Nicola: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Women at the Top of Telecoms and Tech, and I am your host. I’m Nicola Buckley. And I work with organizations in telecom and tech. I help them to recruit, retain, and develop women at the top and future talent to close the gender pay gap and to encourage and develop more inclusive employees.

So today I’m gonna be talking about something that I think is incredibly important. That’s how to overcome gender bias in the workplace. So within your organization, how to practical steps that you can look at and take away right now to overcome and start to bridge that gap around the gender bias in the workplace.

So I wanted to start off by just really talking about where we are right now. I talk about this a lot in [00:01:00] podcasts. I’m not gonna overly dwell on that. So kind of why it’s important to tackle gender bias. And then we’re gonna go through 12 super quick tips. I’m not gonna overly spend time on every single one of them, but it’s just to give you an idea of practical steps you can start with right now.

And yeah. So that’s today’s episode. I wanted to start off by just sharing a quote that was from International Women’s Day a couple of years ago that was talking about all balance better, and that was really the balance why gender parity wasn’t just with women to change, why it was so important and why actually it’s a benefit to all organizations to have more gender balance.

So the quote was part of the marketing message around. International Women’s Day a couple of years ago, and one that I found that I really liked, and that is balance is not a woman’s issue, it is a business issue. Gender balance is essential for economies and communities to thrive and for businesses to profit from.

[00:02:00] So this is where looking at gender parity and helping women to move up into those most senior. Isn’t just a nice to have. This is where it becomes a need to have. It becomes a point of competitive advantage. So if you go back and listen to my podcast episode on the benefits of gender equality, that outlines why it is actually really, really important, and it’s not just a nice to have, it’s a point of difference in the market now.

So to support that theme today, I’m gonna look at how to overcome gender bias in the workplace. Since really that’s the key step in achieving balance, but we’re gonna start with some facts about where we are right now and why it’s important to tackle gender bias. So where are we right now with gender bias within organizations?

So obviously gender pay gap is still unfortunately alive and well. And we saw during lockdown, before lockdown, the gender pay gap was around a hundred years. So in [00:03:00] a hundred years, if organizations continue with their same actions, the gender pay gap would be closed. So that actually went back, was during lockdown of the pandemic.

With women having to take time out to support families carrying the invisible load and some actually stepping out the workforce permanently. So that led to the gender pay gap increasing to 136 years. So, We’re looking at four future generations before they experience gender parity. Other stats support that there’s still a need for that gender equality.

So the fact that there’s more CEOs in the top footy, 500 companies called John than there are women. Which kind of blows my mind. And there was a really interesting campaign on LinkedIn that I loved where really key influences changed their name to John to make the point that there are more Johns and CEOs than there are women at the very, very top of those largest companies.

Even [00:04:00] within those 5,500 companies, women tend to be at the top of the smaller organizations. So we do have what we call kind of unicorns, women that are within tech and telecom’s market that are at the very top, but they are few and far between. And what we see are women trapped at what we call the broken rung.

So getting into that first bigger role after management and getting into management initially as well. Some other facts and figures, really just reflecting where we are with gender bias in the workplace. Majority of women from some research, from pure research. The majority of women up to 62% in male dominated workplaces say sexual harassment is a problem in their industry.

I know for me that I had some uncomfortable situations. Where I was inappropriately touched, where very sexist comments were said to me where it was remarked on what clothes I was wearing and just comments about my figure and what I was wearing. So yeah, I’ve certainly experienced that and I know [00:05:00] other women have experienced that with reference being over emotional or to put on your big girl pants or to being asked to take the notes or just get the theme of cup of tea.

So all of those type of things are still going on as well. And in 2017, obviously this will move, have moved on. Now this stat, but the US Equal Op Employment Opportunity Commission reported there were 25,000 claims of sex based discrimination and over 135 million in pay. So there are very tangible cases.

Sex based discrimination. And then the payouts off the back of that for women that are brave and bold enough to speak up for, in 10 women say they’ve experienced gender discrimination at work, again from Pew Research. So, and actually that’s, that’s women that are willing to share, that’s women that have experienced that.

But there will be more women that aren’t willing to talk about it, aren’t willing to be part of any research. Studies have also found that women who promote themselves are seen as violating modesty and are [00:06:00] therefore less horrible. They’re seen. Arrogant. Um, women who negotiate for higher pay is seen as violating passivity, um, and women express an anger is seen as violating warmth.

So there’s this double B bind dilemma for women, or they’re either too soft or they’re too hard, but they’re never just right. So just recorded a podcast episode on that that you can go back and have listened to. Uh, women earn an average 13.8% less than men across key countries in the world and in Australia, 49% of wo uh, mothers experience sex discrimination in the workplace while pregnant on parental leave or returning to work.

