--- title: "Why is it so hard for women to get into the boardroom" episode: 14 date: 2020-09-17 guest: "Gillian Jones-Williams" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/14-why-is-it-so-hard-for-women-to-get-into-the-boardroom audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-014/audio.mp3 --- # Why is it so hard for women to get into the boardroom Joanne Lockwood is joined by Gillian Jones-Williams to explore why women continue to be underrepresented in boardrooms, and what needs to change for progress to accelerate. They discuss the structural and cultural barriers that keep leadership teams male-dominated, including bias in perceptions of “gravitas”, expectations around age and readiness, and the experience of being the first (or only) woman in a board environment. Gillian shares what she’s learned from years of coaching senior women, including the extra work many women feel they must do to be heard, taken seriously, and assessed fairly. The conversation also covers career planning and progression, including how organisations can better prepare women for the jump from senior management to board roles, and why “debiased” recruitment alone may not shift outcomes without deliberate action to widen and rebalance candidate pipelines. Alongside this, they touch on workplace realities that can materially affect women’s confidence and performance, such as menopause, stigma around reproductive health, and the unequal pressures many women faced during COVID-era working. Gillian also shares her lockdown project: a diary-style book capturing the day-by-day experience of COVID-19 and the effort to keep a business going, written with the aim of raising money in support of NHS staff and their families. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Passionate woman coaching, championing women's development. - 05:34 — Delaying motherhood, career progression, gender bias in boardrooms. - 07:59 — Emotional intelligence, expertise and diversity in leadership. - 10:13 — Challenge unconscious bias, push for diversity. - 13:58 — Introverts may struggle to be heard at work. - 18:34 — Women face criticism regardless of their appearance. - 22:29 — Menopause impacts women in various workplace ways. - 26:29 — Choose best person, adapt to new world. - 30:13 — Women faced huge responsibility and guilt at home. - 32:00 — Workplace return causing anxiety for women. Uncertainty. - 35:49 — Pandemic disruption may alter women's career goals. - 37:56 — COVID exacerbates career challenges for women. Transitional. - 44:11 — Miscarriage and workplace equality for men and women. - 46:30 — Struggles with fertility and health in workplace. - 51:34 — Supports unbiased recruitment but advocates for positive action. - 55:52 — Company lost business, wrote Covid diary book. - 56:49 — Book raising money for NHS staff memories. - 59:58 — Grateful for listener, please subscribe for more. ## Key takeaways - The imbalance in female applicant shortlists compared to their male counterparts and the inherent biases in recruitment processes. - Designing recruitment and meritocracy systems that prioritise capability and potential over past performance. - The impact of discussing sensitive topics like miscarriage, menopause, and reproductive health on workplace inclusion and mental health. - The role of leadership in shaping inclusive organisational cultures and addressing unconscious biases. - The effects of remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic on women's career progression and visibility in the workplace. - The importance of emotional intelligence and diverse skill sets over technical expertise in boardroom dynamics. - The societal and organisational challenges women face in balancing family responsibilities with career aspirations and the need for flexible working solutions. ## FAQs ### Why is it so hard for women to get into the boardroom? The struggle for women to get into the boardroom stems from various factors, including gender bias, lack of representation, and traditional stereotypes about leadership. Our podcast examines these issues in-depth, including the impact of age-related biases, family responsibilities, and the perception of board members' required expertise. ### How does the podcast address the stigma around discussing women's reproductive health in the workplace? With insights from our guest, Gillian Jones Williams, and host, Joanne Lockwood, we tackle the stigma surrounding women's reproductive health issues in the workplace. We delve into the impact of this stigma on women's mental health, career progression, and overall workplace inclusion. ### What are some challenges women face in male-dominated boardrooms and remote work environments? Our discussion explores the challenges women encounter in male-dominated boardrooms, from facing unconscious bias to managing virtual visibility and childcare responsibilities in remote work settings. These conversations highlight the evolving dynamics for women in the workplace and the need for inclusive, flexible approaches. ### How does the podcast address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's career progression and work-life balance? We address the specific impact of the pandemic on women's career progression, including the challenges of balancing work and family, the anxiety around returning to physical workspaces, and the implications for career planning amidst societal pressures and judgement. ### What insights does the podcast offer regarding menopause, ageism, and beauty bias in the workplace? Our episodes delve into the impact of menopause on women's workplace experiences, addressing ageism, beauty bias, and the changing dynamics of self-care activities in the workplace amidst COVID-19 restrictions. We also discuss the broader implications of these issues on workplace inclusion and equality. ### How does the Inclusion Bites Podcast aim to promote workplace inclusion and belonging? Hosted by Joanne Lockwood, our podcast focuses on interviewing individuals and experts to provide insights into topics related to workplace inclusion and belonging. We aim to foster open discussions and offer practical solutions to promote a more inclusive work environment for everyone. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion Bytes podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation about the subjects of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's seechangehappen.co.uk. You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on iTunes, Spotify and, of course, all the usual other places. So plug in your headphones, grab a deca and let's get going. Today is episode 14 with the title why is it so Hard for Women to get in the boardroom? And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Gllian Jones Williams. I first met Gillian many, many moons ago when I was her business's IT support consultant. That's going back a bit. Gillian describes herself as someone who works with organisations to help them move away from focusing on diversity and truly engaging in creating an inclusive climate. I asked Gillian to describe her superpower and she said her superpower is inspiring people. Welcome to the show, Gillian. How are you? Hello, Joanne. I'm very, very good and thank Gllian Jones Williams: you so much for inviting me. And, yes, I really do hope I inspire people, particularly women. It's a massive passion for me, watching women develop. I've been running my business for 25 years and I've had the privilege over those 25 years of coaching many, many women in senior positions and two senior positions, and I've listened to their challenges, I've tried to help them work with their organisational culture. I've listened to their inner inhibitors and I think I've got to the point where I'm now understanding a bit more about, potentially, why this is such a struggle for women. And just to put some context, before we start talking about it, I saw some figures from a report by Deloitte's last year, which talked about the fact that globally, there was only just about 16.1% of women on boards. And what was even worse about that, that was only a 1.9% increase since 2017. So if we carry on at the rate we're going, it might be 30 years before there's actually gender parity in the boardroom, which is shocking, isn't it? Joanne Lockwood: Completely. And stats. I'm almost appalled at where a lot of companies think it's a great target to aim for 25% women or 30% women. I think surely the target should be 50% or nothing, really, don't you think? Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah. And also I have to wonder whether there is a little bit of sneakiness going on. I'm sure it's not deliberate in nonexec roles as well at the moment, because obviously if you have a non exec on the board, are we reporting that as part of the female makeup of the board? I guess it depends on whether the Joanne Lockwood: nonexec is being paid or if it's a voluntary role. So many non exec roles, expenses only, aren't they? Yes, Gllian Jones Williams: absolutely. Joanne Lockwood: Do you think it's a man problem or a woman problem? Do you think that men are making it hard or do you think that women are being turned off by those roles because they just don't want to get engaged in that kind of work? Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah, I think it's both. And I think both of them need to be tackled. I still think that there does exist a lot of prejudice about the fact that women cannot take on that role wholeheartedly immerse themselves in the responsibility and the workload of a board member, particularly if they have family to look after. So I think that there is some unconscious bias going on there and I think there's some conscious bias going on there. But I also think it's to do with two things for women. One is how they feel, and we hear a lot about impostor syndrome and things like that at the moment, but also about how well organisations are prepared to set up a progression, plan a career path and really prepare them, because the step up from senior manager to board member is a very, very big and different one. And there's a lot of preparation that I think needs to take place. Joanne Lockwood: For me, I see a lot of women in their late twenty s to mid 30s, quite rightly wanted to take time out for their family, and that is lost time, because that's the peak part of your business growth, your professional development, isn't it? And that's where you establish your credentials. And quite rightly, women are establishing their credentials as a great parent. And why does it have to be a choice made? Absolutely. And I think that's Gllian Jones Williams: very outdated, isn't it, when people think it has to be either or. And of course, there's another issue nowadays is that often women are leaving it until they're 40, so maybe they're establishing more of their career. I mean, when I had my children, I was 30 when I had my first child, and I remember the midwife sprinkling my notes with Prima gravido, which meant elderly first mother, and of course, nowadays that's sort of almost the norm, and then going up to 40. And so women are getting a good chunk of experience and work done before that age and then maybe going off to have their families and coming back very quickly. But perhaps one of the issues about that is that people don't perceive that you're ready to be on a board until you're in your 40s. They want people to be older, and maybe that's coinciding with family time. So if they're thinking, no, 30, 35, still a bit young, can't have you, you won't be able to stand up to some of the larger, more dominant male counterparts. And then when you're older and having children, that again makes you worry, well, can you take on a big role when you've just had young children as well? So there's lots of, I think, views about when is the right time, the right age, and why can't a woman in her early thirty s be on a board. Joanne Lockwood: For sure? Absolutely. I often see that across genders where there's this perception that you have to be of a certain age. Did anyone tell Mark Zuckerberg he couldn't have found a multibillion dollar company at the age of 1816 or whatever? He did. And we look at a lot of these startups in tech. These were formed by young people in their teens and early 20s. No one told them they couldn't be a director at that age. So why do you have to have time served often? Maybe you become entrenched in your views. Maybe people have this bias to perceive. You must have done 30, 40 years with an accountancy or legal background to be a good board director. Yeah, it's not true, really, is it? Not true at all. And I think Gllian Jones Williams: one of the other things that they're missing is a bit like, as you go up a leadership ladder as well, is that it's not necessarily about your technical expertise. That is what's going to make the difference on the board. It's more about your emotional intelligence, your ability to lead, your ability to galvanise people into action, have charisma, vision. And women do bring a huge amount to the boardroom in terms of their negotiating skills, in terms of their financial acumen. Maybe that comes from years of budgeting, I don't know, and their emotional intelligence in terms of bringing a balance to a board. And I'm going to talk quite frankly, Joanne, I have worked over the last 25 years, as you can imagine, with a huge amount of all male boards and it's quite a tough environment to be in because they tend to set themselves into quite a club there that it's almost very, very difficult for new people to come in and feel comfortable with as well. It's different nowadays, but certainly 25 years ago, you can imagine the stats were very, very different too. Joanne Lockwood: And I think the makeup of the board sets the tone for the organisation, doesn't it? So if the board is all male, it's setting the tone for the organisation. Therefore, when women join in the junior ranks, they're already in a world that is male dominated, they're already in a world that is designed by men, for men. So the flexibility, as you say, the EQ, a lot of that stuff isn't pervasive in the organisations at the junior level either, is it? So we're designing this. Why don't women succeed? Because they're not committed. Well, they're not committed in a male dominated world. They're committed in the business world, they can deliver, they can work, as we know, but they don't want to be men, they want to be women. And that's what men want men to be. Men. They don't want women to be women sometimes. Is that part of the problem? I do think it Gllian Jones Williams: is, and I think that the wider sort of diversity angle here, starting to lose some of their shackles about our unconscious bias and our view of how a person should be and what a person should look like. I mean, if I asked everybody to close their eyes and imagine a board of directors, they probably would struggle to push the women in there in their visualisation because of so many years of programming them. And that's not to criticise people for it, that's how it always was and for a lot of people being brought up that way. And maybe what needs to happen is for ambitious women who believe that they could be a board member and want to be a board member before they accept a job, they should really examine the makeup of that board at the time, even if it might be ten years away from where they're going now, and they might need to do that. They should perhaps ask that and say, could you tell me what your board is made up of and how diverse it is? What are your targets? Joanne Lockwood: What are you looking, how are you looking to change that? How are you going to evolve that? Do you think it's good enough as it is and maybe ask them if they're happy with it? I guess those are questions, aren't they? Yeah. Gllian Jones Williams: Yes. It must be tough Joanne Lockwood: being a woman going into a boardroom maybe newly appointed and you're the only woman. That must be really daunting. Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah. You'd have to have a certain set of Joanne Lockwood: resilience within you to be able to cope with that environment, wouldn't you? Is that some of the challenge of getting the second woman onto the board? Because the first woman has to be comfortable in that environment? Or maybe it's just not that easy getting the first woman on the board, let alone the second, 3rd or fourth, or even trying to get the mix of 50 50. There must be a real challenge. It is a real challenge and I think for the Gllian Jones Williams: first woman on a boarD, that can be really, really hard for them. And I think this is where impostor syndrome really does tend to kick in. I have heard stories still of, even at port level, them being asked to get the coffee or are they going to take the minutes in this meeting? And when you are surrounded by powerful male counterparts, finding it quite difficult to stand up and just say, actually, I think that John could take the minutes or Mohammed can take the minutes or something like that. So I think you're absolutely right. The first woman on the board has to be very resilient, has to really be able to get their voice heard, has to be able to have that gravitas to be accepted. And of course, I'm lucky. I'm very, very tall. I've always been quite a big bird, if you like, and so therefore I can make my presence felt just by being in a room. But for those lucky women who have petite figures or are more quietly spoken and things like that, then they've got a double challenge, haven't they, now? Joanne Lockwood: Because, yeah, we talk about bias again, the tone of voice, the power in your voice, your stature, all those things add credibility to your authority, don't they? And if you say, if you are a woman who has a softer voice, more considerate in the way you speak and a slighter frame, you're not seeing it as an alpha. And that's what people are looking for on boards, aren't they? Yeah. And particularly Gllian Jones Williams: then, if you add to that, if they have quite an introverted character and they prefer to listen and make very good, succinct summaries of things as opposed to us extroverts who will just waffle on about anything all the time, that perception might then be that they're not adding as much value to those people who are talking significantly. So you're absolutely right. That's one of the things that I coach women quite a lot on, is that projection and voice, how they should look when they're trying to get their point heard, what to do if they get cut off by people, or if other people seem to pick up their ideas and go, yes, that's brilliant. Even though two minutes ago they hadn't really taken any notice of their idea. And it's all stuff which really they shouldn't have to worry about, having earned that place on the board. Everybody on a board, male or female, should be accepted for what they bring to the table and who they are, introverted, extroverted, et cetera. But I do think that women have to work extra hard to be able to get that hearing and get noticed, or people just form a perception of them. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I suppose I come from the view that, rightly or wrongly, that one of the key attributes of a board member is gravitational presence. And there are many women who don't necessarily have that gravitas and presence, but have the capability. And we're judging people on that gravitas and presence rather than their insights, as you say, their EQ, their decision making criteria, their ability to teamwork, their ability to represent the voice of half the population, for example. We don't value those attributes, but we do value this bear pit type machoism of being a fight, your voice. And that's what we're valuing more than those softer skills, aren't we? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was a really interesting thing you Gllian Jones Williams: said about gravitas. I've coached many, many women and when we start the sessions, they say, my boss has said that coaching would be useful for me because I need to be more assertive and I need to have more gravitas. And I talk to them for a while and I think, actually you appear to have a good level of gravitas and assertion. So I'm struggling here to see the perspective from your boss. And then I say, or is it that your boss has interpreted assertion for aggression and therefore they want you to be more like them? And they think about it, and most times they say, yeah, thinking about it, because they're very shouty bang the table. And that's not how I get things done. So the perception might be that gravitas equals verging onto the aggression. And I've worked with some boards, I remember one very, very clearly, and I think that they get habitualized into their own behaviour and then it's very hard for them to take an outside look in. And I remember once I was running a team day, the next day and I had dinner with this board and the HR director, who was a fairly quietly spoken person, and it was so full on and the challenges were coming, even though I just joined very quickly, what's your background? What do you do all over the place? And even as quite a strong character, I thought, whoa, this is tough. And I said to the HR person, are they always like this? And she went, what? What do you mean? And I think they were so habitualized to the way they spoke to each other and the level of noise, they couldn't see what it felt like for other people coming in, kind of this. Joanne Lockwood: Bombastic banter sort of thing. Do you think beauty bias disproportionately affects women? Do you think that women are more successful the more attractive or the more feminine they are, but they're not valued for that femininity. They're successful. Men want women to be attractive, but they don't want women to be attractive and bossy, if you like. It's kind of that double edged sword, isn't it? Gllian Jones Williams: It really is truly a paradox, I think, when you look at diversity, and of course, the fact that women already stand out by virtue of being a woman and then can get criticised for that look. And really, it's hard for them either way, because if they try and behave femininely, then people will accuse them of being too much that way, or trying to use their feminine charms to do things, or if they go the other way and try and wear suits and look very, very masculine, that doesn't work either. And for me, I think it's so important that any woman who is considering being on a board there is authentic. I think it's quite possible to be feminine and still have gravitas and still be there, and they've got to be who they truly are, because it's a hard enough job being a board member without having to try and pretend to be