Actionable tips on empowering women in tech

Summary

Insights Unlocked Podcast: Actionable Tips on Empowering Women in Tech

Release Date: January 20, 2025

Introduction

In this compelling episode of Insights Unlocked, hosted by Leah Hogan, the conversation centers around empowering women in the tech industry. Recorded at the highly attended Human Insights Summit in October, the panel features distinguished leaders—Stacy Sherman, author and advisor at doinc Xright; Alida Joyce, UX Researcher at Google Cloud; Monique Lalonde, Director of Product Design at REI; and Leah Hogan herself, Principal of Experience Research Strategy at UserTesting. The discussion delves into critical areas such as closing the gender pay gap, increasing leadership representation, and enhancing mentorship opportunities for women in tech.

Closing the Gender Pay Gap

The panel opens with a stark revelation about the persistent gender pay gap. Monique Lalonde highlights, “Women earn 84% of what men do, $10,000 less annually, and the gap has remained nearly constant for a decade” (02:25). The conversation swiftly moves to actionable steps to address this disparity:

• Corporate Strategies: Stacy Sherman shares her experience in leadership roles, emphasizing the importance of establishing core competencies and consistent pay banding across roles. “We worked with our HR team to set clear expectations for professional development and ensure fair compensation” (04:02).

• Individual Approaches: Alida Joyce advises women to advocate for themselves proactively. “If your corporations aren't giving you what you're looking for, always be looking elsewhere... staying competitive and moving around can help” (02:25). Leah Hogan echoes this sentiment, encouraging women to negotiate their salaries assertively. “When negotiating that first offer, ask for more money. Men almost always ask for more, and women may be one out of five” (03:07).

• Legal and Organizational Support: Leah also points out the significance of leveraging pay equity laws. “A colleague requested her pay be evaluated and received a 10% raise by asking HR to evaluate her pay in the market” (03:07). She recommends asking companies about their pay equity measures during the hiring process.

Increasing Leadership Representation

Transitioning to leadership, the panel discusses the underrepresentation of women in senior roles. Monique Lalonde states, “Women hold only 35% of senior leadership roles, although they make up 58.4% of the workforce” (05:30). The panelists propose several strategies to bridge this gap:

• Company Culture and Leadership: Leah Hogan emphasizes the impact of having women in top roles. “Companies that have had a woman CEO at one point tend to have more women in leadership” (06:31). She advises women to assess a company's leadership diversity when considering employment and to communicate their leadership aspirations clearly to management.

• Personal Support Systems: Stacy Sherman highlights the importance of balancing professional ambitions with personal life. “You need to have a supportive partner and a real plan around managing responsibilities to be successful in the office and at home” (08:16). This balance is crucial for women pursuing leadership roles while managing family responsibilities.

• Self-Belief and Visibility: Monique Lalonde reinforces the idea that women should not self-limit their aspirations. “It's not either or, it's both. You can have your career and be in a leadership role in your family” (09:37). Encouraging women to believe in their capabilities and express their leadership intentions is vital for increasing representation.

Enhancing Mentorship and Sponsorship

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the role of mentorship in advancing women's careers. The panelists agree that effective mentorship can bridge gaps and foster career growth:

• Proactive Mentorship Seeking: Alida Joyce advocates for accessible mentorship. “Find people... talking to me is like therapy” (11:15). She emphasizes active listening and understanding mentees' goals.

• Structured Mentorship Approaches: Leah Hogan suggests being specific when seeking mentors. “For example, 'I want to grow my career into a leadership role. Could you help me develop my presentation skills?'” (12:15). She also encourages seeking male mentors for diverse perspectives and sponsorship.

• Creating Mentorship Opportunities: Stacy Sherman and Monique Lalonde discuss the importance of building connections and communities. Monique shares her initiative of creating a LinkedIn group, “Women Leaders Making a Difference,” to foster support and networking (13:38).

