#63 Addressing Gender Inequality in Business with Michelle Toner

Welcome back to this week’s episode of the powerhouse Revolution podcast. I hope you’re having a fabulous made week. And if you haven’t already done a little check in with yourself, just take a minute to check in with yourself and how you’re feeling and how your week is going on. Just don’t forget that you can always recalibrate, you always have a chance to make changes. So on this week’s episode, I’m really, really excited to bring a very special guest with me today. Her name is Michelle toner. And she is the corporate communications and sustainability director for air. So as this week is we’re talking all about international women’s week the theme is equity and equality, gender equality. I was thinking about who to bring on the podcast, and Michelle is doing such fantastic work with air in this space. I thought of her straightaway. So Michelle, I’d love to welcome you to the podcast today. How are you? I’m great. Lucy, thanks for the invite. Delighted

1:22

to be here. And so yeah, corporate communications and sustainability director for air, I suppose what that means, as you said, it’s all about telling the story of what air does translating our corporate strategy into, I suppose simply meaningful stories that engage our staff or people externally, kind of key stakeholders like the media. That’s what I do. And from a sustainability perspective, it’s all about, I suppose bringing airs purpose, and our corporate strategy together, it’s like the most interesting part of what I do our sustainability strategy. A big part of that is workplace inclusion and diversity.

2:00

So talk to me a bit about that that whole, you know, because when we were speaking before off air, and I know we’ve had conversations before about the the female to male space in areas that you’re, you know, you’ve got a lot of women in your organization now, and you’re doing a lot of work in that space. So talk to me a little bit about that.

2:15

Yeah, so air air is an interesting business, because it being an infrastructure builder, it is predominantly male. It’s a legacy business, because I suppose we started air started posting telegraph, you know, the foundations of the businesses almost 100 years back to the foundation of the Irish state. And within air, it is very usual for people to hit 40 year service. So that’s not something I came across in my career previous to air Bush, you know, four year service is a is a is a very well used term and air people join air and attend to stay for life, because it is genuinely a great place to work. So we provide great jobs for generations, I came to air 11 years ago, intending to stay for five. But here we go. I’m still here changed a lot of of jobs during that time. But what we do, the majority of what we do at third of the workforce is dedicated to building infrastructure building fiber networks, mobile networks, it’s a it’s an area of the business that we really struggle actually to attract female talent. There’s other areas of the business where we are more balanced our care function, for example, we only started to build a care function in late 2018, early 2019. And that’s been a really interesting project, because it’s a business that we were able to build from the ground up. And we have built gender equality, diversity into that organization. So when we look at our organization, from a gender pay gap point of view, on the care side of the business is five to five or 600, people based all around Ireland, it’s really equal there is no gender pay gap, then in the longer part of the business, the infrastructure build business, which as I said, over 1000 people working there that that is where you kind of start to see the gap. And that’s because you have a highly male dominated business, less female representation, it tends to be men in the senior role. And so that’s when the gender pay gap really started apart for air.

4:17

And can I just can I just polish it on that? Right? So that’s, I’m really interested to kind of dig into a little bit because I actually heard was it this week, that was I think it was Dublin boss, or somebody was doing a campaign to try to get more females into the role of driving bosses because traditionally, you know, when we think about that, you think of the male boss driver, right? It’s what we kind of grew up with, but they’re like, they’re actually actively I suppose, doing a campaign now to try and say, Look, ladies, like you can apply for this kind of a role. So I hear this all the time, you know, across different industries. It’s the same thing that we have this I suppose blinkered vision around maybe the roles women shouldn’t be in and our own limiting beliefs about that. So in your infrastructure part of the business that’s mainly me male dominated, like, do you ever see that changing?

