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GDS Podcast #3 - an interview with the GDS Women‘s Network
Liz Lutgendorff and Rosa Fox from the GDS Women's Network talk about why the network was set up, what it does and discuss wider issues of inclusion and diversity.
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A full transcript of the episode follows:
Angus Montgomery:
Hello, and welcome to the third edition of the government digital service podcast. My name’s Angus Montgomery and I’m a senior writer at GDS, and for this episode of the podcast we're going to be talking to Liz Lutgendorff and Rosa Fox from the GDS Women’s Network, so thank you very much both for joining me.
Rosa Fox:
Thank you for having us.
Angus Montgomery:
Before I start, if I could just ask you, because we're going to go on to talk about the Women’s Network and what it does and why it was set up, and why it exists in GDS, and we’re loosely talking about it because 2018 is the centenary of women suffrage in the UK, and in fact I think on the 21st November 1918 women could be elected to parliament for the first time, so I think in February there was universal suffrage, or women suffrage in 2018, in November women could be elected to parliament, so we’re hoping that this will be released at about that date so that’s why we’re here.
But before we go into that, I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up at GDS and what you do. Liz, if you could let me know, how long have you been at GDS and what do you do here?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’ve been here almost seven years now, so I am like a veteran of GDS.
Angus Montgomery:
Since the beginning.
Liz Lutgendorff:
Almost the beginning, so I’m pre-GDS but not pre-GOV.UK, I think, so I was brought on in January 2012. Originally I was looking at this site called Business Link, if anyone remembers it, to analyse the user needs to add them to what was then the beta of GOV.UK. I was with the content team for about four or five years, and then I worked with the GOV.UK programme as a whole, trying to make us more efficient and use data better, and then January this year I moved to Verify to do the same thing, so looking at data analysis, how the programme works, things like that.
Angus Montgomery:
Cool, and Rosa, what do you do and how long have you been at GDS?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, so I’ve been at GDS for nearly three years, and I work as a software developer. I was on GOV.UK for two years doing mostly back end development in a language called Ruby and I then joined Verify, maybe about six months ago, so, yes, me and Liz are now on the same programme, and, yes, working in Java on the Verify project, so, yes, it’s good.
Angus Montgomery:
What was your background, what were you doing before you came to GDS and to government?
Rosa Fox:
Worked in quite a small Ruby on Rails agency previously, and then before that various jobs, mostly in small tech companies, and then before that I was studying my degree which was half music half computer science.
Angus Montgomery:
So sort of background in the wider private sector tech industry?
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Liz, how about you?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Broadly the same. I was working for a start-up and before that I was working for a company that did accessible formats. It was a translation company but also did accessible format, so kind of just that, and then before that I was in Canada and I was in university.
Angus Montgomery:
Cool. You’re both obviously involved in the Women’s Network at GDS. Do you have formal roles in it, what do you do for the network?
Rosa Fox:
I am a co-chair of the Women’s Network. In January we re-launched the network, so me and a colleague called Amanda Diamond, who is now on loan to ACAS, but she was really instrumental in re-launching the network with me. On Amanda’s departure Nicky Zachariou and Laura Flannery have joined me as co-chairs. As a part of that, as a part of the big re-launch, which I can go into more detail later, we created five working groups, and we have people involved in a lot of the different groups, so Liz is involved in events mostly-
Liz Lutgendorff:
And the pay transparency.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, and pay transparency.
Angus Montgomery:
Okay, cool, so very active roles both of you.
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Why does the Women’s Network exist and what’s its purpose, what’s it there to do?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’m trying to remember back to when we started it, but I think it was still at Aviation House, were you here when it started or had it already existed?
Rosa Fox:
I read that it started in 2014, so I wasn’t here but you probably were.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think it was generally that GDS had been growing larger. We were becoming more – moving more from being a kind of scrappy start-up to actually having formal things, and how we as employees improve the organisation. I think a lot of us were actually becoming permanent employees rather than contractors as well. I remember we had by the old purple sofas, so like we don’t have meeting rooms as normal, and we just kind of got together and was like, “Do we want to do this thing?” Everyone was like, “Yes, we should do this thing.”
It started as I think as a lot of just email, talking about things that were happening, not really any huge, formal structure that we have now, and then over time it become more formalised. We were like, “What do we want? What kinds of goals do we want to achieve?” And so we did some more events. We weren’t really quite active in changing policy yet, that’s come more with the formal re-launch
Angus Montgomery:
Do you remember, was there a particular spark or a catalyst that led to this happening?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’m not sure. I think there are other people who recognised that there was a gap, that we didn’t have one. I wasn’t really involved, I just remember it happening and being at the group. I think it was just we didn’t have it and we thought there were things that we could improve. We recognised the fact that we had far fewer female developers, a lot of the technical roles were male dominated with only like maybe one or two people who were women in senior levels and things like that. Our SM team was generally quite male heavy I think at that time, it’s gotten better in recent months and years.
Yes, it was mainly a recognition that we didn’t have this and we recognised the imbalance in the workplace at the time. There were several changes quite early on I think, or maybe not early on but under Stephen Foreshew-Cain, our second director, we went to having female representation on every interview panel, which I think the people team have stats that show that that actually increased the amount of, at least people accepting job offers, or giving job offers I think it was, and then as well as making the commitment of not to speak at events that are male dominated, so making sure that women are represented on panel discussions or in the conference in general.
It was quite nice to have that commitment quite early on from our senior management to improve women’s opportunity in these panels as well, so putting women forward to speak at GDS events, rather than having the same people who may have previously spoken anyway and don’t really need the kind of experience or profile raising, so that was quite nice, that was fairly early on in the development of the network I think by engaging with SM team.
Angus Montgomery:
Did you find SM, senior management team, and leadership, did you find that they were quite receptive to this idea of having a women’s network, and was the organisation receptive as well?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes. In general I think GDS is quite acceptant of most networks, if not all networks, so it’s good, but especially under Stephen I think it was – action happened as a result of it which was really nice.
Angus Montgomery:
Rosa, as someone who joined GDS when the Women’s Network had been set up and existed, what do you remember when you first came across it and what you thought of it?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, so I suppose software development, it is very male dominated, and I suppose on a lot of my teams I was often the only woman, so when I heard that there was a Women’s Network I kind of – I felt even though the guys on my team were lovely and fortunately I didn’t experience any harassment or discrimination, but sometimes if you’re struggling or, you know, you kind of want to be around people that you can relate to. I don’t know, it made me feel a bit more comfortable knowing that I had more of a support group there.