• Effective Mentorship Practices: The panel underscores that mentorship is a two-way street requiring commitment. Monique Lalonde advises mentors to be skilled in giving feedback and mentees to be open to constructive criticism. “If you're the recipient, learn how not to totally take feedback personally” (16:45).

Concluding Insights

The panel concludes with an emphasis on continuous learning and self-reflection. Stacy Sherman encourages introspection after interactions, asking, “What did I learn? How did I get smarter?” (16:01). This practice helps individuals grow and extract value from their mentorship experiences.

Key Takeaways

1. Advocate for Pay Equity: Women should negotiate salaries confidently and utilize legal frameworks to ensure fair compensation.
2. Foster Leadership Opportunities: Organizations must cultivate inclusive cultures that support women in leadership, while individuals should actively pursue and communicate their leadership aspirations.
3. Enhance Mentorship Systems: Both formal and informal mentorship initiatives are essential. Mentors and mentees should engage proactively, with clear goals and open communication.
4. Balance Professional and Personal Life: Supporting structures, such as partners and flexible work arrangements, are crucial for women navigating leadership roles alongside personal responsibilities.
5. Create and Participate in Supportive Communities: Building networks and communities, both within and outside the workplace, can provide the necessary support and resources for women to thrive in tech.

Conclusion

This episode of Insights Unlocked offers a wealth of strategies and personal insights aimed at empowering women in the tech industry. By addressing the gender pay gap, advocating for greater leadership representation, and enhancing mentorship opportunities, the panelists provide a roadmap for creating more equitable and supportive workplaces. Whether you’re at the beginning of your career or aiming to shape the culture of your organization, the actionable tips shared in this discussion are invaluable for driving meaningful change.

For more episodes and insights, visit usertesting.com/podcast and subscribe on your preferred podcast platform.

---

Timestamps:

• [02:25] Monique Lalonde on Gender Pay Gap Statistics
• [03:07] Alida Joyce on Corporate Limitations and Self-Advocacy
• [04:02] Stacy Sherman on Core Competencies and Pay Banding
• [05:30] Monique Lalonde on Leadership Representation Statistics
• [06:31] Leah Hogan on Company Culture and Leadership Diversity
• [08:16] Stacy Sherman on Balancing Professional and Personal Life
• [09:37] Monique Lalonde on Self-Belief and Dual Roles
• [11:15] Alida Joyce on Accessible Mentorship
• [12:15] Leah Hogan on Structured Mentorship Approaches
• [13:38] Monique Lalonde on Creating Supportive Communities
• [16:01] Stacy Sherman on Continuous Learning and Introspection
• [16:45] Monique Lalonde on Effective Mentorship Practices

Transcript

[Stacy Sherman]

Welcome back to the Insights Unlocked podcast. Today we're bringing you a very special episode recorded at the Human Insights Summit back in October. This panel, one of the most attended sessions of the event, dives into the challenges and opportunities for women in the workplace, with a focus on closing the gender pay gap, increasing leadership representation, and the critical role of mentorship. We've edited the conversation for time, but you're about to hear some incredible insights from our inspiring panelists. They include Stacy Sherman, author and advisor at doinc Xright Alida Joyce, UX Researcher at Google Cloud, Monique Lalonde, Director Product Design at rei Leah Hogan, Principal of Experience Research Strategy at User Testing. Our panel shares candid advice and actionable steps to create more equitable workplaces. Whether you're just starting your career or shaping the culture of your organization, it's a conversation you don't want to miss. Enjoy the show.

[Leah Hogan]

Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, viewers, and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world. From concept to execution.

[Monique Lalonde]

There is a national global Women's Month, Women's Day, typically in March, but we need to continue celebrating not just in one month. And that's why we're having this conversation. I asked, if we could solve one workplace challenge for women this year, what would it be? And it narrowed down to four topics. Gender, pay gap, leadership representation, work, family balance, and lack of mentorship and sponsorship. So the fact is that women earn 84% of what men do, 10,000 less annually, and the gap has remained nearly constant for a decade. Okay, so my first question I'll ask each of you is, what are some simple, actionable steps we can take to reduce this gap?