5:03

It’s something we are actively working on. And it’s really challenging because the bus driving piece really good example and Dublin Boston, like they’re playing a blinder with their recruitment drives, I see it everywhere I live in Dublin. And for us, we have a kind of a really good really strong apprentice program, whereby we try to bring in young people. And it’s it’s one of the best apprentice programs in the country, because it offers paid on the job training over the course of two years plus, and it also offers an in class college experience with to Dublin as well, it’s a really good training paid for throughout. And, you know, if you’re not necessarily an academic student, that’s not where your passion lies, this could be a great career opportunity. So what we’re doing is we are training of technicians to become the next generation of people building infrastructure for the future for connecting Ireland for powering business. With that apprentice program, we really try and put women front and center when we’re pushing out our publicity campaign around it. So we launched our last apprentice program in, I think, was September 2022, we brought in two of our young female former apprentices now fully graduated technicians, to lead that campaign for us to give us their views as to why this is a great career choice for a woman to be the face of it. The program itself, we had, I think, maybe five times more applications than we had places. So those places are now filled. And we’re moving into into training now. Very, very low female applications.

6:44

It’s what’s the boss the problem? Right? So I suppose like, we know what the problem is, but like, Why do you think that as a general sense, why art? Do you think in your experience that women don’t apply for certain

6:56

roles? I think I think I mean, it goes, it goes all the way back to, to childhood to profiling or to, you know, I suppose girls being bought, the kitchens and the pink toys, and the boys been bought the trucks and these things that you know, it just start from a young age and all the way through when you’re kind of looking at career opportunities for women, perhaps we naturally go towards marketing and communications and less of the STEM subjects, you know, and colleges and secondary schools are really working to attract young women into science, technology, engineering, and math, we are lucky to have some really, really strong female engineers in our business. In fact, the person leading that 1000 plus organization building our infrastructure is female, right? So we do a lot of profiling with her.

7:42

But it’s systemic, it’s from education. There’s other you know, issues, I suppose, throughout hiring the fact you mentioned yourself on unconscious bias, right? That is something we all have we know it. So you’re looking at things like the the panel setup, right? You’re looking at what next generation of apprentices of engineers coming into your business. If you have a panel of hiring managers, HR people, and they’re all male, naturally, unconsciously, they use connections they see in themselves and male candidate and they sit pink, oh, Rachel, he’s going to be capable of the job because I’m capable of the job. I’ve done it, I trust him. There is that unconscious bias piece, one of the very simple things that we’re doing in air to try and correct that is having balanced balance hiring managers on those on those panels for interviews. Also, also we try to blind or remove any gendered information on CV so we try and little steps all along the way. Okay,

8:47

so pause because there’s a couple of gold things there. Guys, if you’re multitasking, come back to me, because Michelle just said a couple of things there. So in terms of the hiring process, I love what you said. So first, she said that you try to have more credit quality on your interview panels and secondary I love that you said you tried to like remove the gender detail on the CV where possible. So like, that’s so powerful, because I think that’s like literally giving the all the candidates a much fairer chance because, you know, the unconscious bias piece your source, all right, like, you know, I remember, like, sometimes you’d see names on CVS and you’d kind of go me I’m not sure if that person sounds like they’re the kind of person that I could hire just by looking at a CV. So I love that you’ve done that. What else have you done in that space in terms of trying to remove the unconscious bias? I think

9:35

I think you know, Lucy, you lead a team, I lead a team, my team is gender balanced, as is my kind of wider peer group, the senior management team of air, there’s so much value in that but as a hiring manager, you and I and anybody listening to this podcast, we have responsibilities to ask for a gender balanced recruitment list. So if you get a list of CVS and you’ve got a list of 10 really strong male candidates? You know, it’s very easy to go, oh, we’ll just go with that. But where where? Where do we start with bringing equality into the hiring process, you and I have a platform or responsibility and opportunity to ask for the gender split on that list to start from there, like ask the the female candidates because they’re there. And you know, we are not the best for putting ourselves forward. All the research says you see a list of, of 10 key skills that you have to have to land the job, you’ve got seven, you say, No, I don’t have all 10. Therefore, it’s not going to be the right role for me, I’m not going to get it, the man looks at and says, gosh, I’ve got five of those that we’re looking to have me right. So. So there’s all of these things that are with it. And within us, generally speaking, as females, you know, that lack of confidence that, you know, we are probably more risk adverse, but when you are a hiring manager, you have a really nice opportunity there just to say, Okay, I want to see those, those female candidates, and at the end of the day, the job should go to the best qualified applicant. But if you don’t see a full balanced list, you don’t really know the real talent was out there. Right. So there’s that piece, the removing of any kind of gender signals on CVS, also a good opportunity to kind of get a fair balanced view of justice skills, just the talent, just the experience finally

