In this empowering episode, we delve into the dynamic realm of women in leadership and the journey of personal and professional growth. Join us as we explore the challenges faced by women in tech, celebrating their triumphs and shedding light on the strategies that have propelled them to leadership roles at Workiva. Our guests share personal anecdotes, offering valuable insights into navigating corporate landscapes, overcoming gender bias, and seizing opportunities for career advancement.
In this episode, Rebecca Wallace, Senior Director, Customer Success & Support at Workiva, and Francesca Van Oss, Senior Director of EMEA Partnerships & Alliances at Workiva, serve as a beacon for women aspiring to climb the career ladder. As successful female leaders, they explore the role of self-confidence, resilience, and continuous learning in fostering a successful career trajectory.
Join us as we celebrate the achievements of women in leadership and empower listeners to cultivate their own paths toward career success and fulfillment.
SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.
Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.
Speaker 1:
Hello everyone and welcome to Spill in the Tea. We have an extra special set up today to wonderful guests from Waukeva, so we’re going to be talking about breaking barriers today. Thank you, ladies, for taking the time out of your busy days to come down and have a chat with Spill in the Tea. Ladies, I’m going to hand over to you for a bit of context. I have the wonderful Rebecca and Francesca with me today and they’re going to share their journey into leadership and all about their careers so far. So I’m going to hand over to you, francesca Do you want to start?
Speaker 2:
Yes, sure, thanks so much for having us as well. I’m Francesca Vanos. I lead our partnerships team in Europe at Waukeva Been with Waukeva for almost 11 years since we started in Europe, so it’s sort of a range of roles across the company that led to partnerships, which I started a team in about 2017. So I’ve really been leading it since then, taking on a bit more of a structured leadership role over the last few years, yeah, and been working with Rebecca for a long time as well.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, pleasure to be here. So my name is Rebecca Wallace. I’m the Senior Director of Customer Success and Support for Waukeva here in Europe. So I’ve been at Waukeva a little bit less time than Francesca A little over nine years One of the original Customer Success Managers in Europe. After Francesca really had the opportunity to grow in my career there, moving into a team manager role taking over Customer Success for Europe and then more recently within the last year or so, taking over Support as well, which has been a great challenge, really interesting ride, but really great career opportunity and growth I think we’ve both had at Waukeva. So really looking forward to discussing that further with you today.
Speaker 1:
Perfect. Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time out. As I said, I know you’re both from those roles there. You’re both super busy. Can I ask you a little bit about your backgrounds? Did you fall into tech? Did you know what you wanted to do? Did you take apart the toaster as a child? Were you that child? What?
Speaker 2:
did you do? I think that’s always a funny thing, that when you tell friends that you or your family, I think we always joke that none of our families really know exactly what we do. But I think for a lot of people at Waukeva, a lot of us don’t have a tech background and I think that’s what has always made it really interesting. There’s sort of so many nationalities that we work with and so many different backgrounds. That sort of adds colour to it.
Speaker 2:
But I did languages and I went to Amsterdam when I graduated, looked for a job and this American company was looking for a native English speaker as a second person to be hired in Europe. We were a big American company, we were starting in Europe. They were looking for an English speaker to be on the support side and I was like yeah, I don’t know what software is, sounds great, I’d love to do that. And just yeah, literally fell into it, like you said, and I think a lot of people came at it that way. So that was really my first job out of university, so slightly different to Rebecca, but yeah.
Speaker 3:
I’ve been in a couple of tech related companies or roles, although growing up I never knew exactly what I wanted to do, always really enjoyed working with people and helping people actually studied psychology at university but when I graduated it was during the economic crisis, so kind of difficult to find a job back then. But I found myself in an e-commerce payments position at a company called Wild Pay prior to WECIVA. I started there on the support team, so I was really interested in learning more about tech and just that space is really fast paced and very exciting. There’s always new developments and that’s something that really intrigued me and really interested me. I actually moved to the Netherlands, where I’m still located now, because my ex-partner got offered a job opportunity over there. So I’ve been at Wild Pay for a few years. I was ready for a change, actually quit that job, moved to the Netherlands and I found WECIVA back then through a recruitment agency that we used to work with that specialised in ex-pat recruitment.