When I found out about the Women’s Network, I think it was probably through the inspirational speaker series, so I think that’s how I probably heard that it was in existence and, yes, and then I started going to meetings and things from there.
Angus Montgomery:
Had you ever come across anything similar in other roles, in your jobs before GDS?
Rosa Fox:
Not so much because I worked at quite small companies. Outside of work I co-organise something called Code Bar, which is free weekly coding workshops for people underrepresented in the tech industry. Although in a work capacity I hadn’t I’d done a lot of diversity related community stuff outside of work, so in terms of having a supportive network of people and building that and being involved in that it was quite a big part of my life, but to actually have it in work wasn’t something that I’d had before, as such, but I think that was just because I’d worked at quite small places.
Angus Montgomery:
What’s it like, because I think I probably joined you, yes, about the same time as you and had a similar-ish background, in that I’d worked in smaller organisations in the private sector, and to me one of the really notable things about coming to GDS was the fact that these networks existed but the fact that they were so active, and it was really inescapable that these kinds of networks existed and this diversity existed, and that was really amazing and something that just really stuck with me.
I remember my first few days just seeing things like rainbow flags all over the place and stuff like that. Having come from an environment that I thought was quite inclusive to one that was really, really obviously inclusive was really amazing. Did you find something similar, or how do you feel about-?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, I think it helps a lot to just be very vocal about what is acceptable and what you want and the kind of culture that you want to have. For example, we have lots of posters that we put all over the walls and things just to try and be like, “We’re here, we’re present.” I think the more that you make your values known then the easier it is to call out when something isn’t right. That is still difficult to do even with everything that we have, and that is something that we’re still working on improving, but I think ultimately knowing that we’re creating somewhere where people should feel comfortable to be themselves and feel included is really important, so I think it’s good to shout it from the roof tops and try and make sure everyone is-
Angus Montgomery:
Again, one of the things that struck me is the amount of, like you say shouting through the rooftops, but the amount of energy that you need to have to keep that going as well, like it’s really important to continue to be really, really vocal about this stuff. Liz, is that something that you found, kind of having been involved in the network since the beginning? It’s not that you can't just do this thing and then let it go; you’ve kind of got to keep going with it and got to keep really vocal.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I would say anyone listening in any capacity, I get involved with so many things because I’m generally a person who will just do them, I will get involved and I will be an active person and so this isn’t the only network I’m in, for example, but the problem is that networks live and die by the people who get involved, and having the umbrella is great but you still need the individuals to do the planning, do the organisation.
I think there’s a difference between joining and thing and you’re like, “There’s this thing, and that’s wonderful and I’ll participate and go to the things,” but it takes an extra level of personal courage and political capital to be, “I’m also going to be the annoying person who raises the thing that has upset the group,” and being that front person to say, “This wasn’t appropriate,” or putting on a controversial talk if we want to do that, or something like that.
And again, I think when it ebbs and flows is when people have left and were doing that role and there’s a vacuum to replace it, or you’re just really busy, work in GDS ebbs and flows as well, and so if you feel you have the time and energy and you’re not afraid of doing that, like get involved, we need you, we always need you. Don’t feel like you’re going to step on people’s toes. Just say, “I’d really like to help.” What would you like me to do? This is what I’m interested in.” They will love you for it.
No one will think you’re butting in or being mean or trying to take over, it’s we just need the help. We’re all working every day, we have holidays, we have good days and bad days and so anyone who can pick up the slack is completely 100% absolutely welcome to get involved.
Rosa Fox:
It does take courage. Some of the issues that we deal with are – they can be emotionally draining, but we just do what we can to support each other. You have to think back to the suffragettes, deeds not words. As a community they got together and they fought for change and they got it, so just keep going.
Angus Montgomery:
You mentioned that it’s challenging, and obviously it takes a lot of energy, but you’re seeing change because you are – things are changing because the network exists and that must be hugely rewarding, do you get that feeling as well and is that what keeps you going in a sense?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes, I definitely think from being here seven years ago that GDS in different ways has gotten better and worse. Worse in the sense like it’s not as small as it was so you don’t feel involved in every decision, sometimes you don’t know where things come from, sometimes you don’t know who these people are because they’re on a different floor and you’ve never met them, but in others ways it’s become much better.
I think the hiring practices have gotten a lot more slicker. We definitely have more women involved in the workplace, and in senior positions. We have now the time to do the network things. I think at the very beginning it was just like, “Let’s get stuff over the line, oh my God,” so busy, so stressful, and so it’s mellowed in the sense that we have the time, people aren’t expected to be heroes and just constantly deliver and deliver and deliver.
So in that way I think it’s a much better workplace, especially for people who want to be involved in something but have kids, or have caring commitments, or are reservists, or whatever, that you don’t feel like you’re letting the team down if you can't spend 100% time delivering the thing, you can take that time out to help make the workplace better. I think on aggregate it has become better.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, and I would say it is so rewarding. For example, one of the things that we’ve done is a break into public speaking workshop, and so when people sign up… So originally it was for the Women’s Network, now it’s for anyone underrepresented in tech, and when people register they fill out a form and they talk about what holds you back from public speaking, what are your worries, what are your fears. It’s really sad to see the responses and it seems like, “I’m worried I don’t have anything interesting to say. I’m scared that I will completely freeze when I get on stage.” All the worries that people have about public speaking, but when people turn up, the women are so talented, they’ve got so many amazing stories.
I think what kind of world do we live in where these people have been told that they don’t have anything to say, so to see people go from…And it’s not their ability that’s the problem, it’s the lack of confidence, and to see people go from these fears to then to see them present at the end and go on to speak at conferences and do all these things, and I think having underrepresented people out there speaking, having a voice, is so important and it’s so inspirational to others as well. Things like that I find really, yes, really inspiring.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I was just thinking about GDS I think, and it’s still present, it was present in the beginning and it’s still present now, is that everyone wants to see the best of people and so, again, the getting involved in public speaking, you can go there knowing that they’re going to be supportive and no one’s going to laugh or anything. They’re there because they genuinely have either struggled themselves, they want to help people, and that’s the same ethos across GDS, that everyone wants the best out of everyone, and they want to help them get there.