11:19

calls you on that you remove the person’s name then or while I’m drafting. Okay, so your back came to the stash. Okay, I’m just checking the cover notes here, because I just want to kind of recap what you said there, because I think these are like super simple,

11:32

super steps. The other thing in Ireland, for example, female secondary schools, you know, we have sorry, my computer keeps getting here. And so So you and I, Lucy, we went to St. Leo’s convent school and Carlo, and obviously a female school, you remove that, right? It’s as simple things like that, that you remove, you do have to look at the relevance. And the same goes for you know, unconscious bias and in race and any other of those drivers. You know, why is that relevant? You don’t need that information. As a hiring manager. You just need to know the person has the experience, get the foot in the door, get them in front of the panel, make sure your panel is gender balanced, also. And you go from there.

12:12

Yeah, I absolutely. That’s so powerful. So gender balance panel, you said removing the name from the CV and you said something else there? Oh, yeah, asking for a gender balance listener. That’s something I’ve never heard before. I think that’s actually something because actually, I saw the opposite. When I worked in pharmaceutical industry in my specific area, and I worked in the quality department and that’s technically are typically more female dominated. So So I worked in the lab for years as hensby Lots of women in the labs, not so many men, but that would never have been something I would have asked the recruitment team is give me 10, female and male CV, whatever came in. So I think that’s super powerful. And like you mentioned, obviously, guys, and we never said I should have said at the start, Michelle and I actually went to school together back in the day. And we did convent, and I’m just even thinking back to that time, you know, we were told taught to so we did Home Economics, economics, that stuff. Like

13:06

I was thinking about this not long ago, Lucy it’s so funny, I have I have this dish from home economics that I still make, right? Because remember, when we were doing home economics, when we were like 1314 years old, and I had been a vegetarian my whole life. I’ve never eaten meat, or fish or anything like that. And I remember the non at the time going, you know, you’re just so high maintenance, make this chicken dish and eat it. And like even things like that, that that I wasn’t even allowed to be a vegetarian. Nevermind, have a career that wasn’t female focused. I remember going to Career Guidance teacher, and then kind of saying, oh, yeah, for you, it’s, you know, marketing, that kind of thing. It was always very female dominated. Like, actually, when I started my career, and when I went into my first college degree, it was in tech. That’s where I started, you know, over time, over a long time and moved into communications and did a post grad and then moved into sustainability and did my masters. But yeah, it was very much female focused. Here’s how you live your life. Yeah.

14:11

100% And I’m talking that long ago, right? No, totally. But I think we are and like having these conversations, even those that are tips you’ve given today are really going to help people because they’re super simple, but super, super powerful. Okay, so I suppose I’ve asked you about the I suppose the problems which we’ve kind of discussed. So tell me and you’ve given a couple of tips, but like what would be your top tips for companies to expedite the gender pay gaps we’ve talked about as well as equality in terms of opportunities. But now let’s talk dollars Let’s talk money. So talk to me about all of that piece.

