Taking Action for Gender Equality: Practical Tips for Individuals and Organizations

Hey, this is Talk with RollShare. I'm Sophie Smallwood, co-founder of RollShare.com. Meet Joy Burnford, founder of Encompass Equality.

Joy is a gender equality advocate whose journey began with a crisis of confidence in a male-dominated workplace. She has since dedicated her life to help women develop their confidence and inspire organizations to create a better workplace experience for all. In this episode, she highlights common workplace practices that perpetuate gender inequality such as lack of flexibility and gender bias in promotions. Joy also shares insights from her recent book, Don't Fix Women, and offers tips for individuals and organizations to build more inclusive workplaces, including the use of job sharing.

Let's dive in. What inspired you to become an advocate for gender equality in the workplace? And how did you get started with this work? So it really started with my own story.

I've been in business for about 25 years. I started my career working in management consulting for a management consulting firm and a very male-dominated environment. And whilst I was a very confident child, I used to do lots of acting and singing. As soon as I went into the workplace, I just started thinking, why would anybody listen to me?

It was when it took away from the acting and singing, I had notes and I had scripts. It wasn't me. As soon as it was about me and my knowledge and experience, I suddenly thought, oh, other people are better than me at that. I always just shy away in the background and let other people do the talking.

And I just believed it was the way I was in business. I wasn't a shy wallflower, but I hated the idea of speaking up. I would never put myself forward for speaking, any presentations. I'd always step back from that and let other people do it if at all possible.

And over the years, I just continued with that. And I set up my own business in 2007 with a co-founder who was amazing. She was the front face of the business and did all the kind of traveling around the world, speaking to consulting firms. And I just used to think, wow, she's amazing.

That's not me. I can't do that. And then I suddenly realized about five, six years ago that confidence is something you can learn. It sounds really basic, but I didn't realize this in my whole career.

I just thought you were like this kind of person or that. I took a year off after I sold my last business and I decided to do a bit of reflection on my own personal journey and where I was and started realizing that I didn't like being in the background. I actually quite liked being on the stage, even though I didn't have a confidence to it. So I took this experience and realized, and I set up a business called My Confidence Matters, which was helping women in leadership in particular.

So people had been in my situation to help them learn that confidence is something you can learn. At the time, Sheryl Sandberg was writing things like Lean In and it was very much a moment of let's be more confident and let's step up and speak up. And then very quickly, I realized that you can be really confident, but if organizations are not set up and designed to support women in leadership positions, you can be really confident, but you're not going to get anywhere. You're going to leave the organization.

So that was where the sort of whole thing came from. I've always been passionate about it. But in 2017, I decided to make this my job and my role in life was to bring this to other people and help. So I'm very fortunate I've had about 70 articles published on Forbes.

com around the subject of women's leadership and confidence. And I spoke to loads of women, senior women in business to share stories about how being confident is people think people are confident, but actually underneath they're not. So it was trying to share stories about that. Two years ago, I started thinking about the book, talking to lots of men, business leaders, CEOs, heads of HR, D&I, and looking at this subject matter about not fixing women.

It's about changing the systems in place. So I changed the name of my company to reflect that because the work we were doing was much broader than confidence. It was about creating an equal level playing field for everybody. Can you share some examples of common workplace practices or policies that inadvertently perpetuate gender inequality?

So this is a really interesting question. A pandemic has helped on this first point, actually, which is about flexible working. Before the pandemic, working flexibly, which was something that a lot of women found very useful to be able to work from home if they needed to. childcare reasons or for health reasons, was very unusual before the pandemic.

And the pandemic came along and actually made flexibility more commonplace. Most organisations now do hybrid working and they're very aware of this, but there are some organisations that still think that actually we're going to get back to how it was before COVID. And I really think that's a real challenge and organisations need to watch out for that because if that starts becoming this normal again, that's not going to help gender equality at all. And you've got to be aware of things like two-tier workforce so that women don't start working at home and men work going to the office.

and that's where decisions are made and conversations happen. And if that happens, then that's going to be really backwards. There's things like office admin that women always tend to pick up, writing notes for meetings or making the tea and coffee and those kind of things. It's really up to men to take a step up and say, I'll do that.