[Alida Joyce]

I'll start by saying one, I want you all to make as much money as possible, so, like, please. But from the corporation perspective, I feel it's hard in this market. We've seen so many layoffs in the tech industry for years. Budgets for promotions, promoting up have gone down. Hiring is still hard. Teams are quite stretched for resources. And so personally, as someone who started doing my own consulting this year, that was my takeaway of like, how can I start to do more for myself, recognizing there are limitations from the corporate perspective. So whatever that looks like for you all, if your corporations aren't giving you what you're looking for, always, you know, looking elsewhere as well, Stay competitive, moving around, but also seeing what you can do for yourself outside of that has been top of mind.

[Leah Hogan]

Thanks. I'm really happy to talk about this as well. My thing is when you're negotiating that first offer, at the initial offer, ask for more money. I have hired a lot of people over the years and when I got on this side, I can tell you from experience, men almost always ask for more money. Women may be one out of five. That is like you're starting behind, right? And that gap just continues to accrue because we all get merit in percentages, right? The second thing I'll say is a lot of states have laws around pay equity. Washington state is one of them. I knew a gal that I worked with at Expedia who successfully requested that her pay be evaluated and she got a 10% raise just by asking HR to evaluate her pay in the market. And then the other thing that I'll notice is when you are talking to company and asking them about their benefits, try and find out what they do to ensure pay equity between gender. When I I've worked at places that only had merit and it's really hard to get pay equity with only merit because it's performance. But there are companies out there that have market adjustment pools, money pools to work with as well and those are there to help solve things like pay inequity. So just ask questions, talk to hr. I mean you shouldn't. Everybody should have an open door policy nowadays.

[Stacy Sherman]

So I think I want to bring the perspective of actually a leadership perspective. And so one of the things that I did so I had a team of about 35 researchers in a previous role in a company. And one of the things that we introduced and I worked with our HR team to do this was a set of core competencies that really said like what is a good objective way to set out career pathing and development, professional development for folks and then also ensure that pay banding is consistent across role and so really getting like sharp and disciplined around. What are the expectations that we have for professional development? How do we bring people in house who have the skills, right. And then also ensure the people are progressing towards tangible goals and getting paid and compensated in a fair and equitable way.

[Monique Lalonde]

Leadership representation. So the data shows that women hold only 35% of senior leadership roles, although they make up 58.4% of the workforce. So then that leads to a question. What are simple actionable steps we can take to reduce that gap?

[Alida Joyce]

As an ic, I have less opportunity to make those types of decisions. But one thing I will say is I'm incredibly grateful throughout my career to have so many female leaders. I've Actually only had one male manager throughout my entire career of like six. And so that is an honor as well as right now everyone up to my next three levels are women and POCs as well. So I think as an IC trying to find those opportunities with women, which is hard in a male dominated industry. But like finds like and so usually if you're looking for those opportunities and you have the choice, it is so nice to do that. But I'm curious for both of your perspectives being more leadership roles.

[Leah Hogan]

Yeah, well I can say I always start with I take a look at the company and I see where they're at. Forbes comes out with a list every year. At the time that I applied at rei they were number two on the list for women in leadership. I look at the C suite my most of the companies I worked with until then like maybe, maybe the HR director was a woman, if you're lucky, marketing. But at the co op our chief technical officer, technology Officer was a woman, our chief legal counsel was a woman, our chief Finance Officer was a woman. And it's probably because at one point REI had a woman CEO in the 90s and that makes a huge difference. Companies that have 10 to have had a woman CEO at one point tend to have more women in leadership. People see them in those roles like if you're not going to be it, if you can't see it right. So I always think like looking like making sure that if you really are interested in leadership and working for a company that has equity and leadership, those are good things to keep but in mind. And if you don't have that where you're working now, talk to the CEO. He's the one that gives those jobs to the other people that are in the C suite. Those jobs open up from time to time. Tell them that you, you expect to have roles filled by women in those positions. And then I think that lastly I'll just say that again like you know to your point earlier, if you don't ask, you don't get. So making it very clear with your manager that your intention is to seek a role in leadership is to a leader and get advice on what skills do I need to focus on to develop that to get there is like a way that we're going to have more women in leadership.

