---
title: "Swimming upstream against the flow!"
episode: 5
date: 2020-06-13
guest: "Lewis Bell-Cawthra"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/5-swimming-upstream-against-the-flow
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-005/audio.mp3
---

# Swimming upstream against the flow!

Lewis Bell-Cawthra reflects on what it has meant to “swim upstream” as a gay man moving from an accepting environment into a corporate recruitment culture where he experienced exclusion, stereotyping and homophobic abuse. He and Joanne Lockwood explore how everyday assumptions and workplace “banter” can escalate into real harm when leaders and HR minimise incidents rather than address them. Lewis shares how he responded by choosing visibility and advocacy: becoming a trustee and communications lead for Exeter Pride, speaking with schools and businesses, and encouraging employers to treat inclusion as more than a tick-box exercise. He discusses practical changes he has made as a recruiter to challenge bias in hiring, including tailoring job adverts to attract broader audiences, anonymising details where appropriate, and having direct conversations with clients about diversity early in the relationship. The conversation also touches on the importance of allyship and internal networks, building safe community spaces (including an LGBTQ+ football team), and sustaining motivation during furlough and lockdown through connection, routines and learning. Throughout, Lewis emphasises openness, persistence and finding or shaping workplaces where people can be themselves without having to repeatedly “come out.”

## Chapters

- 01:24 — Travel industry provided acceptance, escape from society.
- 06:11 — Navigating male-dominated industry, promoting diversity. Trustee for Exeter Pride, embracing challenges.
- 09:49 — Worked on diversity, faced homophobic abuse, left.
- 11:51 — No support, HR spoke, director didn't care, left job, regret not pursuing, openly gay in interviews.
- 16:15 — Unexpected banter, adjusting to smaller company culture.
- 20:01 — HR questioning meaning of pronouns in signature. Recruiters can promote diversity with multiple job adverts.
- 21:21 — I looked at job adverts and asked colleagues. Similar preferences among female employees. Male and female CVs showed some differences. Some candidates omitted personal interests on CVs. Only knew more after speaking with them.
- 24:38 — Standardize CV format, add personal overview, phone description.
- 30:20 — Some clients refused due to anti-gay laws.
- 31:20 — Inclusive companies needed, internal networks are helpful.
- 37:35 — Created own inclusive football team for everyone.
- 40:24 — Disappointed about London marathon, but staying motivated.
- 43:37 — Lack of out gay footballers, need for gay teams in professional leagues.
- 46:40 — Recruiters should show support for pronoun usage.
- 49:21 — LGBT suicide aid connects companies for prevention.

## Key takeaways

- The impact of diverse, inclusive teams on workplace culture and productivity.
- The benefits of standardising CV formatting and adding covering letters for a holistic view of candidates.
- Effective interview techniques, including the advantages of phone discussions and video calls with candidates.
- The significance of addressing issues of homophobic abuse and the role of leadership in fostering inclusive environments.
- Creative ways to promote diversity and inclusion within different industries, such as marketing and tech.
- Utilising recruitment platforms and diverse job adverts to attract a wide range of candidates.
- Strategies for integrating discussions on inclusivity and diversity as a non-negotiable part of business services.

## FAQs

### How can I ensure that my job advert attracts a diverse range of candidates?

To attract diverse candidates, use multiple job adverts tailored to different aspects of the job, such as benefits and working arrangements. This will appeal to people with various backgrounds and needs.

### How should I approach CVs from candidates with different backgrounds?

Treat each CV objectively and look for relevant skills and experiences. Be aware that there may be differences in CV styles within the same gender or ethnicity. Ask candidates additional questions during phone calls to learn more about their experiences and involvement in diverse groups.

### Should I include information about my involvement with specific groups on my CV?

Including information about your involvement with specific groups, such as an LGBT group, is a personal choice. However, highlighting your experiences and diversity may be beneficial, as it can provide valuable insights into your perspective and background.

### Should I use video calls for job interviews?

Video calls like Zoom or Skype can be an effective way to assess a candidate's personality and communication skills, especially for remote positions. It allows you to gauge the candidate's suitability for your team.

### How can I promote inclusion and diversity within my tech company?

Establish internal networks for LGBT individuals and allies, and provide support for such initiatives. Encourage an open and inclusive culture where employees can be their authentic selves without fear of discrimination. Consider attending diversity-focused conferences and staying informed about best practices in the industry.

### What can I do if I face discrimination or lack of support in the workplace?

Seek support from allies or colleagues who can help address the issue. Connect with others through professional platforms like LinkedIn for guidance and advice. If the situation persists, consider finding a company that values and promotes diversity and inclusion.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject 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. You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on itunes, Spotify and all the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode five with the title Swimming Upstream Against The Flow, and I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Lewis Bell-Cawthra. I recently met Lewis online via LinkedIn just prior to the lockdown and we seemed to hit it off straight away. Lewis is a principal consultant and recruitment manager who is currently on furlough. He advocates for LGBTQ rights, along with trying to create a more inclusive space in the tech and recruitment world. So I asked Lewis to describe his passion and he said giving people a voice. Hello, Lewis,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: welcome to the show. When did you first realise

Joanne Lockwood: you had been swimming upstream against the flow?