something that's not really you, isn't it? But I Joanne Lockwood: just think a man, say, who is a little bit rotund with a shirt that doesn't quite button up on the belly, a collar that's strangling them, red rosy cheeks with lots of hair coming up their nose and ears and big bushy eyebrows, is seen as a jolly good chap and lots of life experience. Whereas if a woman wasn't kept and presenting in a very attractive way, that would be very negative. But to a man being a bit unkempt, a bit, a bit kind of not that desirable, if you like, it's not a problem. Men aren't judged on their beauty, are they? They're judged on their gravitas only. Gllian Jones Williams: Yes. And certainly, if I think back over the years, how many slightly scruffy women with a tattoo, certainly with no hair growing out their nose. But have I seen in the boardroom, and I must admit, when I look at the board members that I've coached and worked with, they have generally been very well presented, and I suspect that's because they felt that they needed to be to do that. And actually, I'm thinking of a couple of occasions where I've coached people and their bosses have told them, or even me, that they needed to think about their dress sense and the way that they dressed. And those bosses have been women as well, which has been quite shocking. Who said they need to change the way they dress or maybe even dress more femininely? So it's not always the men that cause women to change their appearance, for sure. To be fair to men, though, if you look at some of Joanne Lockwood: the very visible public male leaders, most of them are, well, they understand their own personal brand, the value of looking smart, and their appearance does matter. So I guess men are starting to do that. Maybe not our current prime minister, that. Was just going through my mind when you said that. Gllian Jones Williams: But then if you look at Rishi Sunak, you would say, absolutely. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. So men do understand about the necessity for personal brand being groomed. So I think we're probably evening up the challenge now in the boardroom that both genders need to have this professional brand image, be ready to be on camera anytime sort of thing. So I kind of think it's only fair. We're talking just before we got online about one of the challenges women in their 50s face, which is, as we talked about, the M word, and that is right at the time where women are looking to be successful in the boardroom, in the senior part of their career, and menopause is right in the middle of their life. How do you help women with that? Well, there is so much help that I Gllian Jones Williams: think women need with the menopause, and the first one is to be able to talk about it, because it's only really been in the last five years that that word has been allowed to be banded around. Before that, it was a real taboo. And I think for that reason, a lot of younger women even didn't really know what that was all about unless their mothers had told them. But it affects women massively in the workplace. And just a few things which could impact, particularly in the boardroom, is the lack of sleep. That might be because of night sweats and things like that, the losing the mind, the emotional fog that comes from lack of sleep and almost the hormones changing, the lack of self esteem, which comes throughout that period for many, many women. And because for everyone, it's different. And then you've got other physical symptoms as well, which can make it very, very difficult for them to feel comfortable in the workplace. And certainly it's something that I think all managers need to be prepared to talk to their women when they get to that age or they're having things. And let's say when we say that age as well. Actually, although 51 might be the average age for women, often it can start anytime. From age 36 onwards, women can become perimenopausal. So there's a lot of things that can happen, and that could be one of the reasons why they perhaps don't feel as motivated. If they're tired all the time, they're drained, they're beginning to worry that they're forgetting things, they're having these hot flushes, they're embarrassed about it. So that really could impact upon, I think, going into the boardroom. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And as you're saying, there's still this stigma about being in your menopause. It's been a loss of fertility, a loss of womanhood, a loss of all these things. And coupled with the hormonal changes and psychological changes and the physical changes is a whole sense of loss of well being, loss of self, isn't there? You feel like you've lost your best years. Gllian Jones Williams: And there's the other thing. And this goes for men and women as well, in terms of ageism. And at what age should we start saying, well, they're 55 now, so maybe not recruit them into boardroom, need younger blood, or this, that and the other. And coming from a woman of a certain age here, and I think to myself, I'm still the managing director of my own business. I still drive it, I still come up with ideas every day. I'm not planning to retire in the next few years. So why do we have to think about age when we're looking at that? It could be any age from a younger woman to somebody still in their 60s, who's got a lot of value to add. Joanne Lockwood: I think also now we're in this kind of COVID coexistence of a world. The requirement to move, travel, meet, fly, commute everywhere is different. And there are roles that people can perform now more adequately, whatever age they are. So ageism, I think, should be less of a factor. But are there enough? The conversely, we're in a world where there's less jobs, less roles around. So we've got the younger generation emerging, trying to get into the workplace. We've got older generation who have maybe been made redundant from what they were doing. There's a whole load of generations now looking for work. And who does the employer look to? The voice of experience and age or the youthfulness of growth or blend? Both can be a tough choice for them. It is a tough choice and I Gllian Jones Williams: would hope that they would go for the best person for the job. And actually that's one of the responses that I gave to somebody recently. I was doing a women's presentation and one of the questions at the end was, how do you deal with a man who says, I bet they will employ you because you're a woman? When I go for a promotion. And that was the answer I said, is to just look them squarely in the eyes and say, I'm sure that they will choose the best person for the job. But I think you're so right in thinking about the new world and COVID and what this means to everybody, really, but particularly women, because if you think about it, the reasons why women were never promoted, such as ability to travel overseas, well, as you rightly said, well, that doesn't really count anymore. We're not going there. Not accepted in certain cultures. Well, that might have been if you're in the same room, but we're not necessarily in the same room now needing to work flexibly, be at home. Well, now working from home can be seen as a productivity enhancer. And we're really going to start challenging people in the future who say, you can't work from home now that we've had to work from home from five months. So a lot of these reasons are being kind of knocked out of the ballpark. And for me, I've been wondering lately I've been working on something which I call virtual visibility, levelling the playing field, because is this going