Coming to work for GDS must be lovely for some people because I know coming from another job that you don’t have that, right, it’s kind of like it’s a terrible workplace, not everyone hates each other but there are cliques and stuff like that, and it’s genuinely amazing to have such support here and I think, I don’t if it’s unique, I don’t know if other teams across civil service experience this, but when people leave the thing that is common to everyone leaving is like, “I don’t know why I’m leaving, this is truly amazing and I’ve never worked with nicer people in my life. I’ve learned so much from everyone.” I think even if we change, in whatever ways we change as an organisation, as long as that stays true I think GDS will always be an amazing place to work.
Angus Montgomery:
In your time in the Women’s Network, what do you think is the most rewarding or valuable thing that the network has done, or what’s the thing that you think, “So pleased that we did that?”
Rosa Fox:
There are literally so many things. I’d say as an overall general thing, and then I can go into a few more examples but, yes I think so when I talk about all the different working groups that we’ve got, so obviously the chairs of the network are just a few people, we’ve only got so much time, so the network basically relies upon the work of so many people coming together and making change. I think that in itself is something, but, yes, we have inspirational speakers that come in.
I suppose the public speaking workshops, so training and mentoring, there’s a training and mentoring group, they had a launch of a mentoring, I want to say ‘service’, but that’s not the word, mentoring scheme here at GDS, so that’s basically pairing women with mentors to help them with questions to do with career progression and advancing their careers. Yes, that’s something exciting that’s happened.
I remember the previous network did something called ‘reverse mentoring’. When I started GDS, I think it was two months after I joined I did that, and I was reverse mentoring Alex Holmes who was the COO at the time. That was really interesting because I think – so at the time when I thought of a COO, I think of this superhuman, like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, or someone like that, so to actually be able to regularly talk to the COO of the company you work at is really inspiring because you find out from them how they got to that point. Also, it makes you realise that maybe it’s not completely unattainable, which is really positive. Yes, things like that.
What else have we had? Things like having diverse interview panels is another thing. This is quite an interesting one, so the previous people that were in charge of the Women’s Network managed to get lots of the fixed term appointment contracts to be made permanent, because obviously if you’re going on maternity leave and your contract runs out you don’t have that job security. I think, yes, pushing things forward like that has been really good.
Angus Montgomery:
One of the things related to that, and it’s a thing that obviously we talk a lot about at GDS, but there are lots of statistics about how underrepresented women are in the tech industry, so I think there’s a PWC report that I’ve seen quite a lot that says something like, “Only 15% of people working in STEM,” so science, technology, engineering and maths, “In the UK are female,” and only 5% of people in leadership positions identify as women as well. It’s an obvious question but why, why is that, and is the tech industry particularly bad, and what are the things that make it so?
Rosa Fox:
I think it stems from a young age. Apparently women were the first computer programmers after the war. We were there, well, I say coding, writing the code out by hand and making punch cards and things like that but I think the 1980s was probably when the male domination crept in and it became more lucrative to be a programmer.
It became I suppose the kind of sci-fi hacker image started. I suppose, I don’t know, women must have just got slowly pushed out. I mean, I don’t think the numbers have improved much since the eighties, which is such a shame. I think a lot of it is how we’re conditioned from a young age. Girls, partly I think it’s girls are not really taught to take risks and things in the way that boys are, you know, “Boys will be boys, girls shouldn’t play in the mud,” that kind of thing. With programming, it does take a lot of grit and determination at first. You have to get comfortable with making mistakes because you break things all the time, things aren’t going to work, you have to sit there for hours trying to get… Like you’ve missed out a bracket and then you realise and then your code works. Things like that. I think maybe that’s part of it. Another thing is maybe it’s got this kind of geeky image, maybe it’s not considered cool to programme computers, and if you’re a girl and you’re at school maybe you’re more interested in trying to fit in with your friends. Maybe it does stem from that age.
I think also girls are just told that they can't do it. I’ve heard of – I knew someone who was studying computing A level quite a long time ago now at school, and they basically said, well, her tutor just constantly put her down. They had an anonymous test score announcement and someone had scored really highly, and they were like, “Put up your hand, who do you think this was?” It was her, so she was constantly put down but then she would get good grades. I think, yes, if you’re told that you’re not going to be good at something and then the opportunities aren’t there then… Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Also, and I don’t think this is true just of the tech industry but I know for a fact this is true of industries beyond that, but the level of representation of women the higher up you go, the more senior you get, becomes less and less, and that figure about only 5% of people in leadership roles identify as women. Why is that an issue? On top of this structural discrimination, I suppose, against women coming into the tech industry you’ve then got this career progression issue. Why does that happen?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes. It’s not an individual company thing, it’s society. In organisations a lot of the tech stuff is going to be small companies, probably not with great HR policies, probably not with leave or flexible working is not a thing that exists, and so if you’re a carer, mother, if you have any of these responsibilities which disproportionately fall towards women that’s not going to be really attractive, and that’s also where you can also get lots of experience and actually go from being a small start-up to scaling up quite quickly and being in those senior roles, so if you don’t want to do that then where do you go?
Some place within GDS you have those structures and places that allow you to rise but GDS is civil service, not a lot of people know that there are tech opportunities in the civil service, still, even though there in GDS, there are loads of digital teams within many government departments who will offer you that support, and so until that changes across a lot of the tech sector I don’t know if it will improve.
The same with being in a senior role, if you’re not seen as constantly going for that then you’re not going to rise either, and putting yourself out there. If you want to go on leave to have a child or something then that’s going to hold you back. There is enough research that says that’s a big problem.
I think as well, you have to be quite vocal, you need to have, maybe not even vocal but just have that aim and relentlessly pursue it. I don’t think a lot of people are raised like that, like Rosa said. I was not raised like that. My mum was born in the Netherlands and she did a mathematics degree in the 1960s, or something, and she only could become a teacher, that was her only option at that time and so when I was raised my mum was like, “You can do whatever you want.” I changed my mind every five minutes. She was like, “Doesn’t matter, just work for it.” Typical kind of very Dutch approach to things. “Work for it and you do it.”
So I grew up with a very different perception of I can literally do everything. Which has made me probably more mouthy than I should be, but at the same time when I’m in the workforce I know that I am on average probably a lot more argumentative than most of my female colleagues, but on par with my male colleagues because I don’t really see that difference, because that’s how I was raised. Unless you’re getting that support probably from a young age you’re not going to be like that.
Even growing up through high school and university I was always like, “I’m going to do public speaking. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” My parents were all supportive; they never said I couldn’t do anything. You need a lot of support from a lot of different angles to be able to get to that position and to fight for that position. Probably disproportionate to the people who are male and getting those positions because it’s kind of expected.
