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Episode 29 - Alicia Riley, Senior People Lead at Ben
27 Plays10 months ago
In this episode Sade is joined by Alicia Riley, Senior People Lead at Ben. In this chat, Alicia shares her take on some of the key challenges when trying to build a diverse tech team and the sheer importance of this. They spoke at pretty good timing as Alicia has just set up a new initiative to increase the awareness of this issue at Ben.
*Please note this episode was recorded prior and some of the information shared may have changed*
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Transcript
Building Diverse Tech Teams
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Women Talk Tech. Today, I was lucky enough to be joined by Alicia Riley, Senior People Lead at Ben. In this chat, Alicia shared her take on some of the key challenges when trying to build a diverse tech team and the sheer importance of this. We spoke at pretty good timing as Alicia has just set up a new initiative to increase the awareness of this issue at Ben. I hope you enjoy this conversation. So Alicia, tell me a little bit more about yourself.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you for having me. Um, so I originally started my career, um, in teaching actually. I did that for five years. Yep. Uh, in Oxford. So, um, really kind of unconventional route. Um, and then I went into recruitment, uh, and HR following that. Um, I can go into more detail on that journey later, but at the moment I am senior people lead at a company, a startup tech company in London called thanks Ben, also known as Ben.
00:01:08
Speaker
I've also been called Ben quite often by candidates. But yeah, we specialize in flexible benefits for companies. So essentially our platform allows organizations to give their employees the option of flexible benefits. So for example, you could pick and choose kind of what benefits you want to roll into or sign up for, I guess, and also how you want to spend any particular budgets that your company might give you.
00:01:38
Speaker
So the idea behind that is to give people more choice and autonomy especially in the kind of post-covid world where people are working in different countries and some people remote, some people hybrid, some in the office, diversity and inclusion.
Ben's Growth and Alicia's Career Transition
00:01:50
Speaker
Obviously we're here to talk about that today, it's a really big topic and flexible benefits and it really supports that initiative. So yeah, I've been at Ben for nearly two years now and I was employee number 20
00:02:00
Speaker
We have tripled in size and we will be over 100 people by the end of this year. So it's been a really great journey so far and yeah, really enjoying it and looking forward to the future.
00:02:10
Speaker
Wow, wow. And yeah, keen to get onto your kind of career journey, because like you said, what you started in teaching, and I'm sure I'm not going to say this, but I didn't grow up thinking I'm going to want to be a recruiter. And I'm sure many people don't, you know, when they're younger think I want to work in HR, unless you do. Amazing, if that's the case. But yeah, tell me a bit about your career journey. How did you get into kind of HR and so forth?
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah so I did teaching for five years and I really enjoyed it but in that time had you know one pay rise and I was living in Oxford, very expensive city and I kind of was like it's time to move on this is not a scalable journey.
00:02:49
Speaker
as much as I loved it and I just loved working with people from all over the world and because I taught English as a foreign language and I just that interaction with people and understanding people with different backgrounds and different cultures and different needs was just something I really loved and I really thrived I did really well there you know I got promoted and
00:03:10
Speaker
I just really enjoyed my journey there. Anyway, so when I was reflecting kind of what to do next and I spoke to some people that I knew, somebody mentioned to me, hey, have you ever thought about going into recruitment? Like it's working with lots of different people, which is something that you love. And I'd done a bit of recruitment during my time at teaching as part of my career progression there. And I did enjoy it, but I hadn't thought about it as kind of a long term career.
00:03:33
Speaker
and I hadn't really been exposed to recruitment agencies yet so I was like oh that looks really interesting and then people were like you know it can be very lucrative if you do very well so I saw a job with read I went for it got the job and loved it I they put me through a really intensive training program which was absolutely brilliant I yeah just loved the whole journey of recruitment found it fascinating loved helping people trying to find jobs that they'd enjoy and
00:03:59
Speaker
learning about different organizations was really interesting as well and the people were just fantastic so yeah I did that for a year and then personal circumstances meant I needed to move to London and I saw this opportunity which was working in recruitment and HR in-house
00:04:16
Speaker
And I thought, oh, this could be another really good challenge and actually expand my career even further.
Startup Experience and Joining Ben
00:04:21
Speaker
And I was really, really lucky. I just found this opportunity for a company who didn't require any experience. They were willing to train me. I got the job. They put me through my CIPD level seven. The HR director coached me and mentored me during my time there. So that was also just brilliant and a different perspective from going agency to in-house. So just a different type of experience.
00:04:43
Speaker
So I was there for nearly three years and then the company was great and fantastic, but they weren't growing. And I was kind of itching to do more. I'd kind of found this new area now and I really wanted to learn and progress. And I saw this opportunity working for an EdTech startup and I was like, oh, education, you know, for my teaching background, I'm really interested in it.
00:05:06
Speaker
and doing HR and recruitment. And I'd be the first kind of people person there. So I went for it and joined this company called Arba. And I was there for nearly four years. And that was just a crazy, crazy journey. When I joined, we were about 35. When I left, we were about 120. And we went through a merger and an acquisition. And it was just so eye-opening. And that was like my first experience into the startup world.
00:05:35
Speaker
And there's a bit of a punch in the face at the same time. Like conservative experience of this like startup and I was just like, oh my God, it is so different. You know, it's much more people focused. My CEO really pushed me and challenged me every day.
00:05:52
Speaker
you know he was really open to critiquing what I did in a good way but it was just like you need to open your mind and the head of marketing as well she was just like your comms are way too old school like she gave me loads of training and how to write and that made a huge difference as well so yeah it was hard and really tough and ups and downs but incredible journey and I loved every second so I was like right this new
00:06:17
Speaker
world of startup and scale ups is really interesting and the learning is just continuous. So after that, as I said, I was definitely four years. I then did some freelancing for startups and scale ups. I did that for about six months. I loved it and I saw so much there. So that was really interesting.
00:06:36
Speaker
just to see what other companies had done and what had worked and what had worked. And then this opportunity at Ben came up. And I thought, wow, this product is something really different, quite unique. I haven't really seen it anywhere. I met the leadership team. I loved them. I thought they were great, good values, and just genuinely nice people. And I thought, yeah, I could go back in-house for this. Let's do it. And I was like, this will be my last.
00:07:04
Speaker
last zero to one start-up journey, but I was like, hey, I can use everything I've learned over the last five to six years in this world and do it again, but with hindsight, with the benefit of hindsight. So yeah, I went into Ben, they literally had nothing, you know, as I said, employee number 20, and so my first, like, protocol was to do the absolute basics and yeah, and just kind of went from there. So a bit of a journey, but have loved it so much and really excited about the future.
00:07:32
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, I think I can really relate to you on the kind of startup journey because I've been in parlour since day one and I was pretty much the third, well the first employee, but the third person to join the team aside from the two founders. And you're so right, what you learn in a startup and kind of how you progress in a startup is kind of second to none because you wouldn't get that experience elsewhere in a large corporation for sure.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's experience like no other. And especially in those early days, you really get to get involved in projects that you wouldn't get involved in in larger organizations. And I think that learning is just so valuable for your career later on, whether you're working for a small organization or a big one, you've just got so much more awareness and understanding of different areas of your expertise, which I think is just really important and valuable.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, and so much experience that you can kind of, you look at the business from a different point of view, you don't just look at your job from just your job, you look at the entire business because you do things outside of your typical job role that you learn from and you're able to use your next position. So yeah, I can really, really relate to that. Yeah, yeah.
00:08:35
Speaker
And you know, of course, the topic of today's conversation is diversity and inclusion. And that's, of course, the whole main topic of the podcast and what we've been really discussing. Of course, we will go into a lot more detail later on.
DEI Awareness and Initiatives
00:08:46
Speaker
But in terms of just very briefly, what does DNI mean to you and why would you say it's particularly important in your role today?
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think to explain like what DNI means to me, I have to kind of talk a bit about when it kind of came into my life and why I took an interest in it and where it's kind of come to today. So in terms of my personal journey with it. So DNI, to be honest, wasn't on my radar during my first kind of entry job role into HR and recruitment.
00:09:22
Speaker
And it really kind of came into my life via the Black Lives Matter movement. So before then, in all honesty, I was completely naive on the subject and just didn't understand it, wasn't aware of it. It just wasn't at the forefront of what I was doing. And then suddenly the BLM movement came into force and through something terrible came this kind of big drive for something that was so important.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I really respect all the people who really push forward and started to raise awareness and protest and actually we've had enough and people need to be aware of this and change needs to happen. And the more I learned about it, the more I was like, wow, there's a lot going on here and there's a lot of injustice going on.