[Stacy Sherman]

I think to complement what you've already said, which are great points, you have to set up your personal life to be able to be successful in the office too. And that means you need to have supportive partner. You need to have if you're interested in having a family, a real plan around how you're going to manage all of the responsibilities that you have. And I have to say, like a lot of people that I see starting down the management track are people who are starting a family at the same time that they're starting on that leadership track and they have supportive partners and they figure out the right way to kind of manage that work life balance in order to make sure that they can be successful in the office as well as at home.

[Monique Lalonde]

Yeah, having a good partner at home certainly really helps. It did in my case. I also. I'm glad to hear that you had some great women leaders and bosses and managers.

[Stacy Sherman]

There's one more thing that I wanted to say and it really was around. I think women too frequently count themselves out when considering going for senior leadership roles. And so I think it is believe that you can do it, express an interest in doing it, and know that you can have a full life. You don't have to only be a professional person. You can have a full life and be a senior leader.

[Monique Lalonde]

I want to emphasize that it's not either or, it's both. And you can both have your career and be that role in family. So a lot of times people do think they have to make the choice. And yes, if you have a partner at home, that is going to make your make it a lot easier. And I also like that you said you have to ask and make it known because nobody's a mind reader. So someone hiring will write very intentionally about. You don't have to have all of these skills. Right. So that's important because a lot of times we'll look at a description and say, nope, I can't go for that. But it's directional. It's, you know, you have to look at it in totality and not like a perfection of who you are. But go for it. If you believe that you can exemplify that. And here you're hearing proof that it's not literally. Literally every single word. That's good to know. Thank you. So let's talk about mentorship and sponsorship. This comes up a lot. The fact is women are less likely than men to have a mentor who advocates for them. Enhancing mentorship can significantly aid career advancement. So let's talk about this. What initiatives can we introduce to improve mentorship for women?

[Alida Joyce]

Yeah, in terms of initiatives, the open door policy is pretty consistent. I maintain my brand to be incredibly accessible. Find people commonly tell me that talking to me is like therapy, which is nice. Maybe if I wasn't a Researcher, that would be a perspective, but I think it is that active listening and just trying to identify what are people doing. Oftentimes they are more well thought out in some of their opportunities than they think they are. And so taking that active listening, asking a lot of questions, what's your direction that you're striving for? What are your overall objectives and those goals is really important. Just for that reflection of an activity.

[Leah Hogan]

You know, I thought about this a little bit on my way in here and thinking that, you know, typically, my advice is make sure you have something in mind when you're approaching somebody to be your mentor, you know, like, or get, like, sponsorship. Whether it's like, hey, I thought, like, you were really good at, like, your presentation skills are killer. I. I want to grow my career into a role of leadership. Could you help me develop some of my presentation skills? I'd like to work with you, meet with you every other week over the next three months to. To see if I can improve this skill set. Right. Like, that's a great way to find a mentor. You want to be specific. You want it to be time box. You want it to be something that they're comfortable in sharing with you, and the relationship and the sponsorship will develop from there. Don't think that you need to get a mentor that is somebody who you want to role model. Like, that is one person. But getting mentors that have different perspectives than you are a great way for you to see your blind spots. And there's been so many places where I've worked where women in leadership, they're like, mentoring, like, 20, 25 people. The men that are in those positions are only mentoring, like, three or four. So don't discount men. Like, get male mentors. They are often the best sponsors that you can find.