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: Hi, Jo, thank you so much for having me today. I guess for me, I kind of first realised when I first started recruitment, actually previously to that I was working in an industry that was very inclusive and very accepting. So I was in the travel industry for about ten years. I kind of went in the travel industry to escape and get away from everything and I became a holiday rep. And most people do say that if you become a holiday rep, you're going to escape or run away from something. And I was kind of going to run away from myself and not wanting to be gay and not wanting to be something that wasn't the norm. So even from being a holiday rep, I knew I wasn't going in the same direction as everybody wanted me to go in, as society would want me to. But I felt that the travel industry was so accepting and it didn't matter who you were, what you were and what you believed in, you could just be yourself. It wasn't really until then. I came back to the UK and then went into the corporate world and started working in recruitment and then see a totally different way of being treated because I was gay. I guess the first sort of small things after a few weeks of being in the office and my manager asked me why I never told her I was gay during my interview process. And that raised the lion bells for me straight into, it doesn't matter if I was gay, I didn't need to go into an interview and say, hi, I'm Lewis, I'm gay. Like, I wouldn't expect them to say hi, I'm such and such. I'm straight. It's not something that gets brought up into conversation. Was this in the Dark Ages?

Joanne Lockwood: I mean, back in the 18 hundreds? No, this is kind of no, this is recently. When was I I started in

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: 2015, five years ago.

Joanne Lockwood: So we're not talking about a lifetime ago. This is recent history. You were still asked about why you hadn't told.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: So yeah, it was a bit strange. I kind of let it go, thinking, do you know what? Right? I'm new to a business, I don't feel like I should bring this should bring it up as a problem, so I just carried on as normal. I am a massive football fan and I love football, but the office didn't invite me to watch football matches because they didn't assume I liked football because I was gay as well. And that kind of annoyed me more because that was something that liking football has got nothing to do with being gay or anything anyway. So it was kind of, I can't enjoy a passion of mine because I'm gay. And that was when I kind of questioned it and my questions were ignored.

Joanne Lockwood: Okay, so what did they assume you would like doing? Karaoke, bars, naba or something? Was it.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: I didn't really ask. I was just like, okay. And the thing is, I didn't want to say anything. It was only because I spoke to all my colleague and they asked me if I was going to the match and I went, oh, I didn't get like, I'm not going to say anything. Everybody, all the lads in the office got invited apart from me. And then they said something in the office in front of everybody and said, look, why aren't you inviting Lewis? And then someone piled up saying, why would he like football? It was just a bit of was. It an all male environment? No, predominantly, I probably say it was about 70% male, 30% female. So they didn't invade the women

Joanne Lockwood: to the football either, then? It was kind of male guy bro thing. They were the only ones allowed to

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: go. So then I was like, you know what, if I left, it'd be like I'm running away from it and not tackling it head on. I need to do something about this to try and change the way that people are treated, because I'm quite a strong person. If there was somebody else that probably wasn't as strong as me, they probably would have just walked away and thought, you know what, the recruitment industry isn't for me. I'm going to get treated differently because I am gay, so let's find another industry. And I was like, no, I'm going to continue doing it. Luckily, there was another gay guy that worked in another office near to me for the same company. So I kind of just reached out to him just to see how he got on with things. He recruited into quite a male dominated industry as well, so he kind of had to tackle that. Whereas for me, I recruited into a dominantly female industry. I recruited originally for Pas secretaries, office managers, which is obviously totally different to what I do now. So I use my recruitment platform to try and educate not just my office, but to try and actually get people in Devon and CEO to actually start discussing diversity and inclusion. And it's not just a tick box to have on an application form, and it's not just a quota that they need to fulfil to make themselves feel a bit better, which the impression I was getting from them. So I first thought, you know, what, the biggest platform for me that I could probably get involved with in Exeter, where I can influence businesses more, was to become a trustee for Exeter Pride. So I signed up for that, became their communications manager, had no idea, if I'm honest, what I was doing, but I kind of enjoyed those challenges more than going into a challenge where I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't feel I learn as much if I go straight in and do what I'm supposed to do sort of thing. I joined Extra Pride. I was lucky enough then to be able to go out to businesses and explain what Extra Pride was and the need for it and the understanding of it and how they can get involved and make a difference. This then opened up more avenues for the charities that we were working alongside as well. I was able to go out to schools and do story times with them and then give them an understanding of what Pride was and actually get to ask the kids what they thought Pride was about. And that was actually really good to understand that and to see what impression they had, to see if their parents were actually educating them at home as well. Because I know a lot of my friends are teachers and they spend so much time trying to educate the children in school, it's when they leave school and go home and then normal society changes everything they've learned in school and said, no, you're a boy, you must do that. Or if you're gay, then you're not going to be able to go down this avenue for your career and things like that. I spent the first year working with Extra Pride. I got my company that I worked for to sponsor it as well, to try and change the way that they thought about it. So is that the same company where you weren't invited to the

Joanne Lockwood: football, so you were starting to bring change already into that environment?