00:10:11
Speaker
And I just went about self-educating myself on that topic of racism in the workplace and in society. But also, as I expanded my knowledge and learning, it kind of expanded into DEI as a whole. Actually, there's so much more. It's not just about race, but also about neurodiversity and, you know, whether you're a carer or a parent or whether you're disabled.
00:10:37
Speaker
And I just suddenly realised this is a huge topic that is so important because the more I learned about it and heard people's personal stories and how they've been impacted, the more I was just really shocked, actually. And yeah, upset, I guess, about what people these people have been through and
00:10:56
Speaker
including myself, right? I've got my own areas, I'm a parent, I've had anxiety and depression in the past, so it really kind of hit a nerve, where I was like, oh gosh, yeah, everybody, despite what they go through or where they come from, should be entitled to the same opportunity, and they should be able to be their authentic selves at work and never have to face any form of discrimination.
00:11:22
Speaker
So I just, yeah, struck a nerve and I was just so keen to continue my learning with it and still am to this day because it is such a huge, huge topic. So I think for me, it's just about educating yourself on a topic that isn't easy, that's challenging and can be upsetting, but also it's just so important and the impact that that has on society, on the economy and on people's lives, everyday lives. And obviously in the workplace, you come to work every single day
00:11:51
Speaker
the workplace plays a huge role in enabling people to be themselves and to feel embraced and to have that access to those opportunities in life. So I just suddenly realized I was like, wow, and
00:12:06
Speaker
you know my type of role being a people leader and being I suppose the door to an organization like we let people in we're the ones who let people go like we're the ones who you know push forward and support promotions and pay rises like we have so such a big influence on people's experience in the workplace that DEI of course is a huge part of that
00:12:30
Speaker
So you have to educate yourself on it constantly. You have to push yourself and challenge yourself. And yeah, I just suddenly realized I was like, my role is really important here. I need to keep an eye on this and make sure that I'm pushing myself and challenging myself to learn more and embrace DEI in the workplace and making sure that we're doing our absolute best to be, you know, forward thinking on the subject and supporting people when it comes to this topic and initiative.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah yeah no honestly I really I really like I said I really like what you said there in the sense where firstly you were really honest in terms of that it wasn't not that it wasn't a big thing but you knew about it more during the kind of Black Lives Matter movement which I think for many people that was a big awakening whether you kind of knew about DNI before or you it wasn't kind of in your face I think
00:13:16
Speaker
that whole movement really just sparked so many conversations. And I think, like you said, it made you look at DNI from a different perspective. Yes, of course, the Black Lives Matter movement was about race, but I guess it made it a lot more apparent that DNI was more than just race. It was about neurodiversity. Like you said, it was about ethnicity. It was about parenting. It's about, even like your educational background, it's about basically where you've come from.
00:13:42
Speaker
And I think there's so much good that's come from that. Yes, it was a terrific or awful situation in terms of that. And I really hate to say that we've learned so much from that situation. But there's been so many conversations that we've had to have since then, which has been amazing.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, when I look at my kids now, and I think about my own education and upbringing, I was like, this topic is so important, it should be, you know,
Integrating DEI with Limited Resources
00:14:09
Speaker
all children should be educated on it. And I make an effort to go out and get books for my son that are diverse and inclusive and
00:14:18
Speaker
making sure that, you know, I look back at the books that I read and they were so kind of monotone and, you know, I'm like, Jesus, yeah, no wonder I didn't know anything about it. But yeah, so I just, I'm so conscious of it now and everything that I do in life and my personal life and my work. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I guess in terms of your role now, I mean, what are some of the main challenges that you see in your current role and you see maybe at Ben when it comes to diversity and inclusion?
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I think it then, I mean there are lots of challenges with a fast-growing startup. Where to begin? I think it then, the first challenge is that actually, as with any startup, you need to put your kind of base, people, processes and operations in place in order for the organization to scale. And I think
00:15:07
Speaker
For a small company, budget is always going to be a challenge because you're relying on funding and you've got to be really aware of that. And the other thing, which I think is a huge one, is capacity. We're a small company, we can't justify having a dedicated DEI specialist in place. So I think that's also been a really big challenge.