Women often join network groups and they're the ones trying to do things on the side of their desk. But actually, they haven't got time for this, but they want to really make a change happen. Things like networking in the evenings or setting early morning meetings. These things do not help with gender equality especially when you have children things like being told you need to do a presentation tomorrow and can you just learn it tonight No I can do that because I got to get home I've got my next job to go to after I leave here.

And then bias is also really inherent in all of us and it continues to exist in the workplace all the time. So when it comes to things like promotions, leaders often tend to seek out people in their own likeness, people who look and sound like them, interested in the same thing. We've got to be really careful and conscious of this sort of bias. We all have it.

It's not something that you're bad if you do have this. Everybody has it. Fascinating. And this mentality as well of, okay, great.

Now post-COVID, we do remote. We do work from anywhere. But does that actually help to enable equality across the board? I guess it's a question I'm putting out there and maybe you have some thoughts.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Often when people think about flexible working and they just put it all in one bucket and it's totally different. There is so much flexible working. It's not about working at home.

It's not about working in the office. There's so much to it, broader than that. Absolutely. And I think often homeworking can create more burden for a lot of people because they're feeling they can never switch off.

So from a wellbeing perspective, you've got to be really careful. And that's why job sharing I love, because you have to switch off on the days you're not working because you don't want to interfere with your other job share. And you really have to stop working. Whereas if you're part time, you might think, I'm just going to just do a little bit on that day because I've got to do it because nobody else is there to do it.

And if you're a full time, you might put the kids to bed and then you might start working again because it's easy because your laptop's up and that kind of thing. And I remember in lockdown, I heard one organisation said they actually, they switched all the laptops off remotely. Yeah. Actually trying to force people.

And it's also to do with how you role model this as well as senior leaders. I've seen board members who have been role modelling working from home and they just never switch off. They never have a break. They never stop to have their lunch.

They never go for a walk. And as soon as you have that at the top of the organisation, people will think that's the thing to do. And people might go on holiday and they're working and employees think, I've got to do that. I took in my book about inclusive leadership and top-down role modeling, showing what the right things to do are from the top.

It's a good point. We don't want to take away the remote, but how do you do it in a way so that you can disconnect and that well-being is incorporated? Another thing you mentioned, which I very much relate to, and I'm sure a lot of other working parents will cross the board, is the events, the after-work events. I remember before having children, no biggie.

I was very happy to go to after-work drinks. But the moment I came back to work and I had my child, I remember feeling a lot of anxiety around events that were scheduled after work. Early in the morning, I could maybe manage, but after work in particular for me was really challenging. And I understand the mornings being very challenging for others too.

I remember bringing it up and suggesting in a very friendly way, could we also perhaps instead of doing after work, do lunchtime events? If it's social, let's leverage lunch hour and take that time. I remember it felt flat on its face. So another point to think about around bringing in a more equitable workforce is making sure that it is really diverse and age diverse.

Because if you're joining a company where there isn't a whole lot of age diversity, create a very singular mindset potentially. And I found that when I worked at companies that were diverse in age, I felt like I belonged a lot more. Yeah, absolutely. I hadn't thought about that before, about job sharing with different age groups as well, because that might be interesting.

No, totally. And when I was doing research for the book, there's a bit in my book all about flexible networking. And I remember asking men as well as women, what do you think about networking? Networking is essential for progressing in your career.

It is essential. It's a real essential part of your career to have it in an evening when half the population find it difficult to attend is just awful. And actually, when I spoke to men, they were like, I really want to spend time with my family, but I daren't ask my business because they're going to think I'm not committed. it's creating a workplace that's better for everybody it's not just creating a workplace that's better for women because a lot of the time other people want the same things it's not just a female thing it's actually better for being a human being and having that time with family or doing other things in your life one of my clients actually is an hr director and she was telling me she was being asked to go to board meetings at eight o'clock in the morning and she's actually a single parent to two boys she asked the ceo she said look we have our board meetings at eight o'clock in the morning please can we move them to nine o'clock in the morning and she didn't for a long time ask this question and now she's like why didn't I ask sooner they said yeah no problem we'll move it to nine o'clock so it's actually being brave if you're in that situation as a woman and you're struggling with this just ask the question because what's the worst that can happen they can say no but if you don't ask don't just expect it to happen because I know it'd be great if people did think about it but often people don't so do ask the questions so your book don't fit women has been well received and has started many conversations around gender quality at work And you mentioned you've been published many times in Forbes.

Can you share some of the most surprising or thought-provoking feedback you've received about the book? Yeah it a really interesting question And it only came out in November so it still quite early days But one thing that surprised me actually about writing the book was when I set out to write it I thought it was all about women and in helping to advance women in leadership positions in business But the thing that surprised me most was through doing all this research was actually, if you do the things I'm recommending, it creates a better workplace for everybody.

And that's the key. It's not about saying women are better than men. It's not saying men are better than women. It's about saying we're all human beings and we all need to be treated as individuals.

Personalization is a golden thread that runs through my book. And I hadn't realized quite how much that was going to come out actually when I started writing. because I was like, yeah, of course, men might want to spend more time at home as well. Or they might want to do job sharing because they can do something else with their time working.

And actually the second thing, and I'm not just saying this because I'm on this podcast, but job sharing was probably the thing that's caused most interest actually in this. And I remember when I was researching the topics for the book and I heard Will MacDonald, who's an all-male job share, with an all-male job share at Aviva, his profile in the book. And I heard him talking on a webinar and I thought, wow, I hadn't even considered job sharing as a tool for gender equality. And so I put it in the book and I then started doing a lot more research around it.

And yeah, I just don't think people have thought about it. And all male job shares is a really good way of doing a joint male and female job share. That equals gender balance, doesn't it? At the end of the day, you've got men and women.

So that's been something that people have picked up on time and again in conversation when I've done talks specifically around job sharing as a result of the book, because people are really intrigued. Oh, it won't work in my organization. I'm like, well, it might. You just need to have a go.

There's a job share that I'm aware of that works at Google in Switzerland. He's a man. He shares his role with a colleague who's a woman. And the reason why he is job sharing, nothing to do with childcare.

His children are grown up. But it's because he's at a point in his career where he's invested a lot in his career at Google. He wants to carry on that trajectory in a job that is obviously aligned to his skills and experience. but equally he serves on a number of boards and investment committees, et cetera.

And he wants to be able to make time for that without it negatively impacting his work at Google. So the career portfolio use case is very relevant across genders, but certainly it's one we've seen with men as well. So obviously as the co-founder of RoleShare, I'm passionate about promoting job sharing as a way to create a more equitable and flexible workplace. you don't always have to work flexibly in a job share.

We're seeing an increase in co-CEOs who aren't necessarily working flexibly. It's just the job is that big. It's great for flexibility, but also if we're providing the right level of skills and support in a role, that is a very large role. Just curious to know if you've seen successful examples of job sharing in your own work, and if so, what benefits you have observed?

Absolutely. I'm constantly looking out for more people to talk to. So if anybody's listening and they want to share with me, join, connect with me on LinkedIn. I love hearing stories about how it's working so we can role model.

A couple that I talked to recently was Charlotte Cherry and Alex Ainsley, who are the Director of Talent and Learning for the John Lewis Partnership. And they've actually joined, they've moved as a job share partner around lots of different organisations. And they first did it because of they wanted to balance work between their young families and work. But then they've also, as a result, seen a lot more benefit in terms of increased confidence and going for opportunities together.

So they probably wouldn't have moved their role and progressed as fast if they'd been on their own because they didn't have the confidence to do it. They talk about a lot of people think that job sharing is about stepping back and doing more sort of administrative type work. And actually, they think it's about stepping up and it's not an easy option. It's been a real career accelerator for them.

Laura Walker and Chloe Fletcher, who's Senior Director of Finance Transformation at ASDA, spotted an opportunity to job share. And they didn't work together, but they knew of each other. And they love it because they know that somebody is covering the work on their days off. They can also really switch off, as I was saying.

And as an organization, they've cited increased focus and productivity, which is really important in senior roles where the risk of burnout is high. And one of the other things that I spoke to them actually was that the manager who the job share worked for has now gone on independently to start recruiting for a job share partnership. Yeah. I love that you mentioned some of these examples.