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: I wasn't doing it. I don't think you can make change overnight and I don't think you need to throw it in somebody's face. I think it just needs to be gradual. And it was the little things like I put flags up in the office during sort of Pride Month and things like that. We would do like a lunch and learn and I would talk more about diversity and inclusion in general, just to give them more of an understanding of it. One of the events that I did with extra pride. We go to UK Pom, which is the UK Pride Organisations Network, and there's an organisation you're probably aware of called My Umbrella. And they gave us a talk and they gave us lots of documents and flyers and posters that we could use to put around the office, just to give people more of an understanding of the way people identify the different flags and what they represent. So just putting them up in the Office started to make a little bit of a kind of I did a lot of work, obviously, as I said, with diversity at that current company. I was really heavily involved with the local PA network and they were very much trying to push it so I can go out and talk to big bosses about inclusion, diversity and trying to use their platform to extend mine as well. And then I was probably with the company for about two years, and then we were on a night out and it was probably the first time in about five or six years I've ever had homophobic abuse thrown at me. Now, obviously, I know we're using words now to keep in the past been used negatively. Obviously, the word queer, for me, that word has always been a negative because it was what I was bullied with and that was what I was thrown at. There's words that people don't like that I find more accepting, because that's just how I perceived it when I was younger. But, yeah, I was on a night out and someone I worked with shouted and called me a dirty queer and went to punch me. And because the leaders watched it and pulled away and told me to ignore it, I was like, yeah, this isn't for me. I went to HR and I was kind of forced into not taking my complaint further because they said it would be too much involvement with the rest of the Office and it would bring up bad memories for everybody as well. It

Joanne Lockwood: put a dark moment on the whole evening for everybody to do it. Yeah, you felt that you had to suppress that and there was no support, there was no understanding of what you. Went

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: through, there was no support. It was kind of, yes, HR spoke to me and they came to the Office and we had a chat and they would have probably pursued it, but my director, no, let's sort this out outside of disciplinary, let's try and get it, let's just get them to apologise to you. I think at that time anyway, my mind was probably made up. I was going to leave, so I was like you know what? Which I do regret now I probably thought I probably should pursue this because it may have made a difference and made changes in the future so I left and it was weird. The next sort of interviews that I had, I purposely made them aware I was gay. During interview, it kind of changed, which is strange, but it kind of just came into conversation. When they asked me about my interests and what I did, I thought, well, maybe I need to then, because obviously in my last employer, they felt it was a bit of an issue. I didn't so I brought it up in conversation it was just by chance I just said oh I help out of extra pride I'm getting married to I told him my husband's name to be in a few months time and they were like yeah great. And it was fine, absolutely fine and it changed my whole perception of recruitment companies.

Joanne Lockwood: So by telling people up front did you feel like you had to, you wanted to or you did? It almost like trying to prevent a problem in the future what was the motivation? You felt comfortable doing it or you felt pressured into it?

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: Probably I felt I had to do it because I didn't want to. It's weird isn't it? Because whatever you identify as. But I do feel like every time I go into a new environment, I got to come out all over again. You have to. And this may come across the wrong way, but I'm not always the typical as people will say, like, you don't look gay. And I'm like, okay, I'll put a flag on my head. I love that. Okay so sometimes it is harder because then I've got because they're asking me like questions like oh have you got a girlfriend? And now I've got a boyfriend or got a husband that's what I'll be like now but I want to prevent that. I don't want that awkwardness. And then sometimes I can be a bit like I like to play and they're trying to guess if I'm gay or not. And I'm not telling them I'm the same partner just because I sometimes find it funny with some of my colleagues when they first start. But when I first went into my new business, I felt I just thought, you know what? Let's just be out and open with them from day. One, and it won't make a difference because it shouldn't do. If it does make a difference, then they're not the right company for me. So, yeah, I just felt like it would be easier in the long run to prevent any awkward conversations in the future. And they were interested that they asked me more about what DIVIDEX surprise and how they can get. Involved more we're very small companies and like twelve of us so they don't have any sort of inclusion officers and things like that within the company. So it was kind of interesting for them to learn more from me. So if you