Rosa Fox:
I was going to say, yes, that’s so true. Girls have for years outperformed boys in every subject in school. It’s not down to the ability of women, women are just as intelligent. I want to say if not more, but… No, it’s about equality. We’re just as intelligent as each other and it’s just awful that women are treated as second class citizens when it’s just the structures have just been so skewed for so long and it just needs to change.
Angus Montgomery:
We’ve talked a lot obviously about the Women’s Network and about, I suppose, as a consequence of that what women are doing to help each other in the workplace, and you as women are doing to help other women, but what can men do to help? Well, as a starter, the Women’s Network is open to everyone, you don’t have to identify as a woman to be a member, that’s correct isn’t it?
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Presumably still the majority of members are women. Do you have a lot of members who don’t identify as women?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, I’d say the majority are women. It’s International Men’s Day in a couple of weeks so we’re having a male allies event, and we’re having someone, an Oxford professor called Taha Yasseri and he’s going to be doing a talk about data science in the everyday sexism project. Then we’re going to have two GDS workers, so Kieran Housden and Matt Gregory and they are going to be talking about shared parental leave. Then we’re going to be talking about what it is to be a good male ally, kind of like a group discussion. Hopefully we’ll be able to get more people of any gender to join the network as a result of that as well. Hopefully that will be improving, but at the moment, yes, it is mostly women.
I’d say to be a good ally, firstly I think it’s recognising your biases. I think calling out bad behaviour and setting a good example. Also I think if a woman tells you that they think something is sexist or they think that something is harassment then it probably is. I find it stressful when people try and undermine someone’s opinion on something like that. I think if someone tells you this is sexist it probably is, stop doing it kind of thing.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think on a really individual level, especially in the workplace somewhere like GDS or the civil service, or anywhere where you have a performance review at the end of the year or mid year, whatever, is to always… If a woman asks you for feedback try to give it to them. Like if you can only give one piece of feedback and one’s a guy and one’s a woman, try to give the feedback to the woman because it’s going to be harder for them to get good quality reviews.
The other things is always carefully think about what you’re saying in these things, because you get a lot of flaky, qualitative behaviour sort of thing. So like women will be more strident or they will be more argumentative, but men never get those descriptions in reviews and things like that, and so if you’re on the receiving end of that, like if you’re a manager and you are getting that feedback from someone, not even just a woman but anyone who is an underrepresented minority, to really drill down into it, like what exactly was the thing.
You get a lot of second hand, “I didn’t really like the way they constructed that email.” It’s a perfectly innocuous email, they’ve just kind of that unconscious bias has crept in. So every time there is some sort of unqualified or vague piece of feedback that is especially about behaviour, drill down into it, examine it, see if there is some bias at play.
Women and underrepresented groups always get hit with that stuff, whereas a lot of men don’t. It can really hold people back. These sorts of things really affect women quite strongly because it’s like, “I thought I was being a good team member, communicating, getting all my stakeholders involved,” all these sorts of things. It just throws people for a loop.
This is more from all my union experience but it’s so tough to get good, practical, delivery focused reviews. It’s like, “Yes, they delivered this thing, it was really well done,” all that sort of stuff, so give good, evidenced feedback for people. That will help them career wise more so than probably anything else that you could do for them. Or if they need help with something be very thorough, help them through the problem, build their confidence while you’re solving that problem, but just be there, be supportive, be un-judgemental and just help them in small ways to progress.
Angus Montgomery:
Just as a final question, the Women’s Network has been around for several years now and obviously as we’ve spoken about has done a lot of things, how would GDS be different if the Women’s Network didn’t exist?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think we’d have less women in the workplace.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, definitely, less women. I think the culture would probably be not very nice really.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think it would be all right but it wouldn’t be as thoughtful as it is. I think over the years it’s become far more thoughtful. Yes, definitely less women! (Laughter)
Rosa Fox:
Yes, maybe it would be more hostile. Yes, probably just wouldn’t be such a nice place to be day to day.
Angus Montgomery:
So real tangible, not only a nicer place but more women in the workplace literally because of the network?
Rosa Fox:
Definitely. I think the work we’ve produced as working for the government, our products have to work for everyone, so if we’ve got more of a range of inputs and we have better products that we produce, so…
Liz Lutgendorff:
I have no idea why the people who took shared parental leave took it because they knew of it, but I know the civil service in general has been the largest uptake of people using shared parental leave. So for those who don’t know it means that if you meet certain qualifications you can basically split the time off between your partners. So you might take four months, the mother might take four months, the mother or the other father might take four months, whatever, however you break it down.
I think because it’s so un-judgemental in terms of where we work and that you won't be disappointing your team if you leave for four months to spend that quality time with your child that more men will take it here. I know so many men who have taken shared parental leave with GDS and it’s just great, you get to have that time. I’m not a parent, I don’t know what it’s like but I imagine it must be nice not to have two weeks and have to go back and have a newborn in your house. To be able to take that time and become a parent must be really nice.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, the countries where there is a greater amount of maternity and paternity leave, they have better gender equality so, yes, I think it’s so important, and if more importance, and understanding the importance of care giving, I think we’re so taught career, career, career, but actually if we didn’t have care giving then people can't have careers, so I think if more appreciation was given towards that as well, which I think it is here at GDS more so than a lot of other places, then I think that’s good. If people are happy outside of work they’re going to do better work when they’re at work. Hopefully.
Angus Montgomery:
Just to finish off, for anyone who’s listening to this, how can they get involved with and join the Women’s Network?
Rosa Fox:
Please join. Yes, we have a Google group, so usually a lot of the communications are done through that so it’s probably best to join that. Otherwise, just message me or Nicky or Laura and, yes, there are plenty of different groups that you could be involved in. It’s like if anyone’s got an idea that they want to make happen then we’re open to try and make it happen.
Angus Montgomery:
Brilliant, well I hope lots of people do. Yes, Liz and Rosa, thank you very much for joining me.
Rosa Fox:
Thank you.
Liz Lutgendorff:
Thanks.
Angus Montgomery:
Thank you very much for joining us for that episode of the GDS podcast, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you want to listen to any more podcasts please go to wherever it is that you listen to your podcasts and subscribe to it, we’ve got lots more coming up. The next episode which we will be releasing in December will be a review of the year at the Government Digital Service, so please subscribe and listen to that one, and I hope you enjoy what we’ve done and what we’ll do in the future. Thank you very much.