So just want to touch on a few things you said. The confidence bit is something we found is really fascinating and has been mentioned numerous times across all the job shares we've interviewed. This elevated confidence that each person gets from this, what I like to call ultimate allyship of the job shares. The career accelerator, absolutely.

I remember when I was fundraising at one point, there was this one investor who asked me, why would a company want to hire somebody who wants to work part-time, including job share? Aren't they not really ambitious? The reality was that he just didn't understand at all the motivation and the psychology of people who want to do this And the psychology behind people who want to job share in particular I will say is fascinating They extremely collaborative individuals They are people who are extremely ambitious in all aspects of their lives actually And they have the soft skills you would want in people on a team that are promotable, right?

We do have a lot of men on our platform who are looking for a job. We're about, say, 60, 40% on our platform. And just a few weeks ago, I was very excited to see a white man and a black man applying together for a job show. And younger generations as well, it's now, because we're talking about these things more, I don't know what you're finding, but people in younger generations coming through are thinking, I don't want to stick in a job for life.

I want to do lots of different things. I want to do a bit of this, I want to do a bit of that. And I want actually maybe doing job showing might be quite good because then I could do something else on the side. And yeah, it's fantastic.

And life is changing. The way work is changing, we have to be much more flexible and agile and different skills. And that just lends itself so beautifully to job sharing, having different skills that you can draw on. Two brains are always better than one.

So looking to the future, what do you think are the most important steps that individuals and organizations can take to promote gender equality and create a more inclusive workplace? So there are five steps. I'll try and keep them brief. So step one would be around educating yourself and being aware of gender equality.

It could be starting with reading a book like mine or listening to some webinars, going to a women's network event or thinking about things like reverse mentoring and listening to people within your organization. So really educate yourself and be open to educating yourself. Don't need to know all the answers. Ask questions.

Be curious. Step two is about sort of adapting your leadership style and consider if you are or if you have inclusive leaders and look at what they're doing. Ways you can drive change and make a difference. Think about how your performance is rewarded.

I know a lot of companies now are linking things like gender equality to bonus performance, bonus payments. And if you're not achieving what you need to achieve, they're taking that bonus away, which is a really interesting one. So think about the leadership style and being more inclusive. The third step would be about thinking about the culture of your organization through a gender lens.

So when you're thinking about your organization, how are you thinking? You think about it with different diverse groups in mind. And again, so I talk about the three cultural frameworks of flexibility, allyship and coaching, and they're just three, but they're the ones I feel that really help with a gender balanced business. and also as I said before it doesn't just help women it helps everybody step four be understanding the obstacles that women face in particular there are many obstacles that women can face and I break them down into three different ones hormonal challenges including things like miscarriage menopause maternity and monthlies things like child care elder care and self-care and confidence which you've spoken about so just be really inquisitive and again talk to people in your team or at home see how you can help and then the fifth and final point is just start making change happen today just in terms of job sharing people say i'm not sure and i'm like just start just have a go and just see what happens i stop talking and start doing so you know it'd be really great to see if what i'm talking about can help people to take a small step which will create a ripple and then in turn will create a big wave of change in the future there's a chinese proverb that says what is the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second best time is now so i always leave that with people to say do something today to try and move the dial i love it that's great and just on that point, we were just at an event in London this week around flexible working.

And I had so many people come who were excited about flexible working and would love to see job sharing as something that companies adopt more. And they just didn't understand why more companies aren't doing it. Do I understand why? Because when we started this journey, we were doing and still are doing things that don't scale, right?

Doing everything manually. So we went through the process, like matching people for roles and different jobs. And literally, it didn't take a whole lot to get foggy in your mind when it comes to matching multiple people to roles. The additional factor of one actually makes it very complicated to do ad hoc.

Now, if companies are stuck on that, yes, this is hard to do manually. And so that's what we sell for with our platform, obviously. what we found though is that the actual act of job sharing it's a piece of cake for the people who do it we all worked in teams before it's applying those practices and all of the positive aspect of being a team player i would say on steroids but for the good of the business yeah and actually coming back to your question earlier about the what's stopping gender equality in terms of job sharing making it up to the women or whoever wants to do the job sharing to put the business case forward, you should as an organisation be thinking about how can we design jobs differently?

And this is an option that we offer.