With women underrepresented in the tech industry, Hackergal is a registered charity that strives to inspire a new wave of Canadian women coders to bring equality to the booming industry. Through a variety of programs, including a hackathon, Hackergal combats the long-held societal beliefs about women’s roles and discrimination in the workplace and inspires girls across Canada to explore the opportunities in code.
Lucy Ho, Founder and Executive Director of Hackergal, heard of The Prosperity Project’s Matching Initiative through her local non-profit leadership group. Identifying the Matching Initiative as a great fit for Hackergal’s mission and vision, Lucy applied to the Initiative and was matched with Erin, an experienced human resources (HR) consultant.
“As the founder of Hackergal, I was trying to implement a strong HR framework while also managing and maintaining our day-to-day operations. Hackergal lacked an HR structure and the associated processes that are beneficial to recruitment, onboarding, and retention, but that’s where Erin came in. Erin used her expertise to identify Hackergal’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as determined what existing processes could stay in place and what could be removed or improved,” said Lucy.
Over the course of a year, Erin and Lucy worked together to create an HR team member handbook. The handbook outlines core processes that directly relate to the culture Lucy wants to establish at Hackergal. With a goal of creating long-term sustainability, Hackergal’s new HR framework is thorough yet flexible and able to support their needs as they continue to grow.
“Although Erin’s previous work experience was for large organizations, she was able to tailor her approach to meet the needs of Hackergal,” explained Lucy. “As a small but growing charity, our HR needs may not be as comprehensive as a large company. We were grateful Erin used her experience to apply new HR frameworks, keeping our size and mission in mind.”
In the past year, Hackergal has grown from a team of five employees to eight, one of which is Erin! Working on a part-time basis, Erin now assists Hackergal in all things HR and has continued developing and implementing the HR framework that Hackergal was looking for when Lucy first applied to the Matching Initiative.
At a time when so many women need access to skills development and employment pathways, the Matching Initiative works to support women-focused charities and bring together communities to support one another.
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