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Liz Lutgendorff and Rosa Fox from the GDS Women's Network talk about why the network was set up, what it does and discuss wider issues of inclusion and diversity.
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A full transcript of the episode follows:
Angus Montgomery:
Hello, and welcome to the third edition of the government digital service podcast. My name’s Angus Montgomery and I’m a senior writer at GDS, and for this episode of the podcast we're going to be talking to Liz Lutgendorff and Rosa Fox from the GDS Women’s Network, so thank you very much both for joining me.
Rosa Fox:
Thank you for having us.
Angus Montgomery:
Before I start, if I could just ask you, because we're going to go on to talk about the Women’s Network and what it does and why it was set up, and why it exists in GDS, and we’re loosely talking about it because 2018 is the centenary of women suffrage in the UK, and in fact I think on the 21st November 1918 women could be elected to parliament for the first time, so I think in February there was universal suffrage, or women suffrage in 2018, in November women could be elected to parliament, so we’re hoping that this will be released at about that date so that’s why we’re here.
But before we go into that, I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up at GDS and what you do. Liz, if you could let me know, how long have you been at GDS and what do you do here?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’ve been here almost seven years now, so I am like a veteran of GDS.
Angus Montgomery:
Since the beginning.
Liz Lutgendorff:
Almost the beginning, so I’m pre-GDS but not pre-GOV.UK, I think, so I was brought on in January 2012. Originally I was looking at this site called Business Link, if anyone remembers it, to analyse the user needs to add them to what was then the beta of GOV.UK. I was with the content team for about four or five years, and then I worked with the GOV.UK programme as a whole, trying to make us more efficient and use data better, and then January this year I moved to Verify to do the same thing, so looking at data analysis, how the programme works, things like that.
Angus Montgomery:
Cool, and Rosa, what do you do and how long have you been at GDS?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, so I’ve been at GDS for nearly three years, and I work as a software developer. I was on GOV.UK for two years doing mostly back end development in a language called Ruby and I then joined Verify, maybe about six months ago, so, yes, me and Liz are now on the same programme, and, yes, working in Java on the Verify project, so, yes, it’s good.
Angus Montgomery:
What was your background, what were you doing before you came to GDS and to government?
Rosa Fox:
Worked in quite a small Ruby on Rails agency previously, and then before that various jobs, mostly in small tech companies, and then before that I was studying my degree which was half music half computer science.
Angus Montgomery:
So sort of background in the wider private sector tech industry?
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Liz, how about you?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Broadly the same. I was working for a start-up and before that I was working for a company that did accessible formats. It was a translation company but also did accessible format, so kind of just that, and then before that I was in Canada and I was in university.
Angus Montgomery:
Cool. You’re both obviously involved in the Women’s Network at GDS. Do you have formal roles in it, what do you do for the network?
Rosa Fox:
I am a co-chair of the Women’s Network. In January we re-launched the network, so me and a colleague called Amanda Diamond, who is now on loan to ACAS, but she was really instrumental in re-launching the network with me. On Amanda’s departure Nicky Zachariou and Laura Flannery have joined me as co-chairs. As a part of that, as a part of the big re-launch, which I can go into more detail later, we created five working groups, and we have people involved in a lot of the different groups, so Liz is involved in events mostly-
Liz Lutgendorff:
And the pay transparency.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, and pay transparency.
Angus Montgomery:
Okay, cool, so very active roles both of you.
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Why does the Women’s Network exist and what’s its purpose, what’s it there to do?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’m trying to remember back to when we started it, but I think it was still at Aviation House, were you here when it started or had it already existed?
Rosa Fox:
I read that it started in 2014, so I wasn’t here but you probably were.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think it was generally that GDS had been growing larger. We were becoming more – moving more from being a kind of scrappy start-up to actually having formal things, and how we as employees improve the organisation. I think a lot of us were actually becoming permanent employees rather than contractors as well. I remember we had by the old purple sofas, so like we don’t have meeting rooms as normal, and we just kind of got together and was like, “Do we want to do this thing?” Everyone was like, “Yes, we should do this thing.”
It started as I think as a lot of just email, talking about things that were happening, not really any huge, formal structure that we have now, and then over time it become more formalised. We were like, “What do we want? What kinds of goals do we want to achieve?” And so we did some more events. We weren’t really quite active in changing policy yet, that’s come more with the formal re-launch
Angus Montgomery:
Do you remember, was there a particular spark or a catalyst that led to this happening?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I’m not sure. I think there are other people who recognised that there was a gap, that we didn’t have one. I wasn’t really involved, I just remember it happening and being at the group. I think it was just we didn’t have it and we thought there were things that we could improve. We recognised the fact that we had far fewer female developers, a lot of the technical roles were male dominated with only like maybe one or two people who were women in senior levels and things like that. Our SM team was generally quite male heavy I think at that time, it’s gotten better in recent months and years.
Yes, it was mainly a recognition that we didn’t have this and we recognised the imbalance in the workplace at the time. There were several changes quite early on I think, or maybe not early on but under Stephen Foreshew-Cain, our second director, we went to having female representation on every interview panel, which I think the people team have stats that show that that actually increased the amount of, at least people accepting job offers, or giving job offers I think it was, and then as well as making the commitment of not to speak at events that are male dominated, so making sure that women are represented on panel discussions or in the conference in general.
It was quite nice to have that commitment quite early on from our senior management to improve women’s opportunity in these panels as well, so putting women forward to speak at GDS events, rather than having the same people who may have previously spoken anyway and don’t really need the kind of experience or profile raising, so that was quite nice, that was fairly early on in the development of the network I think by engaging with SM team.
Angus Montgomery:
Did you find SM, senior management team, and leadership, did you find that they were quite receptive to this idea of having a women’s network, and was the organisation receptive as well?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes. In general I think GDS is quite acceptant of most networks, if not all networks, so it’s good, but especially under Stephen I think it was – action happened as a result of it which was really nice.
Angus Montgomery:
Rosa, as someone who joined GDS when the Women’s Network had been set up and existed, what do you remember when you first came across it and what you thought of it?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, so I suppose software development, it is very male dominated, and I suppose on a lot of my teams I was often the only woman, so when I heard that there was a Women’s Network I kind of – I felt even though the guys on my team were lovely and fortunately I didn’t experience any harassment or discrimination, but sometimes if you’re struggling or, you know, you kind of want to be around people that you can relate to. I don’t know, it made me feel a bit more comfortable knowing that I had more of a support group there.