Speaker 3:
Yeah multinational, yeah, and yeah, I found the job through there. I saw the job posting. I thought that’s perfect for me. The company sounds really exciting. It was very much in the startup phase in Europe which also really interested me to be a part of something new, building something from the beginning. And then, yeah, fortunately the interview was successful. I remember they used to give us during the interview we had to actually do like a practice question on the platform, so you got to see during the interview process a sneak peek into the platform, which was really cool, and I think that interested me even further to think, hey, this actually looks like a really cool technology, really cool platform, something I really want to be a part of. And I think the rest was history from there. The journey began really at WECIVA and, yeah, haven’t looked back since really.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, incredible. It’s lovely to hear as well that you don’t come both of you don’t come from a traditional computer science background and the ladies in the Chikankos community just love to hear that that you don’t have to be techie and even when you do come in you don’t have to pick up a techie role, and that there’s so much opportunity. And I love the fact as well that you mentioned that you wanted to go into a startup and you know in that environment and how much fun a startup can be, and that that also takes a certain person, doesn’t it?
Speaker 2:
I think it. Yeah, because I’ve got some friends that it’s maybe a bit more risk averse and sort of. I always say, like, just take the plunge if that’s interesting to you. Because we went from, you know, we had a parent company that was much bigger in the US to having sort of startup scale up mentality over here. But it was a real camaraderie right from the start because you’re all in it together and we’d you know you’d want to like stay up late and help with things and we didn’t have the dev support we have now. Like now we have 24 hour dev support, which is amazing and we, you know, since that started years ago, but at the time we will we go outside of our roles, helping each other and there’s that real sense of community and like we still have that now, but it’s we’re over, I think, 600 people in Europe now. So we’ve really seen it grow over the last 11 years. So it’s really fun to be a part of it since the start.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, great, great story to not just VCP, but to say that you were a part of that great story. That’s really nice, and we’re going to talk a little bit about being a woman in leadership today. Can you both share a little bit about your experience so far, you know, stepping into a leadership role and being a woman in leadership in tech. What, what has that been like, rebecca? Should we start with you? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:
So something I think throughout my career and even during school, I’d always liked a little bit of confidence.
Speaker 3:
So for me, like having someone that can champion you and encourage you to help you take that confidence, to take that step, has been really important.
Speaker 3:
So I was very fortunate to have a previous manager, a previous boss, who when the opportunity arose, he really like advocated for me and said you know, I think you’d be fantastic for this really great career development opportunity and I think without him and really an ally to women in leadership, I don’t think I would be where I am today. So I think that’s something that I think is really important and I try and foster and nurture within our own team is the really speaking up for women, and I think that really helped give me that step up to then continue to grow and it helps you with just building more of that confidence as well. Like I can do this, and I think once you’ve got a little bit of those successes under your belts, I think that helps to continue to build your confidence as well. So really that was my how I got into leadership just through someone really encouraging me and supporting me, which I really am very grateful for.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and having that, that sponsor, sometimes that is there saying great things about you when you’re not in the room. That kind of encourages you in the end to you know you’re finally thought off as that leader because somebody has said something about you behind closed doors, you get that promotion. I agree with the confidence thing. So many ladies that we have on the podcast have all said when you first step into a leadership role you’re expected to know everything. And they said it’s such a panic because you don’t have to know everything. Your team are there to know everything and between everybody you function and, as you know, a really great team. But I think is that worry, everyone’s going to think I need to know everything. And that’s where the confidence thing steps in. And eventually those ladies say you know what? After I calm down a little bit and realize I don’t have to know everything, you kind of settle into your own leadership style, that kind of high, great talent and be able to have great people working with you.
Speaker 2:
And yeah, I mean I fell into leadership in a slightly different way Because I started the partnerships team in about 2017. I was working in a pre sales, post sales kind of environment and sort of reached my limit there. I think it’s a lot of traveling at the time and I saw the US had started partnerships. So that’s working with advisory firms to bring business to us rather than us selling directly to the customer, which is our model. That means eight years until that point. And I said, well, can I experiment a little bit with this? I think it’d be quite fun to well, not fun, but a lot of work to go and do this. And they said, yeah, yeah, give it a go, see what happens. And that started up our relationships with advisory firms, what we call partnerships, and it’s another way of bringing business to Rakeva. And so it sort of took on like a de facto leadership role in that, in that I was the only person doing it to start with, and then we hired some more people in and you start managing them. So sort of took on that leadership role and sort of developed quite naturally and then started I guess it was.
