GM CEO Mary Barra Dives Into Her Plan To Hire More Female Engineers
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The statistics are quite shocking: the share of women in the computing workforce has dropped to just 24 percent from its figure of 37 percent in 1995. To combat this, General Motors has devised a new partnership with the non-profit “Girls Who Code” organization.
The partnership was announced last week, and it’s both GM CEO Mary Barra‘s and GWC’s goal to inspire the next generation of women engineers and computer science professionals.
The initiative, which promises a $250,000 grant from GM to GWC operations, clearly has close ties to Barra. Fortune spoke with the GM CEO to discuss the program, and it’s not fueled just by the gender gap.
“We’re finding talent, but we’re really competing for it,” Barra said, adding that the amount of women who are getting engineering degrees is not growing at the rate it should be, and in some years, it’s even gone down. “And you want the best and brightest.”
“What we find is General Motors is starting to create a leadership role as it relates to connectivity, autonomous and sharing,” she said. “We’re finding more and more people. Last year I think we had a 25% increase in the amount of people who came to GM.com to say ‘Hey I want to work at General Motors.’ We think that’s good. But we are worried overall that there will be a shortage.”
Barra herself rose through the ranks at GM and hopes the program can mentor young women pursue an STEM-related path.
GWC’s mission is to present the opportunities to girls as young as the middle school age, before societal norms take hold to discourage math and science studies for women.
“There’s a moment there where we can light that fire and have that fire continue,” GWC Founder and CEO Reshma Saujani said.
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Well isn’t Mary doing just fine! This is exactly what is wrong with the new GM (but it started with the latter days of the old GM). You see, folks of the female persuasion have been promoted into positions of importance and
EVERYTHING GM does gets viewed largely thru the prism of females and it shows in their offerings. The GM marketing dept thinks Females make ALLl the buying decisions on their vehicles. All this while their competition, and it is growing, doesn’t view all the their offerings the way the new GM does and it shows. GM is getting lost in the dust of Ford/Fiat Chrylser and others for this very reason!!!!
I say the foregoing having owned GM vehicles, currently 13, since 1967.
I wouldn’t say GM is behind FCA. It’s impossible for any company to be anywhere worse than FCA. The only thing it has is jeep.
Great to see GM announce ANOTHER $1 billion more in fresh investments in the U.S. after Trump being elected.
Whether you voted for him or not, President-elect Trump is the real catalyst for change. Barra is mostly steering a big ship that was built for her over a hundred of years.
“Societal norms take hold to discourage math and science studies for women”
Lololololol. What bull. The only STEM fields where men outnumber women is computer science and engineering. Is it a societal norm that discourages men from psychology where 78% of bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women? No, it’s because even at birth boys are more interested in mobiles and girls are more interested in faces. Boys and male monkeys prefer mechanical things over dolls.
It’s simple, men don’t care about humans like women do. Men care more about mechanics. Women care more about humanity. It’s not a societal norm, it’s biological.
At any rate, hopefully the women hired are hired because they’re qualified, not because “I am a woman, therefore I deserve this”.
In my AP Calc class my senior year the class was split even. Since most of us were deciding what to major in an wanted it math based we got ideas from the teacher and she recommended computer science. Most of the girls scoffed at this idea. I remember one saying it was for guys who are nerds. Keep in mind these were all people who loved math too. The fact is most people view the computer field for anti-social nerds or so I’ve been called. Most people think that millennials are tech savvy because the can work social media apps but the truth is the majority off the population is stupid when it comes to computers. Contrary to popular belief they are not for everyone. Same with coding which the government is trying to shove down people’s throats. Yeah I think people should learn to code, it’s confusing at first glance but after you get use to it it’s easy. However it’s not for everyone you have to be interested in it to actually become good. That statistic is neither shocking or meaningful. Your taking a positive analysis and turning into a normative one. So what if the demographics of a job field decrease that doesn’t mean we need to go out of the way to change it.
Here’s a novel idea: Hire the most qualified person for the job. If there is a person with green skin and blue hair that graduated as the valedictorian at MIT…hire them!!! Geesh! This nonsense is beyond ridiculous.
Since ~85% of NBA players are black men over 6′ tall, I’m going to start petition for the NBA to start drafting more white men under 6′ tall. I feel discriminated against. 🙁
I fully agree with hiring the most qualified for the job. That is the way it should be.
With that said you have to also grasp that over 50% of the vehicles purchased new today are by women. You can ignore this fact and pay the price or you can get women in on this early and reap the profits from the market.
This is nothing new. Harley Earl employed women as designers back in the 50’s as women were becoming more independent and started to drive more. He wanted to target product for them and to families.
Lets face it the men are the ones who put the kids in the Corvette storage space. LOL!
Even in todays cars while the 4th gen F body was a good car the Mustang outsold it due to the women who liked it as it was more upright and easier to get in and out. It also had a trunk. SUV models have taken off due to women. The Cross over is a SUV crossed with a mini van that addresses enough to be ok with both sexes.
Every company should have a good mix of the public in it. Not forced but qualified people that can address the entire customer profile.
To be honest Mary has done very well at GM and much better than many that proceeded her. In DC during the hearings she saved the day. Could you imagine a Roger Smith under the same conditions.
We still should take the most qualified but we should never limit it to just one type of person who has no clue how to reach the other sex in sales appeal and ergonomics.
If you are designing a bra would you not want someone to design it that wears one. Same for many of todays products as you want them to give the customer what they want and expect.
If GM had more women in designing Mini Vans they may not have failed for so many years with their product.