Exposing women to software development at earlier ages, and representation of women in leadership, is crucial for encouraging more women to enter and remain in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) development industry, says leading ERP software provider SYSPRO finance business lead Bulela Mgobozi.

Mgobozi stressed the importance of increasing the level of exposure that women have to learning software development skills at younger ages while in school. SYSPRO Africa is at an advanced stage of an alliance with two South African universities. This is part of the SYSPRO Africa's vision to attract young talent by introducing young women and men to SYSPRO during their tertiary studies, she adds.

“We must not only look at who is coming out the funnel and becoming software developers, but also consider what is leading them into that career path. By the time we are measuring the number of women involved in software, we’ve got to be looking at how many women are exposed to it and working with computers in the first place.”

She also adds that exposing young woman to software development and learning about computers can also provide more opportunities to women and increase the amount of woman entering the ERP market.  

Mgobozi stresses the importance of companies in the local market showing visibility of women in senior leadership positions, as this can be encouraging to women who are looking to work towards being employed in senior leadership and executive positions.

SYSPRO is developing a 'Women in information technology (IT) leadership’ initiative as a means to identify female leaders and place them onto the path for senior leadership roles

SYSPRO Retention

SYSPRO emphasises the importance of its initiatives to attract and retain women in the company and industry.

She also stresses the importance of SYSPRO’s internship programme in assisting in progressing the careers of young woman in software development, and the advantages it provides to women and young people in South Africa.

While this internship programme is not tailored specifically for women, she states that the programme does bring together people from various academic backgrounds in terms of the degrees and qualifications they have. SYSPRO Africa is partnered with training centre the Media and Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority which requires 65% or more of the interns hired be female.                         

“With most internships, there is no obligation to hire, but after SYSPRO’s year-long internship, SYSPRO strives to retain interns, or to place them at partners and customers. This speaks volumes to SYSPRO’s ability to recognise young talent and make sure that they get the adequate training, exposure and experience.”

Of the 2021 interns, 100% were either retained or placed at partners. She emphasises the importance this has in helping young women find employment, particularly given the high youth unemployment rate in South Africa.

“By making sure that the youth you bring into the organisation has an ideal balance of women, you are supporting women in an industry that does not typically have female dominance.”

Mgobozi has been employed at SYSPRO since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and stresses the importance of the support she has received from the company's human resources department, particularly in terms of looking after family responsibilities.

This includes monthly wellness initiatives and encouraging employees to make use of financial experts and psychologists to discuss and improve their financial and mental wellness.

“As much as we don’t like to admit it, most families wellness is dependent on the primary parent, or traditional nurturer in the home. This role is still largely performed by women. The people that have been under considerable strain during the pandemic have been these nurturers. The employee wellness programmes aren’t exclusively for women, however, women employees are mostly taking these up and engaging.”

Mgobozi emphasises the importance that initiatives like this play in retaining highly skilled employees that are women, as most SYSPRO Africa's employees have worked at the company for a minimum of five years.

“The solutions engineering team is relatively new in terms of when it was established. Our female executive Deirdre Fryer was given the liberty to start a solutions engineering division after identifying a need for it. What better way to illustrate that ideas from women are listened to, respected and executed upon at SYSPRO Africa,” she concludes.