to be the catalyst that now affords women more opportunities or is this going to remove some of the leg up that they were beginning to get? Because now that we're all remote and maybe we can't go to the pub on a Friday night, which if you have children you couldn't do before. Well, you can go to the pub on a Friday night now and bring your children virtually, can't you? Sure. Joanne Lockwood: And bring your children into the conference call at six in the evening if you have to, because of time zones, you have to have an evening conference call. You could do that now, it's not a problem. Everything has Gllian Jones Williams: changed now and I think whatever happens in the next six months to 18 months, working from home and flexible working is going to be a massive topic for everybody to think about and how much this happens. But with it brings another challenge for women, because if they really, really want to get noticed, to be pushed up the ladder, they have got to look at this virtual visibility now, because it's so easy to get lost in a screen of 20 people. Even more difficult sometimes to get a good hearing than if you were physically in the room. So if they work at it and have a good strategy for it and accept that they need to be more visible and do more networking, as I said, it could be that the playing field is being levelled a bit. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: I hear that. I also hear that lots of studies are now showing that women have also been disproportionately impacted by working from their home environment in terms of childcare, responsibility, care and responsibility, home admin, working in multigenerational homes with elderly parents, maybe, or even working in homes where they're of a certain faith, where culturally women's roles are different. So it's not all sweetness and light for women at home, is it? No. And I think that's the difference between the Gllian Jones Williams: COVID world and the returning to the workplace phase, because whilst women were working from home during COVID they still had a massive responsibility. Even if I think their partners were helping out with homeschooling and things like that, I think so much of it fell to them. And if you've got a four year old who's clinging on the door screaming, but I want Mummy, and I want Mummy, it can be really hard. And the feeling of guilt for women. I've done a lot of webinars during this period to help people cope with relationships at home and staying motivated while working at home. And guilt was one of the things that they brought up a lot in terms of trying to look after the children, be there, obviously not being able to go to school and do their work at the same time. So I think this period has been tremendously challenging. However, they must make sure that when the children do go back to school, when they don't have to do this anymore, that they can really maximise the benefits and get that visibility up again. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. And I'd like to think that women would have also required even more life skills as a result of it. Another string to their bow in terms of multitasking. Yeah, they have. It's power up, isn't it, yes, for sure. But, yeah. The women you speak to more anxious about going back to a physical workplace, or do you not think that's gender specific? Everyone's kind of got a bit of anxiety about going back on the train or back into the workplace. Yeah, I think people Gllian Jones Williams: of both genders are anxious about it, but certainly for women, and it's a really difficult one at the moment because if your boss wants you to go back to the workplace, as many of them do, but your children aren't at school, there aren't so many school clubs open. It's more difficult to get childcare. We don't know if we're suddenly going to have another mini lockdown or a major lockdown or anything like this. And I think the uncertainty causes a lot of anxiety. And what that does is it means that people just kind of focus on what they have to, I. E. The work, and maybe thinking about their career and what they need to be doing to promote themselves is something that has been put on hold over this period. For a lot of women, I think they've simply been just getting by and getting through the day because it has been so busy for them. For women who don't have children, it might have been very different. It might have been much more of a time to think. Actually, I can stop and reflect and I can perhaps do some more self development. So I think there's very, very different experiences, but certainly a lot of anxiety. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've seen that. People I speak to, they're kind of comfy now. It was a big shock to have to pull up your dining room chair and work from home, but now people are kind of used to it and settled in, aren't they? I suppose as a human species, we kind of get used to our status quo. And it's been long enough now where we've got a new status quo, where we're now comfortable, and then to go back onto the train, back into the office, it's like, oh, that's different again. It's maybe like being out of work for six months when you go back, it's a real culture shock to your system again, isn't it? Trying to get back into the rhythm. We've gone back to the office this week. Gllian Jones Williams: We went back yesterday, but on the proviso that nobody has to go back. We've gone back because we wanted to and we're lucky enough to have separate offices in a big space. And so everything is in place for us. So we're very safe there and we all drive to work but my team certainly wanted to go back, and I wanted to go back sometimes, but on other days, like today, when I'm doing calls all day, then there's no point in me driving to the office just to sit and do that. I'm not going to interact with anybody. So I think we have to take a much more common sense approach to it and allow people to choose. Joanne Lockwood: I think you're right, and I think it will certainly unlock the can do of flexible and non rigid working practises. And I think that's going to be the good thing that comes out of this. I still do see a lot of companies almost like focusing on the fact they're going to get back into the office, they're going to bring everyone back into this big, expensive office they've got, or this big asset without necessarily considering the feelings of the individuals. Because the office won't be the same, will it? We know that you've got hand sanitizers on every desk everywhere, signs everywhere, stickers on the carpet. You're having to wipe down things. So this place that was friendly and warm and safe, you go back there. It's now this really unfriendly, dehumanising kind of environment. I went to the cinema the other week and it put me off going back because it's so not the experience I wanted. I went to have my hair done and it wasn't enjoyable having my hair done. It put me off going for my nails. So all these things that I used to do because I enjoyed the experience have gone, we can't enjoy that experience anymore. And it's so different, so true. And I think that Gllian Jones Williams: this is going to be something that women really have to think about because it's going to interfere into their thought process. Everything that they always knew in terms of I'm working hard at this role, I'm getting my visibility up, I'm getting on good projects, I'm hoping that they're seeing me as a progression, as a successor and I'm going to progress that they're hoping that all of this is going to happen. And then suddenly