00:15:29
Speaker
And then obviously, prioritizations as well, in terms of kind of like, there is so much to do, what are we going to do first? And I think DI actually feeds into every single process and part of the people experience, like when I look at it,
00:15:46
Speaker
the kind of whole journey from job advertising to interviewing to bringing people into the business to onboarding them then their experience within the business and then their off-boarding experience as well. I do think that there's a touch point there along the whole journey where you need to have a DI hat on and just think about okay have we put that lens you know that lens on when we're looking at the actual processes for each step and
00:16:10
Speaker
you know, what have we done to include that and think about that. But yeah, I think it then in particular, it's been, yeah, I'd say the capacity piece has probably been the biggest challenge. As we grew and the people team grew, we were able to really start to push forward the DEI agenda and actually start to do something more
00:16:35
Speaker
what's the word, prominent on that area and initiative within the organization. So that was really exciting. And we did a really good kickoff. I mean, I can go into that. If you like, I can talk about kind of what we did and some of the metrics that we looked at and why it'd be helpful.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, because I was actually going to say, like, in terms of capacity, I think there's probably so many companies out there that could really relate to that. And I think sometimes, mostly all the times, most kind of CEOs, CEOs, they look at DNI and think, yeah, that's the HR team's job, or that's the HR person's job.
00:17:07
Speaker
And I actually spoke with someone in HR very recently and they were like, that's one thing I do on my day-to-day basis. I always do this, this, this, and this. And you're right, capacity. And for many startups with no budget is very hard to tackle. Such a massive problem. And we end up, I find, not doing it justice, you know, by just saying, oh, let's just do a tiny bit of it and kind of focus on that. I guess in terms of capacity, how did you kind of combat that challenge? Because of course, I'm not going to lie, that's out of your control, right?
00:17:37
Speaker
You can't say I need to hire a whole team so I can do more or we can do more. How did you kind of handle that challenge? Because I'm sure there'll be so many people there that could really relate to that. Yeah, it was really tough. So like at Bern, the way we grew the team first was hiring internal recruiters.
00:17:56
Speaker
as we were growing the headcount so quickly, that was the priority. And I had the kind of HR knowledge and experience, so I've been able to put the kind of people, processes in like the ATS system, the HR system, the handbook, all that kind of stuff.
00:18:11
Speaker
So I think kind of where we started was I started with the things that I was able to handle and that I had to do anyway. She's like, okay, you know, looking at when we're hiring, how are we writing our job descriptions? How are we assessing people in interview?
00:18:30
Speaker
How are hiring managers making decisions on applicants in the process? How are we screening CVs? So those were all the questions I asked myself and that was kind of where I started because we needed to grow the team so quickly. I thought this could be actually quite a good first step and area to prioritise because we're going to be doing a lot of recruitment. So that was kind of where I first started looking at things. What's our DEI statement?
00:18:55
Speaker
and then the handbook we know what's our DEI policy, what can we commit to right now and what can we put in and then you know when can we revisit this and look at what we can continue to commit to. So that's kind of how I handled it which is like okay I know it's just me first then there's a recruiter coming so what can we both work on that that can be leaning towards DEI. So that's where we started essentially. So that's
00:19:22
Speaker
That worked really well in terms of we actually got a really strong DI statement out we we did our careers page. We gave line managers recruitment training so that's something we did. Luckily we were able to do that in house you know investors.
00:19:38
Speaker
supported us with that so that was really nice so little things there are little steps that you can do like dei is a massive massive topic. Any advice i would give is like don't stress yourself by having two bigger milestones just take it step by step and.
00:19:54
Speaker
I'm not a DEI pro, I'm still learning all the time. And I guess one thing which I know that we discuss when it comes to DNI is that kind of point of raising awareness, especially unfortunately for the HR team is sometimes about raising awareness in the wider company and why this topic is so important. I guess from your side, and I know that you mentioned you did the exact same thing at Ben, but why was it important to raise awareness on these issues and kind of get the whole company on board in terms of this massive project when it comes to DNI?
00:20:24
Speaker
I think for us at Ben, as the team grew and we started to get more capacity within the people and talent function, I was able to start to look at DEI more closely as an independent project and initiative, essentially on our roadmap. And I thought to myself, the company is very young. We're going to grow very quickly. We have limited budget, team is growing, but still limited resources. You know, we're super busy. Where can we begin?
00:20:54
Speaker
And when I looked at it, I was like, actually, we really need to start at the basics, which is defining what does DEI actually mean, DIB? Because I just feel like that's really important. You need to make sure that as an organization, you're speaking a common language. And DEI is a term that can be thrown around quite loosely, I've noticed.
