Petra Nelson is the Managing Director of Bright People Technologies, an innovative Perth-based technology company that is revolutionising the way workplace compliance is managed. In recognition of International Women’s Day (8 March), we asked Petra to share her views about women in the workforce.
1. #PressforProgress is the theme of International Women’s Day 2018, which asks people to commit to a gender parity mindset. Does this theme resonate with you?
Absolutely. The population is approximately 50/50, so we must look at the reasons that this parity is not reflected in workplaces, and why there is significant discrepancy between the pay and conditions enjoyed by men and women who do the same roles. Parity for me is also about access – are women excluded from opportunities because of structural or social constructs that create unfairness?
I am the mother of teenage girls and greatly dislike the thought they will not have equal access to the opportunities they deserve.
2. What does gender diversity bring to the workplace?
All workplaces require problem solving to a greater or lesser degree. To have a monoculture means that the outcomes are more likely to be narrowed to the collective view of that group – and that can be deleterious for business or government, especially when the decisions made affect groups outside of that monoculture.
The image of Donald Trump signing an Anti-Abortion bill in the US soon after being elected, surrounded by white, middle-aged men in suits… smiling, simply enraged me. Millions of women were affected by that decision, and it represented the narrowest of views.
This is extreme, but, if I am being frank, it illustrates something even we at Bright struggle with, particularly in terms of User interface design and experience. Our team is all male, and our Users are largely female, and this causes problems.
3. You were Managing Director at a large recruitment firm before starting with Bright. Have your experiences of being a female boss been positive or negative?
I think its best to sum them up simply as ‘experiences’, because sometimes it was hard to judge whether they were good or bad.
Before I became ‘the boss’, I had some life-affecting instances of gender inequity. I recall one instance where a complaint was made against me (and investigated) that I was not working long enough hours. I was, at the time, the youngest, only female and only parent on the team. I was also the highest biller for the company. The complaint was made by a slightly older, single white male consultant. The injustice still rankles.
The positive takeaway from that experience was that I vowed that I would never to do that to a woman, and 12 months later when I became the boss, I offered a pregnant woman a job. She declined the opportunity but told me years later that the fact that I had been prepared to take her on knowing she had imminent maternity leave changed her life and world view, and she had always tried to emulate my example. Given that her career trajectory has eclipsed mine and she has far greater influence, this was significant.
So, was my experience good or bad? It’s hard to say.
4. Who is responsible for ensuring workplaces encourage greater gender parity in a business?
No one person, role or department should be responsible for the pursuit of gender parity; this is something that companies should encourage everyone to be accountable for. In an ideal world, gender parity is part of the DNA or culture of a company.
Having said that, I believe male leaders have greater influence on the achievement of gender parity than female leaders. Their role modelling sets a behavioural tone for other men, and their sheer numbers multiply the impact of that leadership.
5. The World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report stated that it would take 217 years to achieve gender parity, at the current rate of progress. How can we speed up that timeframe?
Here are a few things I would recommend:
- Quotas for Boards. Having been present at many ‘C’ level meetings, I can say with authority that in Australia the Old Boys Network is alive and thriving. I do not for a second buy the argument that there are not enough qualified and competent women available for Board appointments. For me the jury is still out as to whether companies with gender-diverse Boards perform fundamentally better than those with all-male Boards, but I do know that there are few more ‘family friendly’ roles than a professional Board appointment, and it simply isn’t fair that women are generally locked out of those opportunities.
- Focus on the normalisation of traditional ‘female’ actions and roles as non-gender specific. For me this is a highly effective way of combatting unconscious gender bias. My view is that if more men took parental leave, flexi-time, did school pick-ups /drop offs etc., then organisations would quickly lose their bias towards that behaviour (‘everyone does it’) and instead find ways to support and facilitate it.
- Reward diversity achievement. If we do accept the hypothesis that diverse teams and companies perform better than those which are homogenous (McKinsey/Deloitte), then it simply makes good corporate sense to reward that behaviour. It sends a message that parity is desirable AND might encourage individual managers to go the extra mile.
6. What has been the greatest impediment or road block in your career?
Personally, I have been extraordinarily fortunate to have been supported and mentored by a group of brilliant men. My business partner and my Board have given me opportunities and guidance very few women have had the fortune to receive, and my husband has overcome his traditional upbringing to embrace a new style of family life where he does most of the ‘child taxi’ duties.
Quite possibly my greatest impediment is my most recent. Bright and our new product Cited are seeking to expand rapidly and we have been on a quest to raise capital. In the course of this, conversations have been enlightening – and they have almost exclusively been with men, all of whom went to the same or similar private schools.
Some of the conversations give the impression that we are being held to a higher standard than some of our peers who have successfully accessed capital, and I would argue that there is an element of gender bias in that.
7. What advice would you give your teenage daughters about entering the workforce?
I talk about the issue of equity with my daughters a lot and the advice I give them is simply to speak up and work smart.
Speak up if they see a discrepancy in the way they are treated, speak up if they want something (they generally don’t have a problem with this at home!) and speak up if they have a point of view (and don’t allow themselves to be interrupted or talked over).
Then work smart. Pick the right work, don’t accept ‘grunt’ work without good reason (and there are good reasons to do grunt work, but always doing it because others grab the ‘sexy stuff’ is not a good reason).
But finally – if they choose to and are fortunate enough to be able to be full-time mothers – then we all need to make sure their contribution to society in raising good people is valued too, by their peers and their partners. Being a full-time parent is an alternate choice, not a lesser one.
8. What is Bright’s experience in terms of gender parity?
At Bright we have people from over 20 ethnicities and 42% are female. For similar roles in the company, we have remuneration equality… but we have a serious issue with gender balance.
We struggle to find female software developers and User Experience/Design experts. As I mentioned earlier, our Development & Design team is 100% male, which is interesting considering our Users are predominantly female. So for me, this is a discrepancy we need to address, as I believe it is advantageous that the team producing the product has representation of the people using it.
9. Why do you think more women aren’t in tech?
The tech industry has a real image problem for girls. I have spent time encouraging my daughters to consider this industry, but they are not interested – the shame is they don’t know about the huge range and diversity of careers that ‘tech’ involves. It is not all coding.
To date I think the issues has stemmed from a combination of girls not having enough role models in the technology world, and schools and universities not doing enough to market computer science and technology courses to girls. Unfortunately, I am not confident this is changing at all. For example, at no time were my girls taught about Digital Marketing or User Experience design during their compulsory IT courses at school. Both careers are ‘tech’ related, but neither require a degree in Computer Science. I for one wish that User Experience was a ‘thing’ when I was at school, as it combines artistic design, psychology and the ability to use tech tools (but not necessarily coding).