Speaker 2:
For me it was a bit harder to have a seat at the table initially because partnerships was a new organization. It hadn’t been around. It was also initially a bit of a challenge with sales. That had been a direct sales model. We’re coming in from the side helping with sales. But it’s also seen if some people felt like it was competitive and so having that seat at the table and saying, well, no, I’m really here to help you with your sales business. I think a lot of peers I speak to in other companies with alliances have that too. But so over the years it wasn’t necessarily that there was people to encourage you to come in, but it was. You aren’t your place. So being able to show consistently good results meant that, ok, actually, yeah, this is becoming a firm part of the organization, and then that sort of made my seat at the table.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And as well, being ladies that work in tech, I mean you mentioned a few challenges there. I wanted to dig into that bit, have you? I mean, there is no secret that the tech industry is very male dominated. Have you experienced any challenges between you when you stepped into leadership? I mean obviously not a work either. You stayed there for a long period of time, but have you experienced anything like that along the way?
Speaker 3:
I mean, I think we’ve had quite different journeys, with Francesca being more on the commercial side, myself being more on sort of product and support and success side, unfortunately. I think the environment has been very supportive and encouraging to women leaders. However, I’ve definitely found myself in situations where I’ve looked around and it’s all just been myself and white males and I’m like OK, like this is this feels a little bit uncomfortable, being like you’re very aware that you’re very different being there, but then again it helps give you that confidence that I can bring something different and I bring diversity and I can really use my voice here to speak up for maybe others that are unrepresented and a different perspective. So I think that’s something that you you learn and develop over time, to build more into and to lean into that, lean into your natural strengths. But it can feel uncomfortable when you, when you see you’re the only woman. But I suspect you have that a little bit more than I do.
Speaker 2:
Yes, definitely the situation where you’re the only face on that call or in that meeting. I work in sales and so not only as women.
Speaker 1:
Do you mail them?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, very male dominated space and I think also it possibly comes with a stereotype of what people in sales are like and then a stereotype of what women in sales are like. And I didn’t start in sales, I started in custom success and then in consulting and then into sales. So I like to think that I came at it with a cross lateral empathy that came from the other departments and be able to work with them and that was the strength that I could bring to the table with my relationships with the other departments and with our US counterparts. But one of the challenges that is there is that the natural, I guess, directness and assertiveness you have to have in sales. You’re, you have quarterly quotas, you have an annual target, you’ve got to drive results and with that comes the need to be pushy at times, the need to be direct. But you know it comes with the stereotypes that that’s not female. Well, that’s feminine, and so you’re trying to balance that with, I think, like Rebecca said, lean into the qualities that you have and be able to bring something slightly different.
Speaker 2:
But gosh, I think everyone could probably speak to this as the amount of times that I was called aggressive or and all those kind of aggressive approach that email is like is it or was it just me being a bit direct?
Speaker 2:
Because there’s things to be done here and there’s targets to be met. So I think that there’s probably, I think, my problem, my biggest challenge has been probably the labels given, or two certain behaviors that had a male counterpart said or done the same thing, that there might have been a softer label given to them. So probably a little bit around that narrative, and I think there’s huge strides that all companies have made in in the right direction towards combating that, and it’s so much in the media and everything that really helps with it. But that was probably definitely the situations I would be in. Where you’re in a room full of males whether it’s in the consulting side that I work in partnerships or in our sales team it’s very often you’re the only female face there, yeah, but like Rebecca said, you also, then you have an advantage as well.
Speaker 1:
Exactly.
Speaker 2:
And good companies.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, good companies, notice that Don’t know that they want a diverse team. For that reason and you’re absolutely right, reca, that you can lean into that and really use your skills there I’m wondering as well I mean, you’re talking about sales there, and and, and occasionally people think you’re aggressive how did you find your own leadership style? Because if all of your managers previously, for instance, were men, did you find you were emulating those men? And then perhaps when you got into your leadership role, you thought you know what, I don’t have to be like that. Or maybe I do have to be like that because you are right, it’s sales and you do need to get things done.
Speaker 2:
I think that’s a really interesting point, and both Rebecca and I mentor people and we can. We can talk about mentoring in a second, but I always think I think, now that I’ve been in leadership longer the piece of advice that I then give to other people is what kind of leader do you want to be? If someone said Rebecca talking about Rebecca as a leader, what’s the kind of words and terminology you want them to think about you? How do you want to come across? So I think, much like like parenting, you sort of pick the bits that you probably admired from your parents and learnt as you grew up. Which parts of other leaders do you admire and do you pick up? And it’s probably pieces from different parts.