Joanne Lockwood: compare the two organisations, then, so the first one, where you felt discriminated against, you were bullied, you had an incident compared with the second one. What was the difference in culture? How did the organisations differ in how that culture evolved? I mean, what can you say? What was it? I think with the new company,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: there was no sort of hierarchy, there was no sort of level of seniority within the business. It was just very much open door policy and everybody was everybody. You knew everyone from day one. It just felt a lot more welcoming. The other company is very much more corporate, very process driven. It just felt a lot more relaxed. Where I went to now, would you. Say that the first organisation was more institutionalised

Joanne Lockwood: homophobia? It was kind of almost like, it's okay, this is what we do, we're all blokes, we'll have this banter and you have to just put up with it. Was that kind of the attitude? Yeah.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: And it was, I have banter now in the office and I can give as good as I get, really with it, I'm not afraid, but it's when you don't expect it from day one sort of thing. And it was just really because they're a very well respected company and it just threw me. And going into a smaller company, I always thought that I've always worked for big companies. I was with Thomas Cook before and I was with large corporate companies and I always thought they were the best ones to go down to get the experience and the training, which you do. But joining a smaller company, I feel like now I've got more influence in their culture, I can impact what their decisions are going to be regarding diversity and inclusion. Our office is very diverse and it's lovely to work in with a team that is so diverse and so different and we work a lot well together. We are so different, a lot of us, that that works better. I feel like we've got people at one end of the spectrum to the other and we just sort of fill up the gaps in the middle and work as a cohesive team. And what was nice with this company while I was with my previous company, there were so many events that I wanted to go on. Sorry, turn this on silent. There were lots of diversity events that I wish I could have gone on, but they wouldn't allow me to. Being corporate companies trying to put claims through for finance takes weeks and weeks. Whereas here there is a Diversity in tech. Conference in London for two days. And I was like, you know what? I really want to go because I think I come from recruitment for Pas, where it's predominantly female. And if you dare to put a male PA in front of someone, the hiring manager was like, oh, I don't know if I want that. And then going to the other end where it's predominantly male people working in the environment. But when I got into the depths of it and started speaking to LGBT leaders within tech companies, they were like, we struggle really to bring on more people that come from our community because they don't feel that technology is the right industry for them. They don't have the people in the public eye that are fighting for those rights in that industry. They don't have people they can look up to in the industry, and that's where they really struggle. So you mentioned

Joanne Lockwood: about the fact that the previous role were mainly PA and stereotypical gender expectation would be a female person doing that role. And you're in a tech world now, and the assumption would be it's more male bias role. So do you have challenges in trying to change people's perceptions about candidates? How do you encourage more women to apply? How do you encourage more employers to actually hire the women that do apply? Yeah, so for

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: me, the little things, my LinkedIn profile, I've got my flags on it, I have my pronouns on it, I have that on my signature as well. And the amount of companies that have approached me directly on LinkedIn because I have my flags on my profile. There aren't that many openly gay recruiters out there. And the fact that you're so passionate about it and you're so open about it is fantastic. And we want a recruiter that is like that, that will attract more candidates from your own community, so people know. They can trust

Joanne Lockwood: you with their identity, so come to you. And they don't have to out themselves, they just be themselves.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: It's weird. I've had HR managers and directors email me back saying, what does he and him mean on your signature? I'm like you work in HR. I didn't say that to him. But I'm thinking, really, I think as recruiters, we probably got one of the biggest platforms to make change in trying to build more diverse pools of candidates, because internal recruiters, they sometimes don't have as much time as what we do to spend time with the candidates. So with my job adverts, I will tend to put three or four different job adverts up for the same job to try and attract different people from different backgrounds, identities, genders, because you do. You read things differently and you are attracted to certain words in a job advert and you are attracted to certain benefits that some people like the nicer, as they say, like the fluffier benefits, like the working from home and the cycle to work schemes and the childcare vouchers and things like that. Other people don't really know about that. And I think the different adverts also brings in people from different ages as well. So it helps on that area of diversity to make sure you're not. Is that

Joanne Lockwood: something you've initiated or was that a company thing? Anyway, how did you go about implementing those? That was me.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: I started to look at job adverts and which ones I would apply for and where I would apply to them and then sort of spoke to my colleagues and said, right, these are the job adverts. Which one would you sort of apply for and why? And we were all getting the same. Yes, predominantly the ladies in the office were going for this job advert because of the word in, because of the additional benefits. And then I started to look at candidate CVS and how they sort of differentiate as well and what I did find as well with the male female gender CVS, yes, they were different, but then when I would be speaking to a game now, theirs would be slightly different again. And I would ask them because I feel that putting the things you're interested not the things you're interested in, but if you're involved with some groups at the university, if it's an LGBT group, a lot of them wouldn't put that on their CV and you wouldn't be able to tell that they were by looking at the CV and know if they were gay or not. Anyway. But it was only when you called them and spoke to them and I started to ask them more questions and then you'd be like, okay. And they'd be like me, look, I am gay. They'd come out to me over the phone and say, look, the only reason I'm telling you is because I know you're not going to judge me and I know you're not going to feel it makes a difference. Of course it's not. I'm not going to put on your CV. This is the gay candidate. I stopped putting names on CVS as well with clients that I knew were gender bias. So I stopped all that and said, right, you know what? You're not going to find out what their name is. They didn't like it to start with. I said, well, this is how I'm going to work and if you don't want to work that way, then fine, but this is important to me and this is what I feel like. You need to make the small changes I did and they were happy with that. It was interesting what you