When I found out about the Women’s Network, I think it was probably through the inspirational speaker series, so I think that’s how I probably heard that it was in existence and, yes, and then I started going to meetings and things from there.
Angus Montgomery:
Had you ever come across anything similar in other roles, in your jobs before GDS?
Rosa Fox:
Not so much because I worked at quite small companies. Outside of work I co-organise something called Code Bar, which is free weekly coding workshops for people underrepresented in the tech industry. Although in a work capacity I hadn’t I’d done a lot of diversity related community stuff outside of work, so in terms of having a supportive network of people and building that and being involved in that it was quite a big part of my life, but to actually have it in work wasn’t something that I’d had before, as such, but I think that was just because I’d worked at quite small places.
Angus Montgomery:
What’s it like, because I think I probably joined you, yes, about the same time as you and had a similar-ish background, in that I’d worked in smaller organisations in the private sector, and to me one of the really notable things about coming to GDS was the fact that these networks existed but the fact that they were so active, and it was really inescapable that these kinds of networks existed and this diversity existed, and that was really amazing and something that just really stuck with me.
I remember my first few days just seeing things like rainbow flags all over the place and stuff like that. Having come from an environment that I thought was quite inclusive to one that was really, really obviously inclusive was really amazing. Did you find something similar, or how do you feel about-?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, I think it helps a lot to just be very vocal about what is acceptable and what you want and the kind of culture that you want to have. For example, we have lots of posters that we put all over the walls and things just to try and be like, “We’re here, we’re present.” I think the more that you make your values known then the easier it is to call out when something isn’t right. That is still difficult to do even with everything that we have, and that is something that we’re still working on improving, but I think ultimately knowing that we’re creating somewhere where people should feel comfortable to be themselves and feel included is really important, so I think it’s good to shout it from the roof tops and try and make sure everyone is-
Angus Montgomery:
Again, one of the things that struck me is the amount of, like you say shouting through the rooftops, but the amount of energy that you need to have to keep that going as well, like it’s really important to continue to be really, really vocal about this stuff. Liz, is that something that you found, kind of having been involved in the network since the beginning? It’s not that you can't just do this thing and then let it go; you’ve kind of got to keep going with it and got to keep really vocal.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I would say anyone listening in any capacity, I get involved with so many things because I’m generally a person who will just do them, I will get involved and I will be an active person and so this isn’t the only network I’m in, for example, but the problem is that networks live and die by the people who get involved, and having the umbrella is great but you still need the individuals to do the planning, do the organisation.
I think there’s a difference between joining and thing and you’re like, “There’s this thing, and that’s wonderful and I’ll participate and go to the things,” but it takes an extra level of personal courage and political capital to be, “I’m also going to be the annoying person who raises the thing that has upset the group,” and being that front person to say, “This wasn’t appropriate,” or putting on a controversial talk if we want to do that, or something like that.
And again, I think when it ebbs and flows is when people have left and were doing that role and there’s a vacuum to replace it, or you’re just really busy, work in GDS ebbs and flows as well, and so if you feel you have the time and energy and you’re not afraid of doing that, like get involved, we need you, we always need you. Don’t feel like you’re going to step on people’s toes. Just say, “I’d really like to help.” What would you like me to do? This is what I’m interested in.” They will love you for it.
No one will think you’re butting in or being mean or trying to take over, it’s we just need the help. We’re all working every day, we have holidays, we have good days and bad days and so anyone who can pick up the slack is completely 100% absolutely welcome to get involved.
Rosa Fox:
It does take courage. Some of the issues that we deal with are – they can be emotionally draining, but we just do what we can to support each other. You have to think back to the suffragettes, deeds not words. As a community they got together and they fought for change and they got it, so just keep going.
Angus Montgomery:
You mentioned that it’s challenging, and obviously it takes a lot of energy, but you’re seeing change because you are – things are changing because the network exists and that must be hugely rewarding, do you get that feeling as well and is that what keeps you going in a sense?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes, I definitely think from being here seven years ago that GDS in different ways has gotten better and worse. Worse in the sense like it’s not as small as it was so you don’t feel involved in every decision, sometimes you don’t know where things come from, sometimes you don’t know who these people are because they’re on a different floor and you’ve never met them, but in others ways it’s become much better.
I think the hiring practices have gotten a lot more slicker. We definitely have more women involved in the workplace, and in senior positions. We have now the time to do the network things. I think at the very beginning it was just like, “Let’s get stuff over the line, oh my God,” so busy, so stressful, and so it’s mellowed in the sense that we have the time, people aren’t expected to be heroes and just constantly deliver and deliver and deliver.
So in that way I think it’s a much better workplace, especially for people who want to be involved in something but have kids, or have caring commitments, or are reservists, or whatever, that you don’t feel like you’re letting the team down if you can't spend 100% time delivering the thing, you can take that time out to help make the workplace better. I think on aggregate it has become better.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, and I would say it is so rewarding. For example, one of the things that we’ve done is a break into public speaking workshop, and so when people sign up… So originally it was for the Women’s Network, now it’s for anyone underrepresented in tech, and when people register they fill out a form and they talk about what holds you back from public speaking, what are your worries, what are your fears. It’s really sad to see the responses and it seems like, “I’m worried I don’t have anything interesting to say. I’m scared that I will completely freeze when I get on stage.” All the worries that people have about public speaking, but when people turn up, the women are so talented, they’ve got so many amazing stories.
I think what kind of world do we live in where these people have been told that they don’t have anything to say, so to see people go from…And it’s not their ability that’s the problem, it’s the lack of confidence, and to see people go from these fears to then to see them present at the end and go on to speak at conferences and do all these things, and I think having underrepresented people out there speaking, having a voice, is so important and it’s so inspirational to others as well. Things like that I find really, yes, really inspiring.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I was just thinking about GDS I think, and it’s still present, it was present in the beginning and it’s still present now, is that everyone wants to see the best of people and so, again, the getting involved in public speaking, you can go there knowing that they’re going to be supportive and no one’s going to laugh or anything. They’re there because they genuinely have either struggled themselves, they want to help people, and that’s the same ethos across GDS, that everyone wants the best out of everyone, and they want to help them get there.
Coming to work for GDS must be lovely for some people because I know coming from another job that you don’t have that, right, it’s kind of like it’s a terrible workplace, not everyone hates each other but there are cliques and stuff like that, and it’s genuinely amazing to have such support here and I think, I don’t if it’s unique, I don’t know if other teams across civil service experience this, but when people leave the thing that is common to everyone leaving is like, “I don’t know why I’m leaving, this is truly amazing and I’ve never worked with nicer people in my life. I’ve learned so much from everyone.” I think even if we change, in whatever ways we change as an organisation, as long as that stays true I think GDS will always be an amazing place to work.