Speaker 2:
So, for example, when I was in, actually in pre-sales, I had a really good sales manager who was advocating for me and was a really good coach, and he would come into the room and be like I’m literally here because I’m a male, gray hair and Funchass was going to do all the talking, and they’d be like OK, but I wouldn’t have got in that room if he wasn’t there Because I was a young female and it’s not necessarily just because you’re a female, but I think also age came into it as well, and so sometimes you just need that person to advocate for you. But then, when it comes to being a leader, now I think, rebecca and I took part in a women leadership training that we keep a provider, which was fantastic in 2021. And part of that was we’re writing on a board all the qualities of leaders and the typical where do you expect powerful? I’m assertive, like all these words and the name. The coaches turn to us and said what do you think missing? Like where’s kindness?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think I’m in compassion and it was just almost ingrained in us from growing up and experiencing other Leaders that you have to be fearless and you have to be strong and, yes, those types of leaders. But I don’t think that we necessarily had our own examples of Leading with kindness, so openly, and letting your guard down and being vulnerable and all those things.
Speaker 3:
And we decided that room that we were gonna be those right leaders that we need, you know, creating this new type of leadership and I think that can be a maybe, a mistake or something that earlier on in your career as a leader you feel like you have to copy the I’m gonna add into a mold, but then you run the risk of losing your personality in your true self and then you’re not really Leading with authenticity.
Speaker 3:
So I think it really is about identifying what are your strengths and how can you lean into those more. I’m a similar leader, francesca like, I think I try and take what I would like and love in other leaders I’ve had and I get to times of self doubt, like even like a great leader I had earlier on in my career previous company I’m still in touch with now. I think to myself I would let’s do in this situation so I think it can. That can also give you confidence right, someone that was very, very business savvy but had a lot about people, cares a lot about the customer I’m and that’s something like I can fall back into by trying to take bits and pieces of why I really love in others and In my world.
Speaker 3:
I think we’re very lucky to have incredible female leaders at wakey, very senior positions in c sweet. So yeah, that’s also help create more space for future female leaders. I think representation and strong role models is incredibly important. They can help advocate for other aspiring female leaders and it’s about every passing that down and passing the baton and that incredible opportunity that we had to be involved in this leadership training. Something else I really took a lot of value from was Identifying, like, what are your core values and staying true to those, and I think that really helps you during times of uncertainty or change your conflict, like really just coming back to that. I think that is again. I think the theme for me is like it gives you that confidence to move forward and progress even in times of adversity as well.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yeah, I completely got a lot of that.
Speaker 1:
To use the word authentic, because you’re right between what both of you just said, that if you’re, if you’re that person that thinks you know, I have to mirror the person before me that might be a man, francesca, use the word powerful and you always think you have to come in, you have to be the loudest, you have to speak the loudest, perhaps in that meeting room, and then people just know it doesn’t seem authentic and if your team doesn’t think you’re authentic, they’re not gonna back you, they’re not gonna get behind you.
Speaker 1:
And you’re right, especially in times of conflict. So so important, such such good advice, and it’s brilliant as well that you can say that you have those role models internally as well and that you know not, you’re not just looking for them across the industry, but you have them internally, because it’s something that she can’t we advocate for is that change has to come from the top down and if you don’t see it, from your own management team and you don’t see great examples there and it’s incredibly hard to try and change company culture and I mean, we’re really fortunate that a lot of those leaders give us their time as well and that they’re really wanting to be good mentors and provide mentorship programs.
Speaker 2:
And then you isn’t like a new leader in your career with.
Speaker 2:
Then you’re like, right, well, I would say to Rebecca, is only on your team that you would like me to mentor, because I think that cross organization mentoring Really allows people to open up a lot more and if you’re like always gonna go up and I’m not having someone that doesn’t know the ins and outs of your organization so they can provide a different perspective.
Speaker 2:
So One of Rebecca’s senior leaders At sea level was my mentor for a year and so it’s a once a month meeting that she would help me and it was during a time there’s a lot of change in the company and she did wonders for myself confidence, but also we didn’t really know each other beforehand. So then getting to know each other and then having to advocate for me and give me a bigger voice Internationally was amazing. And then, like Rebecca’s talking about paying it forwards, you then you sort of embody that you like I’m gonna pay it forwards and do it with someone else and it doesn’t have to be Female to female, it can be male to female and make them work in both directions. And, but I think mentoring and coaching, both at different times in your career and in different formats, I think that fantastic with an organization can provide that support them so powerful.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I agree, and I think it also helps you build more of your network. Support network Give you a bigger perspective, because maybe you learn about different parts of the business that you wouldn’t typically be so closely working with. That’s really helpful for my career development perspective as well, and just bouncing ideas of someone that isn’t so close to your day to day, as you said, can also be really helpful yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:
I love the fact that you touched upon mental. Mental shit is Completely great, so, so important. I agree as well that the fact that you’re saying about you know, finding ladies internally that can help you, but also externally, yeah, it’s so, so important getting a good mix because, you’re right, somebody that is not there in your day to day, maybe not even in your company, can give a completely different skew on things and where they think your strength like a to somebody internally that sometimes can get very bogged down in the politics of your company. So, finding different mentors from from different parts of the industry, it’s fantastic. A lot of our ladies tend to ask on our live webinars where can I find a mentor? Because if you’re not blessed with lots of wonderful women within your company, how can you know? I listen to think what a little bit awkward reaching out to someone or maybe they’re not confident networking event. Do you have any advice for that?
