How Dell's ‘IT Is Not Just For Geeks’ initiative is fostering women in STEM

Sheenam Ohrie, VP- Mobility and Search Engineering for Dell IT upholds that mentoring should happen through formal and informal channels. On a formal note, she ensures that women are part of succession planning for senior roles, there are formal mentoring, shadowing and coaching opportunities provided. "I personally mentor over 10 career women and foster them to build a brand for themselves in the industry”, says Sheenam Ohrie, VP- Mobility and Search Engineering for Dell IT.

To foster the uptake of STEM at grassroots level, Dell has in place an initiative named ‘IT is not just for Geeks’. This program is developed to encourage more young women to choose science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects and courses so the world of STEM remains open to them for their future careers.

In an interview with ETCIO.in, Sheenam Ohrie, VP- Mobility and Search Engineering, Dell IT shares how dell is bringing women leaders on board with industry wide initiatives such as ‘Women in Action’ (WIA), ‘Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN)’ and more.

How are you driving digital transformation across your organization? What are the technologies that you are leveraging for the same?

Digital transformation essentially boils down to instant value, ubiquitous connectivity and simplified user experience that enables viral adoption through simplistic customer experience. The real challenge is to build the innovations around these principles with the least amount of disruptions to the current business workflows. Creating a simplified and engaging user experience needs one to be insightful of diverse user personas. It involves reskilling our technology experts with an aptitude for design. Teams need to learn how to empathize with the end user through constructs of human-centric design. They need to embrace the methodologies of design thinking that allow them to design for usability, and then create viable, beautiful solutions.

At Dell EMC, we create workspaces that allow us to experiment, learn from failures and do it fast! We build and consume technology platforms that provide the basic digital capabilities and enable us to extend our solutions on top of it. To me, driving digital transformation is much more than shopping for a list of technologies – it’s more to do with the philosophy of transformation.

What are the challenges you faced in automating IT in your organization? What was the toughest decision you made as a leader?

While executing organizational transformations, technology is almost always the lowest barrier to overcome. There are always smart minds who can and will craft beautiful, smart solutions. The real challenge comes in:

1 Identifying the right problems to tackle and therefore asking the most powerful questions

2 Showcasing the benefits from the first automation initiatives and delivering an ROI

3 Sustaining the momentum to scale the change

The bigger task lies in educating the people about the power of automation and tuning them to think automation first. As a leader, one needs to drive the culture of change. It is important to drive human progress by bringing each team member to understand his/her impact on the goals of the organization and orchestrate value-driven behavior. Striking a balance between executing current businesses smoothly while still building the future is a great opportunity for every leader.

Are cyber security issues a C-Suite or I.T. problem, or do they expand beyond one focus?

Cyber security may have its origin and cure in IT, but gone are the days when it was something only for the CTO to worry about. As technology becomes more pervasive, the entire ecosystem is more exposed to cyber vulnerabilities. According to the 2017 IT Security & Privacy Survey, companies with 33% board engaged in information security matters were much more successful than those with lower engagements. While policy implementation may be something that IT does, the policy formulation needs to be much more inclusive and in-depth across all lines of businesses. Here is where the C-Suite can really influence the direction and the outcomes. With more and more businesses and data going digital, cyber security needs to be on the radar of every C-Suite team.

What is your perspective and initiatives to mitigate the gender gap in IT personnel?

We are witnessing strong momentum on women empowerment movements in society, and more importantly, the workplace. We are fortunate to be in the midst of a revolution with powerful women leading equality movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp that have influenced millions of people. However, conscious efforts towards creating women-friendly work environments and eliminating unconscious bias are extremely important to sustain this impetus.

In this context, men have the potential of being powerful ambassadors for implementing and sparking conversations around the workplace. We have in place the MARC (Men Advocating Real Change) program which aims to leverage men as change agents for positive change within the workplace and remove unconscious bias.

Dell has in place global frameworks and programs that focus on promoting women in leadership roles such as ‘Women Powering Business’, ‘Women in Action (WIA)’, ‘Women Inspired to Learn & Lead (WILL)’ and ‘Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN)’. Each of these groups provides women team members an opportunity to collaborate on issues like workplace advancement, flexible work solutions, career development and much more.

Dell is an extremely progressive company in terms of its practices pertaining to Prevention of Harassment at the workplace. The Sexual Harassment Prevention Committee (SHPC) is one that comprises team employees and HR personnel with equal gender representation. Dell has a zero-tolerance policy which prohibits inappropriate or offensive conduct. Awareness amongst team members is created through periodic communication through orientation programs and compliance training courses. To ensure the safety of women employees, Dell has Rapid Response Teams (RRTs). Additionally, if women employees work past 8 pm, there is a provision of a security escort who have undertaken scenario-based training.

Dell also offers flexi-work solutions to its employees so that they achieve professional excellence without making any compromises due to personal or environmental reasons. Dell’s pan-India exclusive wellness initiative, ‘Well at Dell’, strives to build a healthier and fitter workplace. Additionally, Dell has also tied up with several child care facilities in Bangalore and Hyderabad and provides speaker sessions on parenting as well.

How you are mentoring other women in your team or in the industry to take on leadership roles. Are you a part of any industry wide initiative to foster women's leadership in STEM fields?

Mentoring happens through formal and informal channels. On a formal note, I ensure that women are part of succession planning for senior roles, there are formal mentoring/shadowing/coaching opportunities provided, encouraging them to build a brand for themselves both within the organization as well as in the industry. At any point of time, I am personally mentoring over 10 career women from my current and previous companies. At Dell, as the Chairperson of the Women in Action ERG (Employee Resource Group), I drive to focus on sensitivity around second-generation bias. This is to ensure that the male colleagues recognize the subtle behavior nuances in themselves and their women colleagues are helping us create an environment of inclusivity and higher productivity.

To foster uptake of the STEM at grassroots level, we have in place ‘IT is not just for Geeks’. This is an initiative developed to encourage more young women to choose science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects and courses so the world of STEM remains open to them for their future careers. Dell volunteers reach out to Tier-2, Tier-3 schools in various parts of India to inculcate the STEM interest in young girls. We conduct workshops and provide a sneak peek into our lives with the objective to inspire school children to consider tech careers when they’re older.