00:21:19
Speaker
And actually, when you speak to people, they might not necessarily understand what it actually means. They know the words, but actually you had to delve down into the meaning. They might not necessarily know that. So that's where I started. And I actually did a breakfast and learn. You know, people do lunch and learns, but it's a bit of a controversial topic, lunch and learns. Not everybody likes them because it's over people's lunch break and they won't actually get outside rather than sit on Zoom again for another half hour.
00:21:48
Speaker
And also, they're halfway through their day. They've got loads of stuff going on, especially in a fast-growing company. So I was like, right, I'm going to do it first thing in the morning before people get distracted. And I did a breakfast and learn. And for those in the office, we got breakfast delivered in, which was cool. And for those remote, including myself, because I was nine months pregnant at the time. So I was like, I'm not going to risk doing this in the office. That would be a fun breakfast and learn going into labour. Oh, my gosh.
00:22:17
Speaker
I'll do that remotely. But yeah, it works so well. It was really lovely. So I just, as I said, I'm not a pro, right? So like, I just went out, read loads of blogs. The one great thing about DIB is there's a huge amount of content online. People have been really willing and open to share their experiences with it, but also, you know, frameworks, definitions, what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, metrics.
00:22:40
Speaker
You know, Monzo, quite a good example. They have their annual reports. They're really open about it. You know, what they've done well, but also what they haven't done so well.
00:22:51
Speaker
One piece of advice is like you can go out there. You don't need to hire an external organization to begin with. You can just literally go out and there's so much out there that you can use. So I started with the definitions and then I looked at, okay, what's DI at Ben? What have we done so far?
00:23:11
Speaker
What are our metrics? What are we measuring? Because there's a huge, huge amount you can measure as well. So I think you need to kind of like pick what you want to start with and just don't put too much pressure on yourself to begin with. You know, it's a really big topic. But yeah, we kind of looked at some data that we had at Ben and it was the first time I'd really shared data with the team, which was really interesting. And I think one piece of advice I would give any company going on this journey is be careful with the data because
00:23:41
Speaker
you can number and give that to the team, but that number can have so much going on behind it that the team might not be aware of. So like make sure you analyze your data properly and in detail, like where does that number come from? What makes up that figure and why and what are you going to do about it? So to give you an example,
00:23:59
Speaker
one number for our sort of gender pay gap right so this is a legal requirement in the UK and it's going to be a legal requirement in Europe to have salary transparency soon so like it's just a really big topic right so we you know looked at that and I kind of broke it down so I was like oh what happens if you remove you know engineering classic very very difficult the female talent pool and engineering
00:24:25
Speaker
is very low. I think it's only 20%. And then if you make it a senior role, it's even less than that. And engineering typically is quite a high paid role. So, you know, you remove engineering, that gender pay gap can be a very different number.
00:24:41
Speaker
it's educating yourself and then it's like, okay, so we know now that this is a big driver of that pay gap. So how are we going to address this problem? So it really helps you kind of focus your energy and time as well to try and get the most of the output. Anyway, so we did that and then we kind of talked about what can we do about it then. So the way we've done it then is we've actually set up a committee. Yeah, we just said to people, come volunteer if you're interested and we got some volunteers, thankfully.
00:25:13
Speaker
And our CEO is on that
Forming DEI Committees and Leadership Engagement
00:25:15
Speaker
committee as well. I think it's really important to have someone from your leadership team there. You know, you've got to have that buy in from the leadership team and they need to support the agenda. And it's really important, right? And then it's really important that we have to report back on DEI to our investors.
00:25:30
Speaker
And, you know, we know that as well as it being good for the business, obviously, commercially, it can have a huge positive impact, but it's just the right thing to do for your teams and engagement. And there's just so much statistics out there that the benefits of this working towards this and achieving a diverse workforce, an inclusive workforce.