you have a five month interruption, which takes a lot of that away. And then, as you said, when they do go back, if they go back, or if they partially go back, the experience is so different, it might start challenging them about, is this what I really want and does this still work for me? And I think it's always right to be challenged and to think about it because the experience of having to home school and look after children for four or five months and be there could make women feel one way or the other, they might have absolutely loved it and thought, I'm really missing doing this and this is so great. Or they could just be thinking, I really want to spend more time back in the office. And I have had some women who say, I cannot wait for my nursery to open. I need it. I really do need it. And that is the whole point, I think, for women as well, is never being judged because some people have views that you can't get it right. If you work, you're not a good mother, and if you don't work, then you're no good technically or intellectually or something like this. And so it's something which I think we battle with through the whole of our life. I've got two children and we battle with it the whole of our lives. Is certainly when children are very, very young, is never feeling like we're doing a good job. I'm not being a good wife or partner. I'm not being a good worker. I'm not being a good mother because I can't pay attention to these things. And that will have been exacerbated during COVID So I think that women do need to take time to regroup. Remember that it was a unique experience that they had. And think about what lessons do they want to learn and what does that mean for them in their career. There's one other thing I've been thinking about, Joanne, as you talked about why women don't progress so well. And I think it's because you tend to have a bit of a bell curve here, where you have maybe 20% of women who have always wanted children are very home caring. They know that they'll want to stay at home or just get a simple job, which means that they can spend lots of time with their family and they're not being overly pushed at work. And then you get about 20% who either never want children or sadly, may not be able to have children. But then in the middle, there's the 60% who are transitional and they may or may not want children. And what sometimes happens is they coast, not deliberately, but they might be 25, 26, 27, just got married and they think, okay, probably I want to have children in two years. So I won't worry too much about the fact that I'm not getting promoted because when the child goes to school, I will. And the problem is that they don't make their career plans. And managers are really, really bad about sitting down and having conversations with women which allow them to talk about where children feature, because we've made it so PC in the offices now, they're afraid to say, do children feature in your plans? And how can we still develop you around it? Yeah, I Joanne Lockwood: agree, because the reaction could be, how dare you ask me about children? It's none of your business. Rather seeing as a positive way of showing an interest and a genuine manager or leader helping you develop your career. And you're right, there is a lot of fear by men of asking the wrong questions or things seem to be inappropriate. There's a lot of fear there. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, understandably so. I mean, the Gllian Jones Williams: PC police have got them on high alert all the time. So I think it needs to come from two ways. I think it needs to be that women are encouraged, and there are very few women who go to their bosses with a fully formed career plan. A lot of men do, but not many women. So women need to be encouraged to write that maybe 510 year plan and think about, what do I need to go and ask my manager for now and to feel comfortable in saying to them, of course, at some point in the next five years, I might want her to have children, because none of us know if, when, et cetera. However, I do want to progress to senior management, and therefore I want the development and to be able to have that conversation, because if a woman brings it up, then it feels better for the manager to speak about it. And then they couldn't be accused of discriminating. If a woman says, look, I think I want to go and have a baby in the next couple of years, but then I will want to come back and I will want to progress, then the manager can talk to them and say, what they can't do, obviously, is to start planning and discriminating or excluding them because they know that that's what's on their mind. And I think basically any manager who has a woman working for him who is between the ages of 20 and 50 has to expect that they may at some point want to have a baby or have a baby, maybe not near the 50s. I've worked in places where Joanne Lockwood: when a woman in her late 20s got engaged, suddenly all the men in the office started a sweepstake on when they would have a baby and leave. Right. So it's like this is real kind of expectation that engagement is a signal for, we got three years now and then should be gone sort of kind of attitude. And that could be career limiting as well, can't it? People prejudging somebody and sexually discriminating Gllian Jones Williams: if you're listening to this and you're doing a sweet state that needs to go in the bin. It does, obviously. Yeah, you're absolutely right. All sorts of things like that happen. And I think for women, it's a very, very frustrating thing anyway, that people start asking them all the time, isn't it? Because you don't know whether they've got a condition which means that they can't have children, whether they just really don't want to, but feel embarrassed because they feel they should say, oh, yes, I want one. It's a very delicate situation for people to say, when are you going to have children? So it's something to be avoided at all costs. I think. I've got a good friend who got Joanne Lockwood: engaged purely because she was sick and tired of people asking her when she was going to get married. So she'd been with her partner for, I don't know, 20 od years, and there was just this expectation, when's the wedding? When are you getting married? They had this engagement of comedians, basically, so she could sort of say, look, we're engaged right now, shut up, sort of thing. It was almost like this way of stopping people asking her what she was doing, whether she was single, was she settling down? Yes. And it can be really frustrating, can't it? I guess women have their own clock and they have their own family needs. Maybe it's often easier for women to sort of say to other women, well, I'm maternal, why aren't you maternal? It's almost like sharing that kind of. That common thought process and that, as you say, can be quite ill judged where someone doesn't want to have a family or worse, or they can't have a family for various reasons, they may. Have just Gllian Jones Williams: had a miscarriage and not told anybody about it. So, yes, I think it's a subject that needs to be approached with care, but I think, again, a bit like the menopause, it's another subject which we should be able to just be much more open with at work in terms of discussing it, and it shouldn't be something which is a concern. And if you think about it in terms of discrimination, like this story that you've just told, nobody would go up to a man in the workplace and say, oh, so you got a girlfriend, when are you going to get engaged? And likewise, if a man had just got married, they wouldn't go and say to him, so when are you going to have a baby? It's something which, if we want equality and things like that, and I do a lot of work on inclusivity and conscious inclusion, things like that. And what I don't ever want is for workplaces to become so sterile that people can't say anything at all. But judging and taking clues from other people about things is really, really important. But it is about this same approach to men and women. So the career plan thing should be equal? Very much, I think. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: I've just made some notes here as we're talking, and one of the phrases that keeps popping in the DNI space is bringing your whole self to work. We always talk about this, bring your whole self to work and being one true self, being authentic and all this. And often that's angled at sexual orientation or gender identity, about being express your sexuality. But actually it's a whole lot deeper than that. When we talk, we're talking just now, we think about mental health. We think about the whole child process, menopause, conception, IVF, miscarriage. The whole reproductive cycle of the human race is one of those things that can impact not just a woman's mental health, but often a woman's mental health at various stages in her career. And she doesn't feel able to bring her whole self to work and talk about this. That's one of the challenges, isn't it? It's so stigmatised. Women talk about women's needs. Yeah, it's such a good point. Gllian Jones Williams: If somebody has got polycystic ovaries or something like that, it's not something that they're going to bring up over lunch in a mixed group or something like that, but that could potentially be on their mind all the time or thinking about things. And I think from my experience of talking to women, if they feel that the time is right for a baby and they're trying for a baby and it's not happening for them, that becomes all consuming as well. Yes. And it's very difficult. It's not something that they want to go and talk about in mixed groups. It might be, they might confide in someone. So I think you're right, Joan, as we're starting to delve deeper and deeper into why don't women get in the boardroom? There's a lot of things that perhaps men would never be thinking about that would get in the way. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: And it still held a stigma and shame, and men are uncomfortable talking about women's issues. That ends up pushing and submerging into impact people's mental health where people don't, can't talk about it, and it's a sign of weakness. If you had a situation in your life that's in a sign of weakness. And despite the fact that most men will have wives, daughters, sisters, all having their own challenges that they should be fairly understanding, but often they're not, are they? Victorian men talk about men things men don't want to talk about women's things. The old way of men weren't allowed to go to the birth because it's far too. It's not something that men. To get involved for them. Gllian Jones Williams: Let's face it, I don't think I've ever, ever heard a conversation from a man who has come into work and talked to a colleague about his low sperm count. Maybe they do golf or something like that, but it's not something necessarily. That would be a matter of conversation, would it? No. Even having a Joanne Lockwood: vasectomy isn't a dinner table conversation for men. It's kind of like that you have as well. I didn't realise you've had. It's one of those sort of hidden secrets that people don't tend to talk about. But, yeah, I guess it's to stop. Men just don't talk about those kind of personal issues in the same way, which is supposed to be known. Male suicide is high as well for men can't talk about their own feelings. But, yeah, both genders have their own needs and their own mental health concerns, which we should be encouraging people to talk about and bring the whole stuff to work. Gllian Jones Williams: Yeah, absolutely. From everybody. So we talk about getting women Joanne Lockwood: to the boardroom. Yes, we were Gllian Jones Williams: on a medical show there for a minute. No, but Joanne Lockwood: this is all part of the challenges. Yes. That we talk about these obstacles when we talk about male privilege. It's not that men put these obstacles in Women's way, it's the fact these obstacles are in women's way. And how can men help women amplify women and boost women so these obstacles don't become limiting and this is the challenge we face, isn't it? So I see some organisations who are focused on mentoring schemes and acceleration programmes, then I hear pushback from men say, well, that's not fair. Why are women getting all this amplification and I'm not? Don't I deserve it? What do you say to that? Well, we get this all the time Gllian Jones Williams: because we have a women's development programme called RIse. Now I'd like to make that very clear. It's not a women's leadership programme, although we might talk about a leadership style on one of the modules, because I don't believe that women should be put on women's leadership programmes. I think they should go on leadership programmes with men, but because of everything that we've talked about today, this is why women need to have a programme on their own and certainly in other organisations where we've had that pushback from men. So, great, let's do a men's programme. So let's look at what content they need and we'll have a men's programme. And we did, we separated them and did it, and that's absolutely fine if they want it for the right reasons. If it's not malicious obedience, you've got one. So I want one. But if there's a genuine need there, yeah, go for it. But don't just knock the fact that women have got one. Think about why do you want one? Because everything that we've talked about, I think, demonstrates the amount of tears and emotions that we've had on programmes where we've talked about how domestic abuse has affected their ability to assert themselves, how they're being bullied in the workplace. Not suggesting that men don't get that, but it might affect a woman differently about childcare, about hormones and other things which are affecting their work and all sorts of things like that. So that's what I say to that, Joanne, I'm very, very strong about it. Yes, completely Joanne Lockwood: agree. Completely agree. The other thing I was interested to get your opinion on is I work a lot with talent acquisition and recruiting teams and a lot of vendors who are promoting these unbiased recruitment processes. And I say that's fantastic, aspirational. Love the idea of giving everybody a fair chance. But how do we level the playing field? If we already had a level playing field, then debiasing the future is fantastic. But when we're sitting at 70% men, 30% women, whatever the stats are, if we hire in an unbiased way, that will never change because we're hiring at a fair proportion, we've actually got to put some positive action in there. How does your unbiased recruitment process allow for positive action? How do you get more women into your funnel to guarantee you're going to get more women out of the funnel and then retain those women so that they could progress? And they go, they look at me like I'm crazy and say, well, isn't the objective to get the thing fair? I said, well, yes, it is, but we've actually got 1000 years worth of correction we got to do first, how do we now target underrepresented communities in terms of ethnicity, in terms of gender, in terms