Joanne Lockwood: said when you looked at the CVS. You could tell there was a different voice in the CVS you're reading. And I've see some studies on this where if you anonymize CVS, people tend to still prefer the male voice in many roles, even women tend to prefer the male CV. So it's really hard when we talk about anonymisation of content and data and CVS because what you end up doing is you end up stripping all your USP away. What makes you you can no longer sell you you have to sell this sanitised robot which HR recruitment should be about people. You hiring people, but people brings in bias. As soon as you got biases, we either like you or we don't like you. So if you're a likeable person, you actually want that positive bias where you're less typical, you don't want to suffer the negative bias. We all want to win by having good bias. How do you rationalise that then, when you've got different job specs, which is fantastic, I love people that do that, but how do you try and get CVS through that, obviously in a different tone? Yeah,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: well, my CVS are basic, they're formatted the same way, so I will get someone's CV and put it in the format I was taught so they all look the same to start up anyway. I will get them to write a personal sort of overview or a covering letter as such, but quite a small one to put attached to the CV, make the CV look as possible. But what I tend to do with all my clients anyway, as soon as I send the CV over, I will call up my client and then speak to them over the phone about the candidate. Because I know that I'm better in person or speaking than I am putting stuff to paper that's just me as a person. And I know that I can describe a candidate a lot better over the phone and I can get very passionate about it over the phone. Trying to bring across passion sometimes on a CV is quite difficult, unless obviously when you go into creative market with marketing and developers like front End and UX designers, they can make their CVS look beautiful and look very attractive. But I think Bestly with some developers, their CVS can be very much quite straight to the point list of experience that they have got. But I feel like using my voice to actually describe those candidates over the phone is a lot better than just sending a CV over. So you're

Joanne Lockwood: brokering you're wellbeing, aren't you? You're brokering that person and saying, I've spoken to this person, this person sounds fantastic. So you're literally bigging them up and creating this persona for them? Yeah,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: and that's the best thing. It's no different to when I used to sell holidays. I couldn't sell a holiday. I could send them an email with some nice photos on. But me actually speaking to them and saying, look, I've been to that country. It's fantastic. You can do this there, you can do this there. You'll get this when you go to this pub or hotel, whatever. And it's the same when you're trying to sell in person, in theory. And I'll try and do as many interviews we can because obviously we recruit globally, so it's quite difficult to meet people in person. So it's all done via zoom and Skype and hangouts and stuff like that. And I will make sure that every candidate that I speak with that we do over zoom to start with, or at least the second call is so I can get more of an understanding of their personality and how they're going to come across as well on a zoom call. But, yeah, my companies that we're at now, that they've really let me explore diversity more within the tech space. The tech conference I went to about diversity was phenomenal. What was really not surprising, but it made a lot of sense, is obviously these new tech companies, likes of Deliveroo and Uber Airbnb and things like that, they're not having to change their culture because their culture has been set like this from day one. So they're kind of leading the way and then you've got the big banks or some of the big corporate companies who have been going for many, many years, and those are the ones that are having to change their culture totally. It's a whole new fill game for them. So they're really interested in speaking to people like me when I speak to them on the phone. If I'm trying to do new business, I will bring up diversity probably within the first five minutes of the conversation, just to find out what their views are of it.

Joanne Lockwood: Have you ever walked away? Have you ever said, no, I can't help you? Someone says, I'm looking for a young girl, 20s, been to a red brick university. Must be attractive. Do you still get wrecked like that? Yeah,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: especially where I'm from. It's beautiful. Devon is lovely, but we are a little bit behind in the time. They don't mean it offensively, they just. Say they just create this picture in their head of their

Joanne Lockwood: ideal candidate.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: But on the flip side now as well, I've had clients say to me, right, I would like you to get me a lesbian. How am I going to do that then? I can see some

Joanne Lockwood: advantages in that personally, but, yeah, I don't know, I'd ask for it in that way, so. It'S like, right, okay, I'll see what I

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: can do. Okay. But no, before I walk away, I'll try and say, look, I'm not going to do that for you. I will get you the right person for it. And I try and make sure that if I send them four CVS, I'll try and do a 50 50 split. We sort of male to female ratio, but as I said, I try not to put the names on it. The university side of things, I think companies, they're moving away from it now slightly. Yes. A lot of them will ask for red brick universities and that's going to take a while, I believe, for them to change the way that they're recruiting. But I think if I walk away, it'd be no different to be walking away and giving up. And if I can influence a business to change their recruitment process, then I will stay and plug away at them and. Just try and get them to change it. So you would say