14:46

Okay, so I think I think right for us, we did our first gender pay gap report, two years ago. Now in Ireland, it is legislation by law if you are over circumcised think it’s too Under 50 employees, you have to produce a gender pay gap report. And we all know what gets measured gets managed, we did it before any legislative requirements, which was, you know, and we were the first Irish telco to do so. And at the time, I think our gender pay gap was 11.2, something like that. But what we did over the course of the following year, which brought us to 2022, as we set our pay gap, we set really strong goals for how we’re going to start tackling that gap. And we did it. And when you when you publish your report, you’re putting it out there, you’re holding yourself accountable to your stuff, to the media, to your to your key customers, your stakeholders. So once you put it out there, you have no choice but to start tackling it so that that’s that’s what we did. And in that 12 months, then from 21, we managed to lower our gap by 4%, which in a company like ours is really incredible. Some of that is actually

15:52

how did you do that? Like, was there like an initiative where you did like, I suppose an assessment of salaries and just give people increases? Or what was

15:59

God? If only if? Wouldn’t that be great? That’s the simplest, I’ve seen

16:03

that happen? No, I have seen I have seen that kind of an approach done before. So tell me what you guys did.

16:09

So okay, let me just I have written down a few of the things that we have done and a few of the things that I suppose other companies can do so so definitely, that the removing of any kind of bias, CVS, etc, and a lot of profiling and all of our key female leaders, because we all know she can see it, she can be it. So we want to air I suppose when you think of air, you might think of, you know, an incumbent telco provider, we’ve been around for 100 years at male domination for many of those 100 years. So we try and put our female leaders forward in speaking opportunities, immediate opportunities, and photography really show that kind of balanced faces are there, that’s one thing, we have really good, flexible working arrangements, right? That is really critical. Because as we all know, caregiving tends to fall to women. You know, whether it’s caregiving for small children, or caregiving for elderly parents, those responsibilities just tend to fall to women, if you can make the workplace more flexible, and you know, you can run out and pick up your child if he or she is unwell, and nobody’s going to judge you for it. Well, isn’t that a great place to be and the pandemic’s kind of proven that for everyone, I think, like flexible working arrangements are really, really important. And I think now the problem before was that men couldn’t feel like they could do it, and then it wasn’t as accepted. But now it’s completely, I think, I hope, definitely within air, you know, you work, you get the job done, where and when and how you choose to do that. For a lot of us, it doesn’t really matter for my team, I don’t mind if you choose to work from 7am to 3pm, or late in the evening. So long as the work is done, that doesn’t matter. And that just brings so many benefits in terms of parenting in terms of women choosing to stay in the workplace, because suddenly they can choose to balance their commitments at home with their balance of work was whilst working during the day. So flexible working arrangements. I think actually, I think profiling that as well, in terms of, you know, a suitable employer, like if, if you want to do hybrid, that’s a big selling point for staff. Now, if you want to work from the office two or three days a week, that’s cool as well, workplace policies that support women are really, really important that things that you can have in place now. paternity leave promoting that so that it’s not always parenting been a female thing that men take their leave as well, because women need that support in the home place, there’s just there’s just a range of things you can do every single day to start closing the gap and making sure that women will choose to stay in the workplace and then choose to progress their careers, you know, because what we really want to see women at those leadership roles, because let’s gender pay gap is not about equal pay for equal work. It is about representation, bringing women into your organization, supporting them to get through to the role that they want, and making sure that they enjoy their career with your company as well. So you can close the gap. It’s, I mean, it’d be great if you could just increase the salaries of of the females where there is a gap. That’s, that’s probably not feasible, unfortunately. But there’s lots of ways you can you can support women to make sure that they stay with your organization that they don’t have to leave because of other pressures in their lives.