00:25:52
Speaker
So yeah, we did the committee and the committee meets like every six to eight weeks. And then the idea is that after six months, the committee changes. So you get different perspectives and different people coming in. So it's not just the same people. So that's been great. And they've done some really awesome things. So yeah, that's just been hugely successful so far. So yeah, we're quite early on. It's been a few months and we're going to review everything at the end of the year. So revisit our metrics, look at kind of what
00:26:20
Speaker
what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, you know, what do we need to improve for Q1 next year. So we've kind of really started to push forward on it now, which is really exciting.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, no, amazing. And, you know, really kind of keen. I mean, what's been the biggest learning curve from doing that Breakfast and Learn? Because I'm like, you know, like you said, right, we I think we throw around the word DNI and I see a lot of things online with companies doing so much. But like, what happens after that? Like, I always say what happens after International Women's Day? Like, do we still have these conversations? Do we still keep celebrating? So since the Breakfast and Learn, what's happened since? And kind of what's the kind of long term plan for that?
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? You have these these days. It's difficult because the days are great for raising awareness on these things. But it's true. Like it shouldn't just be something you're like, hey, it's, you know, Pride Month and then the rest. Yeah, you're like meh. You know, but at the same time, it can be a really great, great thing to celebrate and remember. So, yeah, it's always a bit of a tricky one, that one. And I think the breakfast and learn, like one of the biggest learnings is don't underestimate
00:27:27
Speaker
what people don't know on the topic so you know I had a lot of people messing me up for some time being like wow I learned a lot there thank you so much and you know people being like wow that's you know tricky can be a really tricky subject but that was really great thank you and everybody was really I think just really on board and passionate about the topic and
00:27:48
Speaker
grateful that we're trying to do something. So that was really, really nice. And so I think that was kind of a big, a big learning of like, oh, wow, that's, you know, it's great to that it's had so much impact, essentially. So that was good. And I think for us, the kind of long term is to try and get DI into a place where a bit like what Monzo has done, you know, where you can kind of, you have the metrics and the data and the initiatives to really start to see the difference.
00:28:17
Speaker
Whether it's a good difference or a bad difference, so if the metrics haven't gone the way that you hoped, being able to understand why that happened and what you can do about it. So I think for us it's having DEI on the agenda long term.
00:28:33
Speaker
holding ourselves accountable to change, and what does that mean? And also making sure that we are keeping ourselves educated along the way, that it's not becoming a siloed project in the people function. Because I think anything that's siloed in the people function just isn't going to have that impact and engagement with the company that it should do. You know, it's the same for Team Socials. We give our teams budgets through the Ben Platform and they manage their own Team Socials.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I just love that because they do wacky things and it's great fun and they have really high engagement. And of course we do things company-wide that the people team, I think it's just really nice to give people that autonomy and responsibility shouldn't all just sit in the people team and the people team dictating it. You know, I just don't think that that's a good way to approach it. But yeah, so I think that's that's kind of our long term goal at the moment. Yeah.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think I couldn't agree more. And I think like what you said, it's not just the people's team. And I think it is a responsibility that the whole team and company should hold themselves accountable for. So yeah, I couldn't agree. And I guess in terms of companies now sitting in your position or maybe where you were a year ago in terms of not having the capacity to do more on this.
00:29:48
Speaker
but still thinking it is such an important topic to still champion. I guess what advice would you give to companies who do not have the capacity, the budget, the resources, the time, effort, whatever the case may be, but still want to persist this idea and kind of project through? Where would you say is the best place to start?
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think there's a couple of things, areas where I would start, which is the leadership team need to be on board with it. I think that's really important. And I think first defining what, you know, what do you want to measure and what do you want to achieve? And if you have budget, what do you have?
00:30:28
Speaker
I think that's really important. What resources have you got? Essentially, whether that's account, budget, external support, what have you got to use with it? And then you can start to put together a plan of what you can do and perhaps find if you're a really small company, you might not have a people function yet. Not all companies get people in this
00:30:51
Speaker
so early, like Ben got me an exception of the early, but a lot of companies might get the people team in a bit later when you're about 80 or even over 100, you know, some can't wait until they're over 200. But find some internal champions who are passionate about the topic, who, you know, will help kind of drive it forward and sit down and agree kind of what you think is realistic in terms of time, capacity, budget, what can you do with that? And I think some
00:31:19
Speaker
you know time effective and cost effective things that you can look at things like your policies what if you got your in your handbook and there's lots of examples of some really great progressive ones online that you can look at and then tailor it to your organization.
00:31:37
Speaker
you know, don't just copy and paste from another company and not even bother to think about what it means to you and analyze it because, you know, it will just come across in your tone. And if you really want to take it seriously, you have to really put time and effort into it. We put our diversity statement on our job ads actually at the top. Well, after our benefits, obviously we're a benefits company, so that was quite important.
