South Africa must fast track digital fluency in women

JOHANNESBURG – THE ever-increasing talent, skills and equal pay gaps in the workplace are key contributing factors to South Africa’s struggle to grow its economy.
This is according to the latest study released this week by Accenture, the leading global professional services company.Titled, “Getting to Equal 2017,” the research reveals that digitally fluent women can close the aforementioned gaps.The study focuses on the country’s status and attitudes of working men and women, non-working women and undergraduates on the use and acquisition of digital and technology skills, and their perception of gender equality –including pay gap. It also explores the actions businesses, government,academia and women themselves need to take to help women and contribute towards the economic growth.
Gale Shabangu, Inclusion and Diversity lead at Accenture, said actively growing digital fluency could deliver enormous social and economic benefits for South Africa.
“In addition, our research identifies two other gender pay equalisers –improving career strategies and greater immersion in technology – that also play a significant role in closing the gender gap.”
In South Africa, digital fluency and gender equality ranking is currently low.
“We ranked 21 out of 26 countries,” Shabangu lamented.
As the Fourth Industrial Revolution ushered in cyber-physical systems,robots, smart connected devices, machine intelligence, analytics, and mobile, social and cloud technologies, digital skills would be a vital to current and future workforce.The challenge, Shabangu however said, is finding the talent pool.“Women are a key part of the solution.”
The Accenture’s global Getting to Equal – Closing the Gender Pay Gap(2017) research surveyed more than 28 000 women and men, including undergraduates, in 29 countries to identify drivers of pay equality and career advancement.
– Techno