Joanne Lockwood: that people are receptive to diversity, to inclusion, to looking at candidates from all backgrounds? I'm not saying

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: all clients are no, without a doubt, I'm not going to agree that not all clients are, but there are clients that I have said no to and I won't work with them, and mainly because they've got offices in certain countries where it's illegal to be gay. So I cannot physically recruit for those companies, because if you can't be yourself, then there's no point in doing anything, really. So I don't work with those companies and I've told them that and I've been upfront and blunt with them and they've we do really appreciate like most. Companies in that position are almost ashamed if they're

Joanne Lockwood: UK based anyway, aren't they? They almost say, Look, I'm really sorry, but I know we've got an office in Saudi or Middle East or in Russia, I know we can't recruit openly LGBT people in those territories. I wish we could, but we can't. And it's a real moral dilemma where. You it is, yeah.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: And I know that some of the big companies, they're doing stuff abroad to try and make it more inclusive, to try and tackle it and help it and brilliant, that's fantastic, but they can do that. But for me, I want to recruit into companies where no matter where you work in the world or what division you're in, what industry, what sector, it doesn't matter if you're gay, you don't have to walk in and come out. I love the internal networks that are being set up. I think that's phenomenal, the LGBT internal networks, plus the allies and things like that. There are companies that are leading the way on that and I think that is fantastic to have. I think having an ally for me would have been fantastic when I was at my previous recruitment company, because knowing I could go to someone if I did feel a little bit disrespected or a bit homophobic, abuse was sent towards me. I had someone I could go to. And I think that does help a lot of people come out. And I'll support the ally scheme as much as I can as well. We're a small company, but all my colleagues say that they're allies and they will continue to support me and back me with what I want to do. We do training now. Well, not at the moment, but every Thursday we do a training morning and it's usually on something tech. I tend not to, because I will do it on diversity and inclusion and I will try and educate them on the updates on that side of it and make it a bit more interactive and then go through any awkward questions that they have got that they feel worried about asking, especially when it comes down to gender. I'm still learning a lot of it as well, because it's a learning curve for everybody. I don't think everybody knows the right way to say things or to approach things at the moment anyway. It's just we're all trying to educate each other, I think, the likes of people like me and yourself, that will educate people, and I don't get offended if somebody asks me a question that I know could offend somebody. That makes sense. Yeah. I'll quite happily just probably not the right way of asking it. My boss has said some things in the past that I know he doesn't mean it, but I'll say, look, this is really how you should be questioning opening up this conversation. If you're going to say it to anybody else, use this word, this tone of voice, this pronoun instead.

Joanne Lockwood: That's a good thing if you're an ally, an advocate, even if you're in the LGBT community yourself, there's still people out there that need to be educated. And I always approach the world with an educational slant, if I can, first, because I think as soon as you detach, switch off, argue, get offended, you lose the opportunity to educate. But sometimes it's exhausting. I'm sure you find that it's like, here we go again. I've got to explain about this one more time. My other half is a man. And yes, if we want children, we'll have children, and we can do that. It's amazing. It's amazing what we can do. It's called adoption or surrogacy. There's so many options that are open to us just the same as traditional, archetypal, sort of opposite sex couples. They can adopt, they can have test, few babies, they can have surrogacy. So can we all. And so people still look shocked to go, oh, how does that work? Hello. And I'm married to a drag queen.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: Wow. Yeah, that's very different. He wasn't doing drag when we first met. It was only just Paul, we're getting married. He said, I really want to do drag. I was like, okay, fine. Do it.

Joanne Lockwood: To be fair, that's an easier conversation in a gay relationship, I guess, than in a hetero relationship, isn't it? I want to do drag from now on. Is that okay? I remember my own conversation. I'm not drag, I trans. But, yeah, it's not an easy conversation to have, but I guess in an open, contemporary LGBT relationship, it's a more dereg kind of what? Yeah, it took me a while to get used to

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: it because I was looking at my husband but not seeing my husband. Okay. And then I seen it more as an art rather than him doing drag. It's a performance. It's a performance. The room I'm in now, this is his drag room. Like, there's wigs everywhere and mannequins and stuff like that, but we have to educate people all the time as well, because he thinks that people think that drag is trans. It can be.

Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. They think that he's

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: trans. He's a drag queen and he's there to entertain and to perform and to be an artist. That's what he wants to do with it.

