Break the Bias – International Women’s Day
As one of the largest dating companies in the digital market, we recognize that breaking the bias and overcoming stereotypes is essential to promote a diverse workplace. From technology to marketing, and from business intelligence to human resources, our employees reflect the communities we live and work in and the users we serve. Meaning that, we have an all-inclusive gender identity leading our decision-making and driving Spark in the path of success.
Building relationships is at the heart of what we do and and with that in mind leveraging diversity is key to our culture and success, we count with 126 women in our workforce. Of that, 44 % are in management positions.
What do we do to guarantee an equal workplace?
From the recruiting process to hiring, promotions, and salaries, we always make our decisions based on qualification, skills, and the specific needs of Spark Networks. We ensure we operate with no gender pay gap, but rather grade salaries according to performance and responsibility level. Education and training can be one of the best tools in combating bias. We provide specialized recruitment training internally, where we cover topics such as diversity, and unconscious bias so as to ensure fairness.
On this 8th of March, we brought some of our female Sparkies together to learn about any barriers they may have encountered in their field, and how they overcame them.
Inna (Head of Talent Engagement Team)
As all my experiences are in tech companies, 90% of leaders I had worked with were men. I’ve been lucky that over my career I faced limited barriers as a woman. Of course, it takes some time to build your inner strength and feel comfortable in a male-dominated workspace. At first, I had self-doubt and was thinking that I am just lucky to be where I am within my career. But later, I realized that everything depends on me, how I position myself, how hard I work, how I let other people view me. At the end of the day no matter if you are a man or a woman, we all face similar challenges as a leader.
Ellie (Senior Product Designer)
While on parental leave dealing with postpartum challenges in the beginning of the pandemic, I was laid off by my previous employer. It was definitely a painful moment in my life as a woman in every aspect. I decided to move forward despite them, not just hoping for a better future for myself and for mothers who balance being a great mum and successful in their career but also doing my best to support women by guiding and teaching what I know the best in Design<3 and career path.
Alena (Junior Quality Assurance Tester)
This is my first job on a tech field and getting to the first interview without a formal experience was a hard barrier for me.
Pooja (Mobile Engineer)
I’ve been lucky that I have faced limited barriers. So many of my obstacles early on were brought on by myself, self-doubt, and not taking up space. I understood the thing is, when you choose to not take up space, you take yourself out of the game. It’s so limiting. And I did it for a while until I built up more confidence in myself. I convinced myself if I am part of this room then I deserve to be here like the rest of others and I have something that helped me to arrive here. In the end, I would say both men and women are facing different challenges when working together as a team.