of faith and that was the challenge. I would say, you're so right. And I've got a really Gllian Jones Williams: good example of that. Last year, an HR director was telling me they just appointed their new CEO and he was delighted to tell me it was a female. But they needed to have 80% more female applicants to end up with an equal short list of men and women. So that's often what needs to happen. Joanne Lockwood: Debias recruitment process doesn't help you in that. It's a nirvana. It doesn't change the world. And I keep challenging people and they look at me like I'm going crazy, saying, isn't this ideal? Yeah, well, it is a great ideal, but how do we fix the problem first? How do we do action? Gllian Jones Williams: Right up until, I think the shortlist stage where then, if you've given all those opportunities, it has to be the right person for the job. And that's the important thing. Don't get me started on meritocracy. Joanne Lockwood: Who designs the meritocracy? It's often the incumbent or it's often the social construct of the environment you're in. And when are we going to start designing meritocracy around other skills? We're going to need another hour. When people say, we always hire the best person for the job. And I always say, in whose opinion? And it's like, what do you mean in my opinion? Well, who says your opinion counts? So we judge women or we judge people of a minority characteristic against a majority rule set. And yes, meritocracy. But let's examine the meritocracy and make sure that we've got our process and our JD and our expectations of the role right before we judge people against, oh, Fred left, we need another Fred. Or we've got a Fred shaped hole. And that's often what we do. We don't hire for capability, we don't hire for flexibility, we don't hire for adaptability, we hire for time served proof, evidence of what you did in the past. And as every share dealer knows, past performance doesn't guarantee future investment returns. Absolutely. Just because somebody's performed well in another company doesn't mean so they're going to perform well. So I could have a whole rant about meritocracy, as I just have, and I think it's meritocracy and deBiase. Immigrant process is stacked against change. Yes, it's going to propagate the Social Security and I would challenge any organisation listening to this is to answer that question, how are you doing this? I saw a talk by someone from Schneider Electric and the way they're targeting their campaign and the hiring process to be really proactive in terms of hiring women. And they're doing some amazing stuff. And I think if you're an organisation out there looking to change the way you work in terms of hiring women, look at Schneider Electric, they've done some fantastic stuff. But anyway, we're coming to the end of our hour together and we haven't talked about your lockdown project, which is this book you've written. Tell me about that. Oh, well, when I knew Gllian Jones Williams: I was going to have to lock down and I needed to find a way to become sane, I have to be honest, because we're a face to face training company, we literally lost all of our business, as many did overnight. And it was a terrifying time after 25 years. So I started to write a book on Covid. It was a diary, and it was a daily diary of what it felt like for me to be locked down and my family and how to save a business. And you'll have to read the book to find out whether it's successful or not, or just see whether we're still around. And every night, I wrote during the Prime Minister's briefings and the number ten briefings, and during the day, every time news pinged up. So I have an absolute record of everything that happened on a daily basis. It's more from my point of view, so some of it is humorous. Somebody read it recently and said, I have cried and laughed out loud at it. So I may have called Boris Johnson a few names in the book as I went through, but nowhere near as bad as the names I called Trump. And the reason I wrote it was that I want to publish it to raise money for the members of the NHS staff, their families, who lost, NHS members who were trying to save our lives, really, and to keep the memory of them alive. I'm feeling very concerned now that we seem to have forgotten how much they did for us and will they really be remembered? And I hope that if I can get the book out there, it will help people to read it and really remember that talk about levelling the playing field and that's what the book will be called. That was know. Suddenly nothing we had anymore mattered. How much money we had didn't matter, how important we were, didn't matter. The only people that mattered were the NHS staff, because nothing else was going to save us. So that's why I wrote it. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, amazing. Listen to what you're saying there. It's how quickly we forget and you think about Remembrance Day each year, lest we forget the fallen. Yet we've stopped clapping for NHS. We've given Sir Tom a knighthood. All these things are now becoming faint memories as we move into through Black Lives Matter, through pride, through all the other things we're doing now. We're talking about different elements of COVID and almost the NHS staff have faded in our memories to a large extent. And yeah, I think it's very admirable that we. In fact, I can't wait to read the book myself and see if your laughs and giggles are the same as mine over that period. I think we all saw those briefings with irony and trying to read between the lines of what they're really trying to say beneath their fluff and bluster. But yeah, very interesting. Well, many thanks, Jillian. I'm sure our listeners, the one person is probably still listening to us. Hopefully you've made it to the they. How can our special listener here get in touch with you? Your website is emergeuk.com. Yes, Gllian Jones Williams: www.emergeuk.com. Or link in with me, Gillian Jones Williams on LinkedIn, and be delighted to talk to you about all things women. One other thing to mention is that every year on International Women's Day, I go to organisations free of charge and I do presentations for them to raise money for a domestic abuse charity that I work for, Aurora New Dawn. So if anybody's listening and would like to have something like that next year, again, that's something which we like to do as well. So it's been really great talking to you, Joanna. Thank you for being such fun. It could have gone on forever, couldn't it? We could have gone Joanne Lockwood: on forever. Yeah. And in fact, what listeners don't know is we were talking for about three quarters an hour before we started recording, so we could probably carry on for another couple of hours. But a huge thank you. A huge thank you. And to our listener who's still there, hopefully still there and not turned off yet, thank you for tuning and listening. Please do subscribe. Keep up to date with future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's bites. Please tell your friend, I'm sure our one listener has more than one friend. And your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up, but I'm sure you'll all be inspired by them over the next few weeks and months. Also, remember, if you'd like to be a guest, please let me know. I'm always looking for more people to contribute. I'd also love your feedback and suggestions to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Tell me about what you'd like to see on future shows. How we can improve. So, finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been a pleasure.