That that whole returning to work and having a baby process is a really fundamental one to the experience of women within the work. And just to build on that as well, in the US women of color make a fifth for the country’s population, but only hold 3% of the top executive jobs. So for women of color, within the minority of women, there’s an even bigger gender pay gap there as well.

Keep in [00:07:00] mind, most of these women in the workforce statistics are from countries where. Struggle for gender balance is, is more advanced. There’s more women in the workforce. There’s more women in organizations getting to the very top, and there are still 80 countries in the world which need a husband’s permission to work and 155 countries to have at least one law impending women’s economic.

Opportunities and freedom and being independent. So as you can see, gender bias still very much within the world. It’s still very much within organizations and it has practical effects in limiting women’s careers, but it’s also having an impact now on organizations. So if this is just giving you a nudge that gender bias is something that your organization needs to tackle, I’m now gonna share some really practical things that you can do to start to make a positive change.

And if you feel like you need some help with this, this is a big part of the work that I do, so please do drop me a message. All my contact [00:08:00] details are in the show notes. So how to overcome gender bias in the workplace. So first of all, let’s start at the beginning. So looking at the recruitment process.

This is one area that might be not really noticed. That might be something that’s not necessarily just, it doesn’t just stand out as something that needs changing, but it’s a common area of gender bias. Even if it’s not a conscious discrimination, you may end up giving men an unfair advantage because of things like how you word your job adverse.

What skills are you looking for, the requirements. You specify your interview questions and assessments down to. Are there much more men that are gonna on the interview panel, um, and also hiring from your, your own male dominated network? So, um, I was speaking to a new client recently and she was saying she’d been passed over for promotion and she, it was a job she really wanted, she was really excited about, gave a great [00:09:00] interview, went through hours and hours of different psychological testing and went through the whole interview process and then it was given to.

A friend of the boss that actually she didn’t even realize was interested in the role or knew that had been, She knew everyone else in the process apart from them. So it was almost a bit of the nepotism there of actually boys, a boys’ network and just giving a. Giving the job to someone that you know is just looks so much like you that’s gonna have similar views to you.

So you can start by examining your recruitment process so you can track the gender breakdown of your new hires. You can start doing that now and you can go back and look at the last few years and you can look for just overall numbers, but also the types of roles and seniority so we can split it all out and get a real perspective.

Where are the hires of men and women being made? So women being hired more in junior roles and men in senior management, for example. So there’s some really great ways that you can start to [00:10:00] change your, uh, recruiting and hiring processes as well to be more diverse and inclusive. But we’ll cover that in another podcast episode.

So number one, start by looking at the very beginning. So your recruitment process, even down to looking at the material that you send out, the what you’ve shown on the website. What sort of people, is there a diverse range of people shown on your website? So that’s number one. Number two, conduct regular pay audits.

So the gender pay gap is significant in many countries still, and this is one of the most tangible and just easy to see map. Reflections of gender buyers. So women working hard, doing a great job delivering day in, day out, supporting their teams for taking home less money than men in their pay packets.

This is something that’s come up a lot in my white paper research. Men’s women suspect. And some women know that they’re paid significantly less than people in their team are doing the same job as. So really it’s essential to conduct those regular pay audits in your [00:11:00] business. So what does that actually mean?

It means listing your employees, their bandings, their pay rates, and seeing if there’s a gap between the average pay of women and average pay of men, especially as you get to the top of organizations. But also when. People are initially stepping into organization that very, that more junior level might be early in their career.

So what is the difference there between men and women? Also looking at are men and women going in different areas, in different type of roles? Where are the areas where there’s a concentration of men versus a concentration of women? And if there’s that discrepancy in pay between men and women and all other factors being equal, then that is something you really need to reflect on.

You really need to broach and do something. But start with the audit. Start with finding out where you are. Number three. Um, enable flexible working. So flexible working isn’t just about women, but surveys still show that women [00:12:00] shoulder most of the responsibility for children and household chores. That invisible load that I talk about a lot.

So enforcing that really. Rigid working hours is more difficult to do things like the school pick up and drop off. So it is a subtle, yet incredibly powerful gender bias, and also the lack of support for pregnancy. Parental leave is a more obvious form that really can take women out of the workforce. So, If you want to remove some of that gender bias, then looking at adopting more flexible work arrangements in your business.

So that could be, for example, things like job shares, especially at the top and in more senior levels, and that again, that could be for men and women, just people that don’t necessarily want to work a full working week. That could be remote work and people will come into the office for key days. That could be flexible hours or condensed hours.

