one of the primary challenges is negative perceptions of the IT industry as a place to build a career.

"We have a branding issue with the IT profession as a whole," Rankin said.

"There is still that old view that to be in the IT profession you need to be a coder, which clearly doesn't meet everybody's interests, and yet once you work in IT, realise you don’t have to be a coder to be working in IT."

Not satisfied with the status quo, Rankin has taken it upon herself to create opportunities for women and people from underrepresented backgrounds by providing mentoring through a women's support group, participating in capability building programs within TAFE NSW and by encouraging women she has worked with to develop technology skills.

"With pretty much all of my executive assistants, I have sent them off into careers in IT, and they have become very successful senior women. EAs make great project managers," Rankin said.

Neurodiversity

There are also times when the rewards for increasing diversity are immediate and easy to observe.

One field of diversity where the technology sector clearly outperforms is in attracting people who are neurodiverse. According to the ACS data, neurodivergent people comprise seven percent of the technology workforce, compared to four percent in the broader professional services sector.

While the expression 'neurodiverse' encompasses a wide range of conditions including dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and ADHD, most often it is used to refer to people who are on the autism spectrum.

Championing the needs of neurodiverse workers has been the role of the Danish-based foundation Specialisterne, which was established in 2004 and has assisted more than 10,000 autistic individuals across 15 countries to gain meaningful employment.

Speaking in 2023, Specialisterne's former chief executive officer for Australia Julie Robertson described how the organisation has helped numerous organisations successfully bring neurodiverse people into their workforces, including Services Australia, IBM, and Westpac.

"There is no shortage of understanding that there is definitely a correlation between the value of an autistic mind and traits, and their application to the IT and STEM industries," said Robertson.

But with many people on the autism spectrum also expressing sensitivity to bright lights, sounds, and other sensory input, Robertson said it is critical that employers understand the needs of their neurodivergent workforce to create a welcoming environment which enables them to work productively. This can include making changes to the physical workplace, but it also means providing education and training to the broader workforce.

"When you first talk to people there is apprehension about it," Robertson said.

"If you look at general disabilities, most of the modifications and changes that businesses need to make to processes and policies are physical.

"Anything that requires behaviour change from employees can often be met with resistance and hesitation, and can be seen as too hard for people who are time-poor."

But for those that are willing to make the necessary changes, Robertson believes it isn’t only neurodivergent workers who benefit.

"The adaptations and the changes that you will make to your recruitment processes, onboarding and even to your workplace practices and culture are universally applicable and provide benefit to all employees because of the inclusive design methodology," Robertson said.

"So, while you might be doing it for a few people, it will benefit everyone."

Mitchell Levy and his team at the federal Department of Human Services (DHS) in the mid-2010s worked with Specialisterne to develop a program to employ a dozen people with autism spectrum characteristics into systems testing roles.

The results were positive and immediate.

"The feedback from the individuals and their families was really overwhelming," Levy said.

"Parents were suggesting that this had changed not only their child's lives but their lives as a family as well."

Critically, the Department also saw an uplift in the team's comparative performance.

"We had system testers in Adelaide that were performing better after three months than the career system testers," he said.

"The outcomes we were getting were proving that the pathway we had gone down was a successful way of doing it, and what we gleaned was valuable not only from a cultural change perspective from our staff, but also as a performance improvement activity as well."

Additional programs were soon created in Brisbane and Canberra, with the latter cohort employed in a wider range of roles encompassing data warehousing, applications development, and help desk roles.

According to Levy, employing people on the autism spectrum also provided benefits for the rest of the organisation.

"Our organisation communicated a lot better, because you have to be more specific with your conversations with the individuals," he said.

"As an organisation we became a lot more tolerant and a lot more understanding, and not just making assumptions all the time."

Sustainable benefits

The Department has continued to embrace neurodiversity in its current guise as Services Australia, through the Aurora Neurodiversity Program, which helps people with autism start their career in the Australian Public Service. Levy eventually moved on to a role at Telstra where he implemented a similar program.

He believes what set the initial program aside from others was that it built teams, rather than just hiring individuals.

But what has also made the program remarkable is that it lived on after he and his CIO moved on from the organisation – something that he set from the outset as a key measure of success.

"We were the Department of Human Services, so we had a greater responsibility than other departments," Levy said.

Systemic change

Scarlett McDermott leads ecosystem capability work at the Tech Council of Australia (TCA), and is a former software developer and chief technology officer with the employment and workforce solutions service WithYouWithMe.

Her view is that many of the problems with diversity in the sector today stem from poor systems of education and employment that have built up over time, and that the benefits of making meaningful systemic change may be more important than people realise.

"Some people say skills crisis, some people say diversity opportunity," said McDermott.

"We have an opportunity now where it is not just the right thing to do – to build systems that have diversity at their heart – it is actually the only way to continue to sustain business and productivity growth here in Australia."

The TCA is working with partners in government and the private sector on initiatives to boost the talent pipeline, including virtual work experience, digital apprenticeships, and a range of education programs for teachers and for students.

However, McDermott believes these initiatives will fail to realise their full potential unless employers are willing to give greater consideration to people from diverse backgrounds.

"They are never short of people who want to train," she said.

"What they are short of is employer placements. So, there is a really big mismatch of people looking for jobs and jobs that need to be filled."