00:32:04
Speaker
But we put our DI statement and the amount of candidates that were like, wow, that was just so refreshing. And we love it. And we put a lot of thought into the wording, into the statement. And it was just really nice to get that feedback. And it really means a lot to people. Anyway, so just doing little things like that and looking at what you've got to start with. And then you've got your policies, your recruitment. Think about what training and awareness you can do internally. There are some really good external providers out there on things like unconscious bias.
00:32:33
Speaker
and important topics like that, like Hustle Crew, a really great one. I've joined a lot of their workshops and webinars before. They do some really great work on it. But if you can't go external, then what can you do internally? If you have some champions, perhaps you could look at what does EIB mean. You could do a lunch and learn, a breakfast and learn, or perhaps a leadership team could
00:32:53
Speaker
could kick something off in your town hall or your all hands, whatever company wise meeting that you do. So I think you just need to kind of be realistic, set realistic milestones and set yourselves accountable to what you want to achieve with it. You have to have some kind of plan and goal.
00:33:13
Speaker
follow and stick to because if you don't it will just fall by the wayside and it'll just become a kind of dead project essentially. So you know keep going with it, it's worth it and don't be afraid by how big it is and think that you don't know anything about it so you can't do anything.
00:33:34
Speaker
you can and something is better than nothing. It's really important, it means a lot to people and you can make change just even by doing small steps so I would just recommend start from the beginning and don't put too much pressure on yourself.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah, I love the idea of an internal champion because you're right, not all companies will have a people team, but actually having people in the company already there that are quite passionate about this topic, you know, use them to your full advantage and kind of there will be people there that will look at DNI different to how you may view it, you know, and how I may view it, which means you get a variety of perspectives there to really help champion this cause.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's so important. And as you say, like, there'll be lots of volunteers, I'm sure, who, you know, would be really excited to get involved. And I think the other piece of advice I would give a company is start measuring your data early. Yeah. Not early because DEI data can be really hard to shift.
00:34:38
Speaker
So it can take time so because a lot of it can be dependent on your growth. So you know how much you're hiring that the type of organization that you're building compensation, you know, can be hard to change if you're if you're relying on funding.
00:34:58
Speaker
and your budget could be restricted. So if you have pay gaps and things, it's really important to get on top of that early and understand why that's happening early and address that early. Because the longer you leave it, the harder it is to change. So start those metrics really, really early, and that's something you can do that's
00:35:15
Speaker
free, it doesn't take too long and you just need somebody to own that and show that to the leadership team and hold accountability to those metrics because the sooner you do that, the easier your life will be. If you leave it too late, it will be much harder to get those metrics to where they should be.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's where many companies are at when it comes to the kind of female women in tech space. I think that not that we've left it too late, that's not the case. And of course, there's so many factors that do go into that. But the data now is very, very hard to shift unless you're doing something that is very data focused.
00:35:49
Speaker
Which then, in my head, you're then doing it purely for the numbers and not because it's a good cause. So I think it's about finding that balance before you end up doing it because you need more women in the tech team. You know, you need more numbers there.
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And you hit the nail on the head there, like doing it for numbers rather than a good cause. The intention has to be right and that passion has to be there. And I think if you have that, that's a really good starting point because then you really will have a drive to make effective change, which is really important. And it can be really hard, right? Like we were growing our engineering team. We need to hire the best talent as soon as possible.
00:36:30
Speaker
And sometimes you have to work out, like, what are your negotiables and your non-negotiables going to be? The female talent pool in engineering, as I said earlier, is very small. It's about 20 percent and even less for senior roles. So it's really hard. We're not like a big organization who can take on, you know, grads and or, you know, interns or
00:36:50
Speaker
beginners and help train them up, you know, we need people with experience. So you kind of have to look at what can you do to help grow that. We actually saw some quite interesting trends as well, just little things like when we started looking behind the scenes a bit more, you know, we have like booking links for candidates to book in their interviews. We noticed that male candidates would book their interviews much sooner than female candidates.
00:37:14
Speaker
So they were getting through the process much quicker. You know, little things like that are really interesting. And then you're looking like, OK, wow, like, why does that happen? What can we do to make sure that female candidates get through the door quicker as well? Or, you know, or how do we push the male candidates back? Like, how do we have that equity whilst maintaining the process and the speed that we need to in order to grow? So, yeah, it's just really, really interesting.
