How this Salesforce consultant is helping women return to the IT industry

Salesforce Supermums helps mothers re-build their confidence to return to the workforce

Salesforce Supermums is an initiative that was set up to counter the problems that many mothers face when returning to work after an extended period away.

The non-profit initiative was launched in November 2016 by Heather Black, who runs a Salesforce consultancy, to help women who want to return to the working world but have lost confidence in their abilities.

"Supermums empowers mums to upskill in Salesforce and progress a career in the sector," Black explained to CRN.

"They come from a background of either being several years out of work caring for their children or are returning from maternity leave and want to work in a more flexible workplace or they are looking to upskill and earn a better salary.

"We give them a six-month programme where they get training, work experience, mentoring and employability support to equip them with the right skills and experience and confidence to step into their first role in the IT sector."

Participants pay for their place on the six-month programme which trains them in the Salesforce platform.

Salesforce Supermums is all done virtually and has had trainees from across Europe and South Africa, though the majority are UK-based. Black plans to launch it in the US later this year and in Australia in 2020.

"Eighty-five per cent of the people that go through it and completed their Salesforce certification have gone into job roles, and we actively source job roles for them and act as like a recruitment agency in that way," Black said.

The CRM vendor doesn't invest in the scheme but does offer it promotion and PR, and a number of employees volunteer to help mentor and train the participants.

The programme had three people in its first intake, but 12 sessions later participant numbers average about 20 - and they don't all necessarily come from techie backgrounds, according to Black.

"There is a real mix - we've had doctors, lawyers, teachers," she said.

"We've had people who've been in a product IT environment before, but they want to learn Salesforce, because they haven't done it before."

Black ran an employability and training company for eight years before switching to a career as a Salesforce consultant in 2012 to give her more flexibility.

Her experience of losing confidence in the workplace gave birth to the idea of Salesforce Supermums.

"There's a lot of changes that go on with women - mentally, physically, and socially - when you have kids," she said.

"And a lot of it comes down to confidence. Your body's gone through tremendous change when you have kids and you're not used to going out to work and having to present.

"When I had my kids I was self-employed and still working, but I did a lot of it at home and I was only working two or three days a week, and I lost a lot of my confidence going out and presenting."

Some participants have even been sponsored by their employers and Black has noticed an upswing in corporate interest in diversity and inclusion, as well as ways to plug the skills gap, becomes a more pressing item on many companies' agendas.

"There is a massive shortage of talent in the sector at the moment," she said.

"There are loads of mums sitting there going, ‘Well, what job can I do that's flexible?' and there are loads of people in the Salesforce sector saying ‘we need more talent'. So it does seem like an obvious fit that we should be able to get more people into the sector."