[Stacy Sherman]

And I think maybe again, a complementary perspective is if you are even an individual contributor who is more senior, who has a lot of connections, help make connections between people, who can help people to achieve their goals. And I think that that's really vital because sometimes we underestimate the value of just introducing someone to someone else who has the skill set, the interest, the experience that somebody is interested in.

[Alida Joyce]

Yeah.

[Monique Lalonde]

I'd like to add that you don't have to wait for a formal mentorship program at your company. Some companies have it and some don't. You can actually be proactive and go to people and say, you know, can you help me with xyz? But it is a responsibility if you are getting mentored or you get to be a mentor right. Comes with responsibility. You can't just show up and say hi, I'm ready to be mentored. Right. You have to have an agenda, you have to have a goal and it's a two way street. And it's really important because a lot of times people come into this with an expectation and they get disappointed and then you don't have to just only do it within your company. Well, what I did was I went onto LinkedIn and I started my own company group on LinkedIn Women Empowering Women. It's called Women Leaders Making a Difference. The point is, and it's 3,000, it's not a million on purpose. Right. Quality over quantity. But the point of the story is you can do that. You can go create your own communities where you feel like you need support. Don't just wait for others to come to you.

[Alida Joyce]

I love the points of the different fidelities of mentorship from a very formal to just like having an hour long conversation, monthly quarterly, elderly type of thing. And also the types of mentors like my. Some of my mentors in Google are like they're great with the politics. I came from consulting at a small 25 person company. That wasn't something I needed to worry about before. It's a very flat organization. But that was one of the first mentors that I sought out in my role at Google was like who knows how to play big tech politics. There are things that just were obvious to me that a mentor told me, a male mentor, which is known to be quite blunt to me. But I needed that and continue to need that once in a while of just saying why are you saying it like that? Pitch it as this because here's what the VP cares about. They don't care about your, your methods and all this or all these insights that you know, what's the top takeaway? And I think just having some of those mentors to the points and different perspectives people to keep you honest and push you in some of those directions whether it's politically or just that empathetic ear that you need to vent to which can also be a friend that works in a similar professional capacity. So instrumental to success and just the culture that we're crafting as well.

[Monique Lalonde]

I love that you brought up that you identify where your gaps are and then you go and seek those people. So it's really inventory of your skills is self, you know, really looking at yourself where are the gaps and then going to those people who can help you. The other thing I would say is if you're a Mentor, make sure that you're really skilled in feedback, right? How you give feedback and if you're the recipient, you know, learn how not to totally take it personally. My favorite book, the Four Agreements. It really helps you understand how to take feedback so you can grow.

[Stacy Sherman]

I like to take a moment after I've had a meeting with someone, like a one on one with someone and say, what did I learn? How did I get smarter? And I always find like those meetings where I can say I got smarter in this way really helps me. And sometimes it's like room for growth, room opportunity for improvement. And sometimes it's more like a change of perspective that I'm taking out of that conversation but just being, I guess, introspective about the value of what it is that you're getting out of that interaction.

[Monique Lalonde]

So after each meeting you come out of it and say, what did I learn?

[Alida Joyce]

Right?

[Monique Lalonde]

It's, it's really helps your growth and yourself. I see a hand raised. So the question, let me rephrase, is that someone comes to you to be their mentor. They have no agenda, they just want help and you're the mentor. What do you say?

[Leah Hogan]

I have a simple framework that I use, so I'll often just say, can you give it some thought on. Come back to me with three things that you want mentorship on and I'll let you know if I'm the right mentor for you. I'll recommend somebody else. It's like kind of like you're not committing to anything and then you're getting a little bit more clarity on the what, what they want, what they need guidance on.

Want to keep the conversation going? You can find the show [e-mail] podcast if you haven't already, don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or Google Play so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, this is Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing.