Diagnosing Gender Balance in IT: How Michelin Took Action
Diversity, equity and inclusion are no longer just buzzwords in the tech world — they’re core enablers of innovation, performance, and creativity. Yet, despite decades of awareness, gender imbalances remain stark.
At Michelin, we decided it was time to stop guessing and start measuring. This is the story of how four women working for many years in IT — with the support of Better Together, Michelin internal network whose aim is to promote diversity into the company — launched a comprehensive gender balance diagnosis in our IT & Digital teams in France.
After years of dedication and collaboration with hundreds of colleagues, we ultimately open-sourced our method to empower others to take action as well.
Why Gender Balance Still Matters in Tech
Despite years of progress, the numbers are still sobering: women represent less than 20% of the tech workforce globally. Behind this statistic lies a complex mix of hiring biases, career “glass ceilings,” and invisible cultural barriers.
These imbalances don’t just affect individuals. They influence how teams innovate, how inclusive company culture feels, and how sustainable organizations can be in the long run. At Michelin, we believe that diversity makes us stronger.
But believing is not enough. We needed a clear picture of where we stood — and the courage to ask tough questions about our own practices.
Michelin's IT & Digital Commitment to Diversity
Our IT & Digital organization is actively working to embed diversity into every layer of our systems and practices. As of today, we count 27% women in IT at Michelin France, and we're aiming to reach 30% by 2027.
To accelerate, we’ve launched multiple initiatives: inclusive hiring, mentoring programs, awareness campaigns, roundtable with women role models, and gender-focused analytics. We are also actively involved with associations such as BecomTech and their Jump in Tech programs, which aim to share women’s career paths in IT through roundtables and, in doing so, encourage young high school girls to pursue studies in digital and IT.
To continue these initiatives, and especially to better target them, we have decided in 2021 to conduct a quantitative and qualitative study among our IT & Digital population at Michelin France.
That’s where the Gender Diagnosis came in!
Diagnosing Gender Balance: Our Open Approach
The challenge was clear: to go beyond surface-level statistics and uncover the real dynamics shaping gender balance in our IT organization. We wanted to capture not only where the gaps were, but also why they persisted.
We therefore designed a three-step methodology, combining data, stories, and large-scale feedback:
🔍 Step 1 — Quantitative analysis
We started with the facts. Using HR and organizational data, we analyzed hiring pipelines, attrition rates, and job category distribution.
These numbers gave us a first map: where were women underrepresented, and at what stages of their careers? Patterns quickly emerged — for example, a bottleneck at the transition to senior technical expert and management roles.
But why ?
🗣️ Step 2 — Qualitative interviews
Numbers alone cannot explain lived experiences. That’s why we launched a series of interviews, carefully designed to reduce bias and encourage open conversations.
Employees shared their journeys: stories of encouragement and success, but also moments of difficulties, doubts about career prospects, and experiences of unconscious bias. These voices gave depth and real facts to the diagnosis.
We were able to survey all types of employees ; women/men ; those starting their careers at Michelin or those who had been with the company for many years ; young people/seniors ; managers/non-managers ; technical profiles/ functional profiles, etc.
Here are the links to the questionnaire we used to conduct these interviews:
Interview content :
FR : GenderDiversityDiagnosis/InterviewPatternFR.md at main · michelin/GenderDiversityDiagnosis
EN : GenderDiversityDiagnosis/InterviewPatternEN.md at main · michelin/GenderDiversityDiagnosis
📊 Step 3 — Large-scale survey
Finally, we needed to validate and broaden our insights. A detailed survey was sent to all IT & Digital employees in France. The response was strong — 35% participation — and the findings were often complementary of interviews because it confirmed some hypothesis and gathered more informations.
Here are the links to the survey we sent:
Survey content
FR :GenderDiversityDiagnosis/SurveyPatternFR.md at main · michelin/GenderDiversityDiagnosis
EN :GenderDiversityDiagnosis/SurveyPatternEN.md at main · michelin/GenderDiversityDiagnosis
This step-by-step approach gave us what we were looking for: both the hard evidence and the human stories that make the invisible visible.
Key Findings
From this combined analysis, three major insights emerged:
- Career progression bottlenecks
Women were more likely to stagnate at mid-level roles. Data showed fewer women advancing to senior expert or management positions, while interviews revealed a need of sponsorship and encouragement to “dare” applying for higher roles.
- Perception gaps in career opportunities
While 68% of men felt they had visibility on career paths, only 42% of women agreed. This perception gap was consistent across surveys and interviews, highlighting how transparency alone isn’t enough — it must be experienced equally by everyone.
- Unequal access to sponsorship and visibility
Women reported receiving fewer opportunities for informal mentoring, networking, or showcasing their work. This lack of visibility often translated into fewer chances for career acceleration.
👉 These findings were eye-opening. They confirmed that achieving gender balance is not only about recruitment. It is about how careers evolve, how opportunities are distributed, and how people perceive their ability to grow.
By connecting numbers with narratives, we identified clear action levers: structured mentoring, leadership awareness, and programs to ensure visibility and sponsorship are shared more equitably.
Benefits of the Method & Key success factors
Looking back, the real value of this diagnosis was not only in the numbers or even in the findings themselves — it was in the way the process brought people together, sparked conversations, and made invisible issues visible. The method became a catalyst for change because it was more than a study; it was a journey shared across our IT & Digital teams.
If other organizations are considering launching their own gender balance diagnosis, we would strongly encourage them to do so. Not because we believe we have “the recipe,” but because we learned along the way what really makes a difference in turning data into action. For us, five key success factors stood out:
- Dedicated support – Having someone like a Diversity and Inclusion Manager at our side was essential. Her expertise and commitment gave structure to the project and kept us moving forward, and help us to open the right doors.
- Strong sponsorship – Leadership backing ensured that the diagnosis was not seen as a side project, but as a strategic priority worth everyone’s time and attention.
- Creative restitution – Presenting the results in a theatrical format may sound unusual, but it helped bring the findings to life, making them accessible and impactful for a wide audience.
- Timely communication and action – Sharing results quickly and pairing them with concrete next steps built trust and showed that this was more than a diagnostic exercise; it was a commitment to change.
- Ongoing dialogue – Communicating not only the results but also the actions taken afterwards was crucial to maintain momentum and demonstrate accountability. These five ingredients turned a diagnostic process into a collective experience that raised awareness, opened dialogue, and mobilized people across the organization.
Open-Sourcing the Method
We strongly believe that this work should not remain behind closed doors. The challenges we face in tech are shared across industries — and so should the solutions. This is actually a practice that we shared initially internally at Michelin, following feedback from other diversity assessments in other areas such as manufacturing, sales, and R&D.
That’s why we have open-sourced our entire methodology:
👉 GitHub Repository – MichelinIT/GenderDiversityDiagnosis
👉 Devoxx France Talk Replay
Whether you’re an HR leader, a diversity officer, or a tech manager, you can now access our tools, adapt them, and use them to launch your own diagnosis.
What’s Next?
The diagnosis was only the beginning. For us, it is not a one-off project but a continuous cycle: measure, understand, act — and repeat.
Our ambition is simple but powerful: to create an IT environment where everyone, regardless of gender, can thrive, grow, and lead.
Join the Movement
If you’re considering a gender balance diagnosis in your own team, we invite you to use our toolkit, improve it, and share your feedback. Together, we can move from awareness to action — and move forward the tech world, one step at a time.