That could also be gen generous parental leave, but also shared parental leave. So F and mother get, um, to split their parental [00:13:00] leave. It could be programs to help women returning from a career gap, maybe after having a children. It could be part-time positions, but a very senior level. And there could also be either childcare facilities or childcare benefits.

So flexible work and arrangements don’t just benefit women. They’re actually incredibly popular, um, with all employees. So they will make you stand out on the market. They will make you a go-to employer. And like I said, with hybrid, working now becoming very standard practice, as we’ve proved through the lockdown that it can work and that’s actually more productive.

It becomes a point that you really have to have within your organization. Number four, analyze an equalized promotion opportunity. The glass ceiling is still there. Unfortunately, no signs of cracking just yet. So you’ll see that in the top 500 companies. It’s kind of like the number of women at different levels almost becomes like a pyramid.

So [00:14:00] at the bottom level, total employees across all different levels, 45% are women CEOs, 4.8%, top earners, just 11%. Board seats 21%. So as you move up company, that representation of women is much, much lower. So just really looking at your organization at those different levels and bandings, what is the percentage of women versus men?

So if you have that similar kind of pyramid structure, you can tackle that in two ways. You can create better opportunities for career progression and promotion within the company, and you can also hire more women directly into those senior management roles so that you have those clear role models so that you can address straight away some of that gender imbalance.

So, That’s number four. Number five is lead by example. So this is really encouraging your board to be seen in the [00:15:00] way that you want your culture to be taken seriously. So if um, organizations, employees see women leading the company or in strong positions of power, they’re likely to take that lesson on board in their own roles, they’re likely to open.

Mind to new opportunities to maybe a sideways move to maybe moving into a different area, asking for that pay raise, asking or going for that promotion. And again, this focus, we’re focused on women today, but actually that goes for all, all employees. But if on the other hand you see that all male, middle age, white male leadership team telling them about gender bias, where is example of.

They are an example of that. So they’re not likely to take it as seriously. And actually, if you’re a man or if you’re a woman, could send in your own biases. What is your story that’s playing out? Who do you trust most? Who do you communicate with? Men or women? How do you react to women that maybe are getting upset over an [00:16:00] issue?

How do you act to a man that maybe is getting passionate over an issue? How do you explain things to women? Do you talk over. So really you have a responsibility to tackle your own gender bias and understand your own unconscious bias that might be there. And this isn’t a blame or judgment, This is just inviting you to really look at your own frameworks of how you see the world.

And it’s really with you to understand your own behavior and educate yourself and try to minimize your bias at every opportunity and for companies at the very top to really have more representation. Number six, establish clear company policies. So these company policies can really help women just deal with different chapters of their lives.

So that could be around miscarriage, that could be around menopause, that could be around taking time away and returning to work, but also make sure there’s a process with dealing with any complaints of harassment for [00:17:00] discrimination or for any bias around women that isn’t someone that then, Um, that’s not shared, and that information is confidential because all those accusations should be taken seriously and they should be investigated promptly and thoroughly, but with independence and being transparent and then taking corrective and, and really speedy action off the back of it if anyone breaks that code of conduct.

So you’re setting a framework for all employees for the behaviors that you want to see and the behaviors that you won’t tolerate. And reporting an incident of sexual harassment bias discrimination is, it takes a lot of courage to do that. It can be a very difficult thing to do, especially if it’s someone who is your boss or someone in senior management.

So look at the ways that you can keep things confidential and that you can provide some of protection, but also take action off the back of it and help your employees to feel safe. And c, To report anything, [00:18:00] any of that bias that they experience. And that’s, again, not just for women around gender bias, but that could also be an employee that is, uh, from a different race or background.

So making, creating that safe environment, knowing that there’s a process to report things that gets taken seriously and it get acted on swiftly. And this prompt action number seven is encourage mentoring. Mentoring is incredibly powerful. It can really. Brilliantly powerful connections. It can enable people to share experiences and skills.

Um, it can open eyes to new opportunities. It can really help to develop skills within specific areas, and it can also help to tackle gender bias. So, For example, it’s a great way of equalizing promotion opportunities. So studies have found that people with men are more likely to get promoted, and also that women gain more social capital from affiliation with a high status mentor than men.

So if they [00:19:00] have a support that, if they have someone who can talk them up and share the great things that they’re doing when they’re not in the room. So having an advocate, having someone who is an absolute supporter. And secondly, it can be an effective way of helping employees to work on their own gender biases.

So women can mentor men, men can mentor women, um, and just start to break down some of those barriers and some of those assumptions that you might be making and all that unconscious bias so you have a deeper understanding of the lived experience to someone in a different situation to you. Number eight.

