Can you imagine offering your employees an online training to help them develop their skills, stay updated, or comply with health and safety regulations? It’s a fantastic learning opportunity! But before you dive in, do you know the importance of the Canadian Accessibility Law? 

👉 https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-canada/act-summary.html

Since its enactment on July 11, 2019, this law aims to transform Canada into a country free of barriers for all. This means eliminating anything that could hinder the participation of people living with physical or intellectual disabilities. 

To ensure inclusion within your company, it is essential to promote a fair and accessible work environment for all. This involves inclusive communication, awareness, and training on accessibility, as well as the use of adapted technologies to enable everyone to fully participate. 

Let’s Talk About WCAG Guidelines!

The WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) rules provide a framework for making web content more accessible, focusing on 4 fundamental principles: perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness. 

Perceivability involves making information accessible to people with sensory limitations. This can include text descriptions for images, high contrasts, subtitles for videos, and much more. 

Operability ensures that features are accessible to all users, including those using assistive technologies. This includes keyboard navigability, predictability of behavior, and the removal of distracting elements. 

Understandability concerns the clarity and simplicity of content and operation for everyone. This means using plain language, providing explicit instructions, and organizing content logically. 

Finally, robustness ensures that web content is correctly interpretable by a variety of people and assistive technologies. 

By applying the 4 principles of the WCAG rules in your online training programs, you offer everyone the opportunity to access information fairly. It is essential to consider these elements when creating online courses to ensure equitable access for all staff members. It is also strongly recommended to work with an experienced team specialized in educational technology to design your accessible online training courses! 

A final piece of advice: converting inaccessible content into accessible content poses certain challenges. For some existing content, this is an inevitable operation. However, to avoid these challenges, we recommend designing all new content in accessible terms from the start! 

And let’s not forget to celebrate! Since March 2023, the National Accessibility Week has been celebrated every year starting from the last Sunday of May. It’s a fantastic opportunity to recognize the progress made and continue to work towards a more inclusive world for all. 

👉 https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/national-accessability-week.html

What would lead a woman to pursue a career that is typically male dominated? Through a candid interview with our female integrators, explore the different facets of their professional day-to-day.

A Perfect Career Path, For Everyone!

Choosing a career in IT comes with a few challenges! There are many reasons to pursue a career in information technologies, but what stands out, if you ask our female integrators, is the opportunity to see, understand and manipulate what’s hiding behind the interface of websites and videogames, to solve interesting problems and build multimedia environments. In other words, it’s all about the technical side of things and the fun and challenging tech issues they get to solve!

The Feminine Touch

The inclusion of women in this male-dominated field can yield a lot of benefits for teams – and their employers. Our female integrators specifically noted the quality and detail-oriented nature of their work. Women also improve work structures, bring their own approach to challenges and problem-solving, and of course, contribute to communications in their own special way.

A Lot of Room for Improvement

Women in IT are underrepresented in Quebec. According to a report on women in IT by TECHNOCompétences, only 20% of the 136 000 available IT jobs were held by women in 2017. According to the 2021-2024 sector diagnostic produced by the organization, men represented 78% of workers in the sector as of 2021.

_{Source : https://pratiquesrh.com/article/trois-femmes-en-ti-ou-la-passion-des-algorithmes}

Work performance, an added pressure?

Is it true that women in male-dominated industries need to overperform? Instead, it might be more interesting to ask if the pressure to overperform stems from the industry, or from women themselves, because of their education. As with many things, perception can become reality and this reality deserves to be questioned.

As with many things, perception can become reality and this reality deserves to be questioned.

The Future is Looking Bright

Societal biases can also affect what education girls receive. For instance, parents can often influence their children’s career choices through the opinions that they voice.

The proportion of women in tech-driven education programs is still much lower than that of men, even if this difference in proportion is slowly evening out. What’s encouraging though, according to our female integrators that are currently completing their education, is that there appears to be more women completing the education program then men!

Our female integrators have some tips for any woman or girl considering, curious or interested in this field of work: go for it, be confident in your self and your capacities, and take the spot that belongs to you because you’re not stealing it from anyone else.

We wholeheartedly thank our female integrators for taking the time to share their experiences with us!