19:33

Can I just call you though, on that, on that whole, like, not just increase in rate because I love to just talk about this a little a little second. So in my experience, obviously I work with lots of women in leadership roles at all different levels and different companies. And one thing we all know this right, but women don’t tend to negotiate in the way that men do we tend to accept the offers were given. You know, if somebody if your peer leaves, women will typically take on the role with no extra compensation because they can we care. And again, guys, I’m generalizing here, this is not everybody, right. But in my, it’s a lot of a lot of women. I actually had a client recently, and she’s super when it comes to money mindset. And she really knows her worth. So she was going for promotion, she’s got getting to VP level. And she stood firm on her offer. So they offered her X amount. And she really wasn’t happy. She knew the value she could create for the company. She wasn’t basing it on her worth or her value. And like I was working with her at the time, and we were like, kind of going through this. She said, No, I don’t I say like, do you want to take this role for less than this figure? And she said, No, I’ll just this is what I want. And I said, right, well, let’s let’s just, you know, hold strong, put your case together. So she did now the negotiations took a lot longer, but because she was the right candidate for the role, because she was so sure of her ability and the value she co created. She got the pocket she wanted another client who was very similar who was getting equity in the company that she was, she was going to be an executive executive, something that when VP I think it was they were offering her company equity as part of her role, what they were trying to get her to sign the employment contract before the equity had paperwork haven’t done. And she was about to sign it. And she looked at me and she said, I don’t want to sign this. And I said, Well, don’t sign it. Like if you were a man right now, you would not sign that contract. Yeah, absolutely. Like those two women were amazing examples of actually, you know, what, when you own your worth, and you know, the value you create for the company, not what you think you’re worth, actually a data how I think we begin to bridge the gap as well. Because, like, if you that’s why that’s why there’s such a gap right now, in terms of even peer to peer levels. Why are there males who are on 2030 40k? More than there are females, it’s because we don’t show it enough, I think, Oh, 100%

21:48

I mean, you got to you got to own your career, you got to be your own cheerleader, you got to do all those things. But it comes down to confidence, right, like somewhere along the lines. And I’m not sure why this is because, you know, females, girls tend to do better than guys in school, tend to perform better at leaving cert college level, you know, we get the jobs, but there’s a confidence deficit somewhere, right. So so we may be better, we may have the the intelligence, the commitment, the drive, the ambition, all of those things. But there’s something within the the female expectation that we just aren’t as confident and we aren’t as ballsy. And a woman that goes out there and fighter corners is considered, you know, bossy and difficult when a man does that he’s just like, confident leader. So that’s kind of a societal thing. And I think we as women need to know that and tackle it. And internally, within our organization, we have a we have an employee resource group of very senior and talented mostly females, directors and and various kinds of leaders from from across the business who’ve come together. And in the past, they’ve been very active on creating the gender pay gap report for air and a mentorship program, which is amazing. And in the past, I recall, she leaves now they’re called we lead and their whole purpose is helping employees who want to get to the next stage of their career, whatever that is helping them create the tools to do that, right. So we would host talks and we’d look at topics like confidence and negotiation skills. One topic we did just just last week was on on your personal brand, and understanding your own strengths, weaknesses, really understanding what drives you as a person in all aspects of your life. And a lot of it comes down to knowing yourself, knowing what you want, doing the work in terms of your values, and then showing up and making sure that you achieve that every day. Because self confidence thing, I think is something we all need to work on. And we need to talk about more because and I even see it personally I remember a number of years ago, my younger brother and I he was working in Vodafone, I was in air. And we were kind of at the stage where he was considering a next stage move into it into a new role. And I was moving into a new role also. And I did what the woman does, I took the offer, or as my brother Vincent was like, they’ve offered me a chunky lot more. And I was like, wow. And he’s like, No, it’s not good enough. I want more and younger and not as long in his career and he was moving to a new element of his career, whereas I was really educated and experienced and moving up a level on the same route. I didn’t ask so I’m as guilty as everybody else.