We’ve talked about this already a little bit, but just in relation to individuals, but tackle that unconscious bias. So some men are maybe of a different generation that are just overtly, unapologetically sexist, but a much greater number of people. Both men and women suffer from unconscious bias. So unconscious bias is almost the framework of how you live your life.

It’s how you view the world and there from ideas. Experiences [00:20:00] and voices that we’ve picked up over the years from our family, from our friends, and broader society. So from a brain perspective, then mental shortcuts to help us make informed decisions and quick judgments on a situational scenario. But because it’s built in, it ends up getting reflected in a lot of our judgments of people, and that leads into our, and flows into our behavior.

So in our conscious mind, you might support gender parity, yet you might hold a set of unconscious assumptions that leads you to act in a certain way that undermine. So it’s really down to you, again to understand your own biases, but more and more organizations, I’ve definitely delivered some incredible workshops on unconscious bias where people had huge realizations.

So it’s worth seeing if your organization has any, any training around unconscious bias and how you can be supported. Number nine, use language consciously. So language [00:21:00] is incredibly powerful. It’s how we communicate with the world. It’s how we show up in the world. So even if we don’t display gender bias, there might be elements that are flowing through from unconscious.

The unconscious bias, which just talked about. So you might close a meeting by saying, Thanks guys, or girls, or just it just collective terms that actually not just excluding men or women could also be excluding people of different minorities. So even if you’re doing so much right, that language can be.

Make people feel quite excluded. So just be aware of that when you are talking to other employees, when you’re presenting to clients or writing emails. And just really think about that inclusive language, um, and pronouns. And if you are feeling clumsy, just really educate yourself, support yourself, see if there’s any company training around the, the words to use that are very much more inclusive.

[00:22:00] Number 10 is making sure that gender equality is an absolute priority. So this isn’t gonna happen in one initiative. It’s not gonna happen in one program or one workshop, but just putting together a strategy, sticking to it, delivering on it. And just consistently just showing that gender par is a priority over not just a year, but over years and years.

And communicate that to employees at every opportunity. So with things like talking about your company objectives, what is the gender equality objective report on your progress at company meeting? Update people in newsletters talk about it within Slack channels, um, or whatever communications. So most companies over certain size now need to report on their gender pay gap.

So what is the message that’s coming from there? So just really to just consistently have that dripping tap of how important it. And [00:23:00] finally number 11. So as well as that communicating your commitment to just creating that gender parity, you also need to listen. So you need to spend time with your employees that are understanding what is their lived experience of different minority groups of women, of women of color.

People with, um, who identify of different genders. So what is their lived experience within your organization? Go and ask them. Go and listen without questioning and be willing to make changes based on that feedback and keep up to date with what’s happening elsewhere in your industry and other initiatives from other organizations.

Because like I said, this will become a point of difference. This will become a point of competitive disadvantage if you are not taking action on it. So, Let’s just summarize then, so it’s really about understanding, so staying up to date, listening to your employees, making changes, making the long term commitment.

[00:24:00] Support some employees with, um, things like mentoring, tackling unconscious bias, training your staff, having those very clear company policies leading by example. The payed it so you understand what’s the breakdown in your organization, the flexible work, and we talked about, um, and really looking at that recruitment process.

And like I said, this will become a real point of difference when the top talent are looking to move. So you pick yourself at a competitive disadvantage if you don’t have those initiatives to overcome and tackle the gender bias. For me, I can see I work with some organizations that are doing really incredible work in this area.

So if you want to find out more about how I can help you with this in your organization, please do drop me an email. All my contact details are in the show notes, and I would love to know what you think. I would really like to hear from you and know what’s working in your organization to help overcome gender bias in your [00:25:00] workplace.

Look forward to speaking to you on the next podcast. Thanks so much. Bye.

Hi, it’s Nick here. I just wanna take a moment just to say thank you for listening. When I’m sat recording a podcast in the deepest steps of Cornal, it’s incredible to think that is reaching women across the world in 30 different countries, and we have thousands of downloads a month. So thank you so much for being part of that and being part of the audience means a world to me.

But I do want to grow this audience. I would love you to help me reach more women like you so that we can really drive positive change in the corporate world. So you can do that one of three. First of all, you can subscribe to the podcast. You never miss an episode. It’s always a new episode. It’s always delivered straight to your inbox.

You can review the podcast and leave us of rating. And the more ratings we have, we also go up in the podcast charts. And finally, you can just share a favorite podcast with a peer, with a colleague, or on your social media. So I would love you to [00:26:00] do that. Thank you for all your help. Um, I can’t wait for what’s next.