I’ve been really lucky to work with a lot of supportive people throughout my career in digital so far, many of whom have been men. And I’m very aware that I can write this from a place of privilege, as a white cis woman from a middle-class background. The issues I write about may be profoundly different and far more difficult depending on ethnicity, class, sex and other identity factors. I know I don’t speak for all women, even though I hope some of these ideas will be helpful for many.

However, I still think it’s important to talk about how men can support women in digital teams (or how we can all support each other, really). Many more men typically work in digital compared to women. ‘Gender diversity in the UK tech sector remains low, with women comprising only 21% of tech teams’. In certain areas of tech, I’m sure the statistics are even worse. I’ve been on teams of over 10 as the only woman, and it’s something I’ve been very aware of.

So, here are some of my thoughts on how I’d like men to support women in digital teams. I hope they’re useful or at least resonate with the experiences of other women working in technology too.

Avoid sorting people into ‘techy’ and ‘not techy’

One of the most common things I see on government digital teams is that we are too quick to sort ourselves or colleagues into ‘techy’ and ‘not techy’.

Often, but not always, it’s women falling into the latter category. It really reminds me of how people say they ‘are bad at Maths’.

Being ‘techy’ is hard to quantify and very much depends on your perspective. I’ve had some folks say I’m quite a ‘techy’ product manager, but I’m sure if I worked in other organisations I would not be considered so. I am certainly much less knowledgable about APIs, code and clouds than the developers I work with.

But that doesn’t mean there’s not value in me trying to learn about these things if it’s helpful to me achieving the right outcomes in my job.

What I hate about this categorisation is that it usually tries to:

  • assume knowledge in more technical areas is impossible to achieve for certain people
  • enforce helplessness and lower expectations in areas where we should expect more from colleagues - it’s not as hard as it looks!
  • stop people from asking questions, learning and finding out more
  • segregate teams on lines that often do fall along gender - particularly the ‘user-centred’ design part of the team and the ‘techy’ part of the team

Sometimes, people are scared off from learning more about the work digital teams do because it uses a language that they don’t understand (yet). For some women, who are typically less encouraged to go into technology related subjects, this can be a real blocker to learning more. As a former Nursery teacher used to an entirely different career and environment, I certainly found it pretty intimidating when I first started.

Give feedback to the right people

The early digital teams I was on were filled with men that were often older and had far more experience than me. But fortunately, a lot of them were incredibly supportive. Sharing praise to senior leadership encouraged progression opportunities for me and helped boost my confidence, too.

For example, I remember one experienced designer saying in a retrospective with around a hundred people in - a meeting where you talk about what’s going well and what could be improved - how well I’d started as a new product manager in the team. It was my first role as a product manager. Similarly, I knew the tech lead on our team was repeatedly telling our deputy director what a great job I was doing.

We don’t want to patronise people. But if someone is doing really well particularly when they’re junior in their career, it’s important not only they hear it, but the people managing them, too. This can help them achieve the progress they deserve. In particular for women, who we know historically receive less money and benefit from less job progression than men, we need to make sure their success is recognised. Even more so for women from certain backgrounds.

Help with the ‘house-keeping’ and shout thanks loudly

This is the one that annoys me the most.

There’s always work in teams that can’t be clearly delegated to a particular role. This might be making leaving cards, demoing something to a new starter, taking part in ‘People group’ or other activities to promote wellbeing at work, taking notes in meetings, recording videos of the product or planning team days.

Just like actual house-keeping, these tasks are often under-rewarded, undervalued and unthanked. From my experience, and the research, these tasks disproportionately fall upon women. It can also take their focus away from fulfilling tasks that would otherwise lead to a higher chance of progression, financially or otherwise.

Shout thanks for these tasks loudly, but also offer to pick them up sometimes. Value them - what may seem unimportant is actually often a really intrinsic part of a team’s culture and an individual’s enjoyment of work.

Even more importantly, please don’t get women on your team to have to remind you of things all the time that should be in your calendar or to-do list. We’re not your assistants or secretaries. You’re a professional!

Mentor, recruit and help upskill people junior in their digital careers

Given there are fewer women in technology, it’s important to make more opportunities to get into digital careers and progress in them. Again, given women are less likely to study computing related subjects, it’s probably going to be harder for them on average to break in. Recognise a lot of people won’t have received the same opportunities, encouragement or experiences as you, and do what you can to make it available for others who you know are under-represented in digital teams.

I joined government digital through a scheme called ‘Digital associates’, where I learnt on the job how to work in digital teams. It was really scary in the beginning. Learning about the chaotic complexities of the civil service and the mindblowing mysteries of digital work simultaneously made me feel like quite the imposter. Particularly as I started during a lockdown, I felt quite alone with it. Apart from when I would share sympathies of having no clue about what was going on with my fellow digital associates.

One aspect that really helped me with this was being mentored. My first mentor as a product manager was a man, and he carved out a lot of time for me with little reward to help me learn about the discipline and improve. I benefited a lot from his support and guidance. Actually much more so than professional mentors that were specifically paid for!

Offering to help others learn digital skills - particularly ones that are often less promoted and encouraged to women - can also really help level the playing field. A lot of what I’ve learnt about using Github, writing SQL or making prototypes has come from people making time around their usual jobs to help me. It made it feel far more accessible and achievable to me.

Where there are opportunities to support people who are junior in their careers, take them. We all have a professional responsibility to try and make our workplaces a more inclusive and kinder place.

Be compassionate and supportive about health issues that usually women face

Women, men and people can face unique health issues. But over the last couple of years, I’ve become more aware of how significant some health issues can be regularly for even younger women.

Polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, pregnancy and pregnancy loss are all examples of common health issues that usually impact women’s health more and can have a significant impact on their ability to work. This feels particularly pertinent to call out given the recent case where a pregnant woman was told her experience was not as bad as being ‘kicked in the balls’.

Flexibility can be vital for some of these issues and so is compassion. Don’t say that a woman should ‘feel bad’ for abandoning the team when she had to go on maternity leave.

There’s been positive developments into how pregnancy loss is handled at work but there’s always more to be done. Being open, compassionate and empathetic about everyone’s health and needs for flexible working is really important.

Communicate better

I do often find on digital teams, men typically get away with a much lower bar for communication than women. It can be seen as a minimum to get a ticket done (a piece of documented work). Actively engaging to help with questions the team has, trying to demo your work or explain what you’ve been building are sometimes seen as exceptions to the rule. Not all of your job can be condensed into tickets and written up for you.

Volunteer to help. Answer questions. Hell, ask your own questions to properly understand the product or service you’re working on, rather than just scraping by with the bare minimum. Communication is important and vital in every role in digital teams, even if how it looks may be very different.

I often find articles and advice for women in tech focus on ‘being more like the average man’. Apologise less, be louder or bolder, don’t succumb to imposter syndrome, be more straightforward in your emails. I wish we spent more time on looking at how women might actually on average communicate better than men too, and what they can learn from us.