Joanne Lockwood: But people confuse identity and expression. You can be queer and have a different sense of identity. A contemporary version of not being a stereotypical man, not being a stereotypical woman. And how you want to express yourself as a performance or how you are, really is completely taxed. So to some extent, it fits under the gender non conforming box. I e trans. But, yeah, drag is a performance art. And people do get confused, aren't they? They do, yeah.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: And my bosses and my colleagues, obviously. Devon, again, Isn't said it's quite behind every other place in the world. And drag in Devon has gone from non existent to there's quite a big scene now. And we've played a part in that. But I guess one thing I have forgot, actually, I know we've run out of time shortly, but what I did do in response to me not being allowed to go to watch a football match about two years ago now, so I started an LGBT football team. Okay, fantastic. You know what? If I'm not allowed to go and watch or play football with you lot, I'll start my own team up and get people that are in the same boat as me that don't feel like they can go to straight team and go and play football. I used to go and sit in the pub. My husband hates football, so I would go and sit in the pub on my own and watch football. And to be honest, that's why I set up the football team, was the social aspect as well, just having someone I can watch football with. And we've been going now for two years, and we've got people identify as everything. So we've got straight people coming along as well. So it is fantastic that we've created a team now of nearly 30 members from all different backgrounds, all different identities, and we're all safe on one pitch, which is phenomenal. But that was kind of me sticking my fingers up, really, to my old colleagues saying, you know what? I can't watch football with you, but I'll make my own team and watch football with them. Fantastic. And that's kind of how I do a lot of things. I find a way to you're pretty positive. You said your passion is

Joanne Lockwood: about having a voice and making the world change, and you seem to do that relentlessly. So how do you keep this motivation? Like the rest of you, you must have these down days. You're furloughed now people can't go out, okay. Being married, I suppose you're not on the pull anymore, so you don't need to go out and socialise. How do you keep your motivation? How do you stay focused in this tough time, emotionally and physically? Well, with the football team,

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: we do a fitness on a Thursday night, so we get one of the cheesy fitness DVDs and we'll do it online together. Saturday night, we do a virtual pub as well. I love Benedict on the TV programme. I do a Benedictine quiz every Wednesday, so I try and do little things that I know are going to make me happy. And for me, as cheesy as it sounds, I know that me putting on these little events is helping people all over. And that's how I motivate myself, really, knowing that I'm helping someone else. My partner set up a thing called Drag Diva Lockdown, which is with two of his friends, so they're doing drag shows live and getting other drag queens to do it. So I'm getting involved with that as well, to try and help that. And if we can help just two or three people, then that's what motivates me. Awesome. That's fantastic.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. This weekend I should be doing London marathon, so

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: I'm a little bit gutted because I spent seven months training for it. So I'm doing 6.5 miles every day, today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday to make up my 26 miles because I've had a month off training. Now I can't do 26 in one go. All right, so I'm going to still, that's motivating me as well. And I'm doing the marathon in October instead now. So there are little things, yes, I do get down days, but I'll stick on a comedy on TV, go and sit in the garden and listen to some Spice Girl music or Disney anthem. There's little things that I just find if I find little things that I know that make me happy and I'll do 510 minutes of that each day, then that keeps me going. I'm learning new skills, I'm learning how to build a website and to do coding. I'm doing a British sign language language course as well, and they're all free. None of this is costing me any money, so I think there's so much out there that people can find that will help them. And, yeah, that's me.

Joanne Lockwood: So this so is it okay to be gay now? Is it okay or has it still got a long way to go? I still think it's got a

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: long way to go. This is just me. I want to be able to hold my husband's hand in public, but I can't, because I know if someone says something, I say something back. I find it hard. Like, yes, I give people a voice, but sometimes my voice can not always be the best one because I can retaliate and I know I shouldn't. I should just walk away from it. So I think we've got a long way to go. There's always going to be people that are going to be prejudiced against us, I think. Is it easier? It possibly is easier. Every year it gets

Joanne Lockwood: better. Still a long way to go. Yeah, there is

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: a long way to go, but I think it's getting better. Obviously. Being able to get married was huge for me because that was the biggest thing that I hated about being gay when I was younger. Like, when I thought I was gay to start with, I was like, I really want to get married and have kids and now we can. It changed my life totally. Not that I jumped in and got married with the first man I come across. Now I can actually settle down with someone, have a normal life, so to speak. It changed things. And I think the more things are getting changed, like now we can give blood and things like that. I think every time something changes for us, it's going to make things a lot easier and better for us. I think people will ask me all the time, why do you need a gay football team? Homophobia in football is ridiculous. All the other ones are all

Joanne Lockwood: straight representation.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: There's no out gay footballer in any professional football league and we have to have gay football teams for that reason. So when you are growing up, if you don't feel like you can go to your we've had so many parents come to us say, look, can you start a gay youth football team? I can't yet. I'm trying to figure out how to run a adult football team at the moment. One thing at a time. I've done my level one coaching, so I can for FA football, so I can eventually help set up, hopefully an LGBT football team for the youth. But that years ahead when I'm probably a bit older. But, yeah, I think there's a lot that can be done still, and I think it is getting done. I think there's more work to be done within our own community because we can support each other phenomenally, but then we can be the nastiest of people to each other as well. And that needs to change. And the perception of what people think people are from a certain identity needs to change because it is not true. And I'll first hold my hands up and know that. I used to think that when I first came out of being gay, because that's what people told me that the DS and the B's and the G's all were. And I'm like, okay, because I'm new to the industry, I'm new to the community, I'll go with the flow. And then I was like, you know what? I need to get to know these people for myself and understand them more, and which is what I've done with all the community.