Angus Montgomery:
In your time in the Women’s Network, what do you think is the most rewarding or valuable thing that the network has done, or what’s the thing that you think, “So pleased that we did that?”
Rosa Fox:
There are literally so many things. I’d say as an overall general thing, and then I can go into a few more examples but, yes I think so when I talk about all the different working groups that we’ve got, so obviously the chairs of the network are just a few people, we’ve only got so much time, so the network basically relies upon the work of so many people coming together and making change. I think that in itself is something, but, yes, we have inspirational speakers that come in.
I suppose the public speaking workshops, so training and mentoring, there’s a training and mentoring group, they had a launch of a mentoring, I want to say ‘service’, but that’s not the word, mentoring scheme here at GDS, so that’s basically pairing women with mentors to help them with questions to do with career progression and advancing their careers. Yes, that’s something exciting that’s happened.
I remember the previous network did something called ‘reverse mentoring’. When I started GDS, I think it was two months after I joined I did that, and I was reverse mentoring Alex Holmes who was the COO at the time. That was really interesting because I think – so at the time when I thought of a COO, I think of this superhuman, like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, or someone like that, so to actually be able to regularly talk to the COO of the company you work at is really inspiring because you find out from them how they got to that point. Also, it makes you realise that maybe it’s not completely unattainable, which is really positive. Yes, things like that.
What else have we had? Things like having diverse interview panels is another thing. This is quite an interesting one, so the previous people that were in charge of the Women’s Network managed to get lots of the fixed term appointment contracts to be made permanent, because obviously if you’re going on maternity leave and your contract runs out you don’t have that job security. I think, yes, pushing things forward like that has been really good.
Angus Montgomery:
One of the things related to that, and it’s a thing that obviously we talk a lot about at GDS, but there are lots of statistics about how underrepresented women are in the tech industry, so I think there’s a PWC report that I’ve seen quite a lot that says something like, “Only 15% of people working in STEM,” so science, technology, engineering and maths, “In the UK are female,” and only 5% of people in leadership positions identify as women as well. It’s an obvious question but why, why is that, and is the tech industry particularly bad, and what are the things that make it so?
Rosa Fox:
I think it stems from a young age. Apparently women were the first computer programmers after the war. We were there, well, I say coding, writing the code out by hand and making punch cards and things like that but I think the 1980s was probably when the male domination crept in and it became more lucrative to be a programmer.
It became I suppose the kind of sci-fi hacker image started. I suppose, I don’t know, women must have just got slowly pushed out. I mean, I don’t think the numbers have improved much since the eighties, which is such a shame. I think a lot of it is how we’re conditioned from a young age. Girls, partly I think it’s girls are not really taught to take risks and things in the way that boys are, you know, “Boys will be boys, girls shouldn’t play in the mud,” that kind of thing. With programming, it does take a lot of grit and determination at first. You have to get comfortable with making mistakes because you break things all the time, things aren’t going to work, you have to sit there for hours trying to get… Like you’ve missed out a bracket and then you realise and then your code works. Things like that. I think maybe that’s part of it. Another thing is maybe it’s got this kind of geeky image, maybe it’s not considered cool to programme computers, and if you’re a girl and you’re at school maybe you’re more interested in trying to fit in with your friends. Maybe it does stem from that age.
I think also girls are just told that they can't do it. I’ve heard of – I knew someone who was studying computing A level quite a long time ago now at school, and they basically said, well, her tutor just constantly put her down. They had an anonymous test score announcement and someone had scored really highly, and they were like, “Put up your hand, who do you think this was?” It was her, so she was constantly put down but then she would get good grades. I think, yes, if you’re told that you’re not going to be good at something and then the opportunities aren’t there then… Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Also, and I don’t think this is true just of the tech industry but I know for a fact this is true of industries beyond that, but the level of representation of women the higher up you go, the more senior you get, becomes less and less, and that figure about only 5% of people in leadership roles identify as women. Why is that an issue? On top of this structural discrimination, I suppose, against women coming into the tech industry you’ve then got this career progression issue. Why does that happen?
Liz Lutgendorff:
Yes. It’s not an individual company thing, it’s society. In organisations a lot of the tech stuff is going to be small companies, probably not with great HR policies, probably not with leave or flexible working is not a thing that exists, and so if you’re a carer, mother, if you have any of these responsibilities which disproportionately fall towards women that’s not going to be really attractive, and that’s also where you can also get lots of experience and actually go from being a small start-up to scaling up quite quickly and being in those senior roles, so if you don’t want to do that then where do you go?
Some place within GDS you have those structures and places that allow you to rise but GDS is civil service, not a lot of people know that there are tech opportunities in the civil service, still, even though there in GDS, there are loads of digital teams within many government departments who will offer you that support, and so until that changes across a lot of the tech sector I don’t know if it will improve.
The same with being in a senior role, if you’re not seen as constantly going for that then you’re not going to rise either, and putting yourself out there. If you want to go on leave to have a child or something then that’s going to hold you back. There is enough research that says that’s a big problem.
I think as well, you have to be quite vocal, you need to have, maybe not even vocal but just have that aim and relentlessly pursue it. I don’t think a lot of people are raised like that, like Rosa said. I was not raised like that. My mum was born in the Netherlands and she did a mathematics degree in the 1960s, or something, and she only could become a teacher, that was her only option at that time and so when I was raised my mum was like, “You can do whatever you want.” I changed my mind every five minutes. She was like, “Doesn’t matter, just work for it.” Typical kind of very Dutch approach to things. “Work for it and you do it.”
So I grew up with a very different perception of I can literally do everything. Which has made me probably more mouthy than I should be, but at the same time when I’m in the workforce I know that I am on average probably a lot more argumentative than most of my female colleagues, but on par with my male colleagues because I don’t really see that difference, because that’s how I was raised. Unless you’re getting that support probably from a young age you’re not going to be like that.
Even growing up through high school and university I was always like, “I’m going to do public speaking. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” My parents were all supportive; they never said I couldn’t do anything. You need a lot of support from a lot of different angles to be able to get to that position and to fight for that position. Probably disproportionate to the people who are male and getting those positions because it’s kind of expected.
Rosa Fox:
I was going to say, yes, that’s so true. Girls have for years outperformed boys in every subject in school. It’s not down to the ability of women, women are just as intelligent. I want to say if not more, but… No, it’s about equality. We’re just as intelligent as each other and it’s just awful that women are treated as second class citizens when it’s just the structures have just been so skewed for so long and it just needs to change.
Angus Montgomery:
We’ve talked a lot obviously about the Women’s Network and about, I suppose, as a consequence of that what women are doing to help each other in the workplace, and you as women are doing to help other women, but what can men do to help? Well, as a starter, the Women’s Network is open to everyone, you don’t have to identify as a woman to be a member, that’s correct isn’t it?
Rosa Fox:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Presumably still the majority of members are women. Do you have a lot of members who don’t identify as women?
Rosa Fox:
Yes, I’d say the majority are women. It’s International Men’s Day in a couple of weeks so we’re having a male allies event, and we’re having someone, an Oxford professor called Taha Yasseri and he’s going to be doing a talk about data science in the everyday sexism project. Then we’re going to have two GDS workers, so Kieran Housden and Matt Gregory and they are going to be talking about shared parental leave. Then we’re going to be talking about what it is to be a good male ally, kind of like a group discussion. Hopefully we’ll be able to get more people of any gender to join the network as a result of that as well. Hopefully that will be improving, but at the moment, yes, it is mostly women.
I’d say to be a good ally, firstly I think it’s recognising your biases. I think calling out bad behaviour and setting a good example. Also I think if a woman tells you that they think something is sexist or they think that something is harassment then it probably is. I find it stressful when people try and undermine someone’s opinion on something like that. I think if someone tells you this is sexist it probably is, stop doing it kind of thing.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think on a really individual level, especially in the workplace somewhere like GDS or the civil service, or anywhere where you have a performance review at the end of the year or mid year, whatever, is to always… If a woman asks you for feedback try to give it to them. Like if you can only give one piece of feedback and one’s a guy and one’s a woman, try to give the feedback to the woman because it’s going to be harder for them to get good quality reviews.
The other things is always carefully think about what you’re saying in these things, because you get a lot of flaky, qualitative behaviour sort of thing. So like women will be more strident or they will be more argumentative, but men never get those descriptions in reviews and things like that, and so if you’re on the receiving end of that, like if you’re a manager and you are getting that feedback from someone, not even just a woman but anyone who is an underrepresented minority, to really drill down into it, like what exactly was the thing.
You get a lot of second hand, “I didn’t really like the way they constructed that email.” It’s a perfectly innocuous email, they’ve just kind of that unconscious bias has crept in. So every time there is some sort of unqualified or vague piece of feedback that is especially about behaviour, drill down into it, examine it, see if there is some bias at play.
Women and underrepresented groups always get hit with that stuff, whereas a lot of men don’t. It can really hold people back. These sorts of things really affect women quite strongly because it’s like, “I thought I was being a good team member, communicating, getting all my stakeholders involved,” all these sorts of things. It just throws people for a loop.
This is more from all my union experience but it’s so tough to get good, practical, delivery focused reviews. It’s like, “Yes, they delivered this thing, it was really well done,” all that sort of stuff, so give good, evidenced feedback for people. That will help them career wise more so than probably anything else that you could do for them. Or if they need help with something be very thorough, help them through the problem, build their confidence while you’re solving that problem, but just be there, be supportive, be un-judgemental and just help them in small ways to progress.
Angus Montgomery:
Just as a final question, the Women’s Network has been around for several years now and obviously as we’ve spoken about has done a lot of things, how would GDS be different if the Women’s Network didn’t exist?
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think we’d have less women in the workplace.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, definitely, less women. I think the culture would probably be not very nice really.
Liz Lutgendorff:
I think it would be all right but it wouldn’t be as thoughtful as it is. I think over the years it’s become far more thoughtful. Yes, definitely less women! (Laughter)
Rosa Fox:
Yes, maybe it would be more hostile. Yes, probably just wouldn’t be such a nice place to be day to day.
Angus Montgomery:
So real tangible, not only a nicer place but more women in the workplace literally because of the network?
Rosa Fox:
Definitely. I think the work we’ve produced as working for the government, our products have to work for everyone, so if we’ve got more of a range of inputs and we have better products that we produce, so…
Liz Lutgendorff:
I have no idea why the people who took shared parental leave took it because they knew of it, but I know the civil service in general has been the largest uptake of people using shared parental leave. So for those who don’t know it means that if you meet certain qualifications you can basically split the time off between your partners. So you might take four months, the mother might take four months, the mother or the other father might take four months, whatever, however you break it down.
I think because it’s so un-judgemental in terms of where we work and that you won't be disappointing your team if you leave for four months to spend that quality time with your child that more men will take it here. I know so many men who have taken shared parental leave with GDS and it’s just great, you get to have that time. I’m not a parent, I don’t know what it’s like but I imagine it must be nice not to have two weeks and have to go back and have a newborn in your house. To be able to take that time and become a parent must be really nice.
Rosa Fox:
Yes, the countries where there is a greater amount of maternity and paternity leave, they have better gender equality so, yes, I think it’s so important, and if more importance, and understanding the importance of care giving, I think we’re so taught career, career, career, but actually if we didn’t have care giving then people can't have careers, so I think if more appreciation was given towards that as well, which I think it is here at GDS more so than a lot of other places, then I think that’s good. If people are happy outside of work they’re going to do better work when they’re at work. Hopefully.
Angus Montgomery:
Just to finish off, for anyone who’s listening to this, how can they get involved with and join the Women’s Network?
Rosa Fox:
Please join. Yes, we have a Google group, so usually a lot of the communications are done through that so it’s probably best to join that. Otherwise, just message me or Nicky or Laura and, yes, there are plenty of different groups that you could be involved in. It’s like if anyone’s got an idea that they want to make happen then we’re open to try and make it happen.
Angus Montgomery:
Brilliant, well I hope lots of people do. Yes, Liz and Rosa, thank you very much for joining me.
Rosa Fox:
Thank you.
Liz Lutgendorff:
Thanks.
Angus Montgomery:
Thank you very much for joining us for that episode of the GDS podcast, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you want to listen to any more podcasts please go to wherever it is that you listen to your podcasts and subscribe to it, we’ve got lots more coming up. The next episode which we will be releasing in December will be a review of the year at the Government Digital Service, so please subscribe and listen to that one, and I hope you enjoy what we’ve done and what we’ll do in the future. Thank you very much.