24:39

Yeah, but that’s the truth. It’s high where it’s nearly like, Oh, where are they see me I’m they’re gonna they’re like, I remember when I started my business. One of the biggest shifts I had to make was actually my very first mentor said this to me. When we were talking about my business plan and my goals which are you know, they’re big goals or whatever. And he said, somebody looked at you in your organization and they put a value on you. So they told you what you are worth. And that’s what they paid you for. And why it is so true. Somebody looked at my years of experience my education and said, Yes, she’s worth this much this amount. Whereas if I had had, if I had really understood my worth, and the value I created, I know I would have been worth more, quote unquote. So I think it’s really, really important that as women, that we stop making it about us and our experience and what we think we’re worth, and actually look at the bloody value that we create for organizations, because honest to God, like, women can multitask in a way that I’m sorry, no man can we can take on so much. And I just think, yeah, women just need to stand up for themselves what you think.

25:43

And even even, you know, if you if you want to kind of move that through, even logically look at external benchmarks for your own right, but like, what are you doing today? Where are you going? And what will they pay you in another company to do this? Right? The Oh, in my experience, the way to kind of make good money and make big jumps is generally to move companies. Right. And that’s, that’s not necessarily ideal. That’s not what everybody wants to do. So, so externally, benchmark yourself, look at what you would get paid somewhere else and say, Okay, this is what I want, you know, I’ve negotiated,

26:13

yeah, what have you got? I think, I think companies though, then have a responsibility on that point is that there’s all of these HR policies, which cops that are 10%, or you can’t do it outside this cycle. I think that’s I get the control. But at the same time, you’ll pay your recruitment fee of 30,000 Euro fear and you train people up. And you know, I mean, it’s very short. I just think it’s not big picture thinking. Okay, so look, this has been absolutely amazing. I’m, like, so much gold there today. So I’d love to ask you, I always ask my guests, Michelle, just before we finish up, what’s the best piece of advice you have ever received?

26:51

got so many pieces of advice. I particularly like one piece that my former boss used to always say, you know, if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room. But um, I just like, I think for us, you know, it’s about showing up every day. And when you see discrimination, be a bigger small, call it out, call it out, like you’re, you’re sitting in a management position, you’re at the boardroom table, if you see something wrong, call it out, we are the ones that have the opportunity to change things for the next generation. Right. So for me, it’s simple things, you know, we spoke earlier about this like, because I look after corporate communications, I look after who is speaking on behalf of the company, what videography photography, what face we’re putting out there, I will always make sure that it is balanced, that people see the full gamut of of who we are, we are gender balance, we are diverse, you know, So little things like that to kind of, I suppose, show the next generation that you can have a great career here. And that you can become you know, a senior as higher as successful as you wish to be. So I think, you know, when you get in that position, that you have a platform that you can make a meaningful change,

28:05

use it. Yeah, I love it, I think are very lucky to have you, Michelle, with all of the, I suppose you’re so focused on that. And I think that’s all companies can take deputy leave your book. And finally, a piece of advice that you love to give that you always give people that can be anything at all, it doesn’t have to be related to work anything.

28:21

Okay, so I think we talked a little bit about personal brand and self awareness, etc. But, you know, I think if you start with your own personal values, and that’s not just a work thing, it’s about your life, about doing the things that make you happy every single day. You know, what sparks joy, what what’s important to you understand, and like for me, what’s important to me, I don’t do well, but routine, I always have to feel like I’m learning I’m developing, I’m challenged, I’m growing, things are different every day. That That doesn’t work for every career, but it works for mine. And it means that if I’m learning every day and challenged, unfulfilled, I’m happy right to personal value is lifelong learning. And I also want to be able to deliver work that makes people happy, like not only myself, I like delivering work that I’m proud of, but you know, on the corporate communication side of things, if I can tell stories that you know, paint my colleagues in a really nice light that makes them happy, and in turn benefits the business. That’s a great place to be so you know, look at your values. Look at what’s important to you, what makes you happy and how can you turn that into a career, I suppose? Yeah.

29:29

Love it. Absolutely love it. Listen, Michelle, you’ve been an absolutely fantastic, fantastic guest. Thank you so much.

29:35

Thanks for having me to see my pleasure.