Joanne Lockwood: You got the ear of some recruiters out there. What advice or what have you learned as a recruiter that allows you to be more inclusive and more passionate about promoting people of difference, whatever that may be. So what advice would you give to other people based on your experience? I think

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: the biggest thing that I learned for myself was that you have to be open and honest about it and not shy away from bringing up a conversation. Yes, they hate talking about it. Clients do not want to talk about it with me, but I'm like, you know what, you're going to have to. So we're talking about it now. So not shy away from opening up conversations on that and discussing and offer it as a service, like an additional service. I wouldn't ever charge to talk to somebody about inclusivity and diversity and it's an extra add on that I will give all my clients say, look, I've looked at your diversity inclusion policy, I've done this, I've done that for you. Let's look at your quota staff, let's look at where you do need to probably improve on bringing a more diverse team in and how your culture can change. So I think, yeah, the biggest thing that I would say with recruiters is that use it as a tool to not gain clients at all, but as a tool to educate. We have got a massive platform as recruiters to be able to start at the ground and educate people from day one and express how we I think the biggest four, I find that I don't know any other apart from one or maybe two. I don't know many out and proud recruiters, which I think that and I know there are so many out there, and I think by just sticking your pronouns on, your signature might be a tiny little thing and might not mean a lot, but it means a massive deal to so many people that you understand what it means to have a pronoun. That might not be the norm of what people think. And that's what I get with people that will identify as that day and then they will approach me because that they've seen my signature and it says, he, him is and they feel like that, they don't need to explain it or they don't need to spend time having that awkward conversation. So I think use the little things like with the flag and stuff like that. If you do identify within our own community, just be proud and out about it and not shy away. And if you feel like you're in a company that won't let you do that, then do what I do and leave and find a company that will. I often say that if you can't

Joanne Lockwood: make the change, walk away, vote with your fate, find somebody who will. There's plenty of organisations out there that will value you for being you and. I think you still need to try and make the change. I won't walk

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: away straight away. Try and make the change if you can, and to see what you can do. And sometimes you're not going to get the support of the seniors and I think that's in with any industry or any business, you're not always going to get your direct line manager supporting what you want to do, but there'll be other people that will. And you can connect with other people on LinkedIn or with other communities in your area that will help you do what you want to do and get the end goal. I got with Extra Pride to try and give it a platform for businesses as well as our community, to teach businesses about the LGBT community and the power that we do have and the influences that we have. And what we're doing as a community for Exeter is for the whole of the community, not just for the LGBT community. And that's really what I feel a lot of people do need to sort of get involved with and just try and find other avenues. I'm a suicide first aid for Prevention against Suicide because they wanted someone from the LGBT community that could be on call if anyone needs to speak to somebody that identifies as gay or lesbian or trans or bi. So I signed up for that as well and I did that on my own. That's got no impact into my recruitment job. But for me, because of my network, I have got I can reach out to companies now on behalf of the suicide company for support and to train them on suicide prevention in the workplace and stuff like that. So there are lots of other organisations outside of your own workplace that you get involved with that you can then bring into the workplace. That makes sense. Yeah. We could talk all

Joanne Lockwood: day. I'm sure our listeners have got so many more questions. So how can people get hold of you if they want to continue the conversation? Presume you're on LinkedIn. How would they find you on LinkedIn? LinkedIn. This is one thing

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: as well. I will quickly do this with my LinkedIn. Originally, I had flag Lewis Bell-Cawthra flag. Don't put your flag at the front of your name because they can't find you. Okay, I didn't know that. So, Lewis l-e-w-i-s-l-b-e-l-l-c-a-w-t-h-r-a,

Joanne Lockwood: is that right? Yes, that's right. See you on there. And you're open to connections and direct messages, so please get in contact. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Whatever you want to talk about, I'm

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: always open. Yeah. So, a bit of advice on diversity recruitment

Joanne Lockwood: from LGBT and from a people perspective, I guess maybe a holiday in the West Country afterwards. Lovely.

Lewis Bell-Cawthra: Not at the moment. No, not at the moment. Well, thank you,

Joanne Lockwood: Lewis. I'm sure everyone will agree there's much to ponder upon there. And a huge thank you to you for listening in and tuning in. So please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's bites. Please tell your friends and colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and even months. So remember also, you'd like to be a guest in the future. Please let me know. I welcome any feedback and suggestions to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. for future shows and how we can improve your feedback would be immense and awesome. So my name is Joanne Lockwood. It's been an absolute pleasure to host.