00:37:40
Speaker
data points that we picked up when we kind of went into the analytics behind it. So anyway, there's lots you can kind of look at and do to try and support growth and, yeah, tech talent. Yeah, yeah. And I guess one last question before I let you go. I know that you've got a little one there, but I guess you mentioned there that getting the leadership team on board is really important.
00:38:03
Speaker
And that in itself is a, it could be a hard one. Of course, I'm not saying all the leadership teams are against DNI. That's not the case, but it can be quite tricky to at least get them on board with why it's important, why they should start focusing on this. What advice would you give to a company there that is out there really wanting to get this forward, but the leadership team aren't on board just yet and they're trying to get them on board. How do you think we should go about this?
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting one. And I do hear this actually, despite everything that this scenario is still coming up quite frequently for a lot of peers in my network.
Advice for Small Companies on DEI
00:38:39
Speaker
There's a few things that I would do. So one, obviously go out there and get some data around the benefits of having DEI on the forefront of your agenda and roadmap of the organization, because there's lots of information out there that you can then share with your leadership team to show them that actually
00:38:59
Speaker
the commercial benefits are huge. So obviously they've always got their eye on the bottom line because if you need to survive and salaries need to get paid, I get that. It's really important. But it is also not just about the commercials, right? DEI also has an impact on engagement. High engagement has an impact on retention. Retention has an impact on commercials.
00:39:22
Speaker
So like there's a circle, right? Everything impacts the other. So that's kind of one area that you could start with. And then another one is I would actually look at your internal data. So I would collect some of your internal data so you can show them some of your own statistics internally, because no doubt there'll be some areas there that you can highlight that could become a problem in the future. And then
00:39:46
Speaker
So that's something else I would look at. And then the other thing I would do is survey your team. Like if you have a quarterly engagement survey or a poll survey or something that you send out to your team, can you get some information there from the team? Because one of the things we got at Ben is we actually got a lot of feedback from the team around how they wanted to see more happening on DEI.
00:40:08
Speaker
And that was great, fantastic. And I was really pleased that they felt they could bring that up as well and say that. And that helps to kind of show you that people care about it. It's really important to them and they see it, which is great. So yeah, I think those are the three things that I would do and then go to the leadership team and be like, here is all the information.
00:40:34
Speaker
Here are some ideas like I always you know when I go to a leadership team at Ben with something I always come up with some solutions or ideas or suggestions of what we can do and I think it is important to do that and have you know cost effective ones and ones that you know that can require budget and just see kind of what you what you can do and
00:40:52
Speaker
and start with. So if anybody wants to, you know, ask questions or, you know, look at our Hamburg policy on it, I'm more than happy to speak to anybody or share our policy as well. So just, yeah, reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn.
00:41:08
Speaker
Oh, amazing, amazing. Yeah, no, honestly, I couldn't agree with more what you said there. I think having the, I guess, looking at the benefits and putting that in their face, of course, if the benefits are there, how could they argue against it? And like you said, we have a saying in my company, solutions, not problems. And that in itself is the, the problem is the kind of diversity topic, but here's a solution. This is what we're going to do. So you don't even have to worry about thinking about it. Leave it with me. I've got it.
00:41:32
Speaker
but we need to kind of focus on it. So yeah, I think having a solution for that because the leadership team has so much to look at, right? They're doing so much. So another thing added to their plate, which is important, right? But it can be a lot, but having a solution for how you can combat that is really key.
00:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if you're a small growing business as well and you want to raise money, you need to be showing that you're taking this topic seriously. So a lot of investors are asking about it these days as well, you know, which is great. And another reason that they should be adding it to their agenda.
00:42:06
Speaker
but yeah it shouldn't be a box-ticking exercise at all and the benefits are just black and white and there is so much data out there to show how brilliant this can be for your organization and hey look it's also a really great thing for society and for our economy. The benefits are just far far reaching so it's an absolute no-brainer.
00:42:25
Speaker
Oh, amazing. Everyone, like Alicia said, if you have any questions on the handbook or their policies, I'm sure you'd be more than happy to answer any questions. So yeah, thank you again, Alicia, for joining me. I really, really appreciate it. And yeah, such a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I'm really passionate about this topic. And I think the more anyone can help raise awareness on it and share ideas and suggestions, the better. So I'm always more than happy to talk about it. So thank you for having me.
00:42:56
Speaker
you