Anna Rafferty Lynam
Graduate Mechanical Design Engineer, Logitech
Kathy Liu
Senior Manager, CP&G Sustainability Engineering, Logitech
Clare Harman
Mechanical Engineer, Logitech
Bringing more women and people from diverse backgrounds into the workplace can help give a company a competitive design edge.
Diversity is valuable for any organisation and within an engineering environment can lead to a more innovative and creative design process. In addition, bringing together people from different gender, ethnic and cultural backgrounds can also influence product range and style.
Creating new opportunities
Diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) are key tenets within computer and gaming specialist Logitech. “DEI is regularly and openly discussed within the company,” explains Clare Harman, who is part of the MX product team, designing advanced keyboards and mice.
“The more diversity you have within a team, the more diverse the ideas and more creative you can become. We are always trying to create new opportunities.”
Embracing diversity can also give organisations a competitive edge.
Claire Harman
Helping employees feel valued
Clare, who has a seven-month-old baby, liaises closely with managers while she works from home and never feels disadvantaged because she has children. “Embracing diversity can also give organisations a competitive edge,” adds Clare, who points to DEI within a workplace as having benefits in terms of recruitment, retention and helping employees feel valued.
Meanwhile, Anna Rafferty Lynam, who is a graduate mechanical engineer in the MX team, says having a diverse team broadens the outlook and offers different perspectives. “Different ethnicities, people of different ages and people with experience, really helps,” she adds. “It is about fresh eyes.”
Changing the culture
Logitech designs and creates products that bring people together through computing, gaming, video, streaming and creating.
Senior manager Kathy Liu explains how the company reaches out to attract more women into the STEM arena.
That includes working with WeConnect to support women-led start-ups in STEM and groups that help young women discover a passion for engineering and coding.
“There is a gap in this area for women. We want to do what we can to change the culture,” adds Kathy, who has been with the company for 17 years and started in China before being promoted to her current management role at the company’s offices in Cork, Ireland.
She believes having more women in engineering helps focus on designing products relevant for women, such as mice that take into account a woman’s smaller hand size.
