Women at LinkedIn want a mentorship program to foster future female execs

Like other tech companies, LinkedIn could stand to become more diverse. And one thing that could help is a program to support women who work in technology at the company.

At least a few women in technical positions at LinkedIn think so, according to a company blog post from director of growth engineering Erica Lockheimer that outlines their goals.

“Next year, I want to help establish and maintain a mentoring program for women in tech here at LinkedIn,” senior product manager Lizabeth Li said, according to the post. “Peer and more senior mentors have been extremely helpful to me both professionally and personally, and I would love for others, especially women, to have easy access to the same mentorship opportunities.”

And LinkedIn partner engineer Shikha Sehgal has a related idea.

“In 2015, I want to establish a training program at LinkedIn that empowers women in our field to become CEOs of their careers,” she said. “I want to make sure all the women on my team have the opportunity to attend training sessions to learn new skills and feel inspired.”

Meanwhile, Caroline Gaffney, head of product for Slideshare at LinkedIn, would like to shed light on something that goes beyond the scope of most programs.

“Next year, I want to raise awareness for unconscious bias in our everyday interactions,” she said. “This is important for both men and women to think about as it impacts everything from decision making to promotions to hiring.”

Google, whose headquarters are down the street from LinkedIn in Mountain View, Calif., recently formed a workshop to explore “unconscious bias at work.”