Speaker 2:
I think also doesn’t have to be a female as well. So one of my the best mentors I’ve had a wiki with a male in the us in a different apartment. I think you’re looking for things about being self aware, about where your own gaps are. And what am I actually looking for? Because one of the mentor it makes a lot easier to understand and to quickly get to let me try and help you and coach you Is around understanding what is it you want to work on, or rather than just going in with completely black canvas. So I would say Anyone that’s listening and wondering about how to find a mentor to go about it Is the thing.
Speaker 2:
First order, I want to achieve a word of my. What am I looking to do? Is that I need more confidence building? Is it that I want to be able to have stronger conversations in the next area? And then looking for those people. I’ve reached out to people in linkedin who are either quite an advocate and have quite a vocal voice about certain things. They might have written A particular blog and I’ll say something. Would it be right for you to conversation and people think mentor needs to be like a monthly thing. It can also just be a one off conversation that will literally change your life, or it could be a quarterly conversation. So I think, going in with you need to agree that with that mentor and so if you’re worried about it being a burden on that person, can we just have a one off conversation? And when you have that conversation, sometimes that leads to something more.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it coming across as a burden, because I know, they’ll learn from you as well, so they also find the relationship equally valuable.
Speaker 3:
I’m a part of another leadership program at work either at the moment and we had a great opportunity to be signed a mentor as a part of that program and Rather than just being assigned one directly.
Speaker 3:
My manager, my boss now, is like who do you want to your point, who do you want to work with, who do you look up to? And because I think senior leaders, women leaders, are quite underrepresented, under represented I work in Europe. I was really looking across the organization and I was like maybe three or four women which I didn’t know a lot about, but I had really good reputation, really stood out to me and I just mentioned it to my manager and he went and had a conversation with them and asked on my behalf, would you be open? And they were more than happy. So that’s another way that you can do. If you don’t have the confidence, if you’re unsure, if you’ve got a manager or someone with senior that maybe can advocate on your behalf, that’s another part that you can go down by would say, yeah, don’t hold back. And if there’s someone that you really admire and look up to, I’m sure they would love to hear from you and they will also get value out of that relationship as well.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s an eye opener, isn’t it? Sometimes you think, actually people are willing to help. It’s literally just you asking people, not mind readers, and most of the time they love the fact that you’ve reached out to them to say, you know, actually, could you help me with something? I found as well those conversations, especially when you’re not in leadership and you speak with ladies in leadership. You take them in and you go, oh, you know, that kind of makes sense, and then actually, years later, their words will come back to you and suddenly it will dawn on you and it’s it could be 10 years later and you think, oh, I get it. That’s why that lady was saying that. So even now, you know, those conversations you have now they really can be life changing, but they might not settle in, maybe for the next few years.
Speaker 2:
We were talking about this last night at dinner and I said, one of the most influential people to me was when I was 23, when I first joined Wachiva and it was actually a client of ours and I was on an offsite project and I think she’s amazing and I looked up on LinkedIn and she had been probably going to reach out to her again and say how influential she was and honestly to her it was probably the smallest piece of advice she gave me. But we were in a situation where there was quite some quite strong characters in sales and at the time I was in support and I was there helping set up something. And we’d walk into the room and this quite old fashioned seller would say okay, well, francesca, you go sit over there in the corner and we’ll sit at the table. And after a bit we were there for quite a while and she took me to lunch one day and said so is he your boss? And I said, no, no, he’s a peer of mine. She goes well, why don’t you talk to you like that? She goes, I’m going to do something.
Speaker 2:
So we walked into the room after lunch and he said, okay, well, francesca, you go sit over there. And she goes no, actually I’d like you to come and sit at the table right here with me, and she pulled a chair out beside her and this is a very senior person at this bank and she literally brought me to the table, in that sort of metaphorical sense, and then, from then on, she was like referring to me, turning to me, saying what do you think? And pulled me into conversation with all these very high level people, but gave me that confidence that I do have a voice. Actually, it doesn’t matter my age and what my role is, and it’s made. You know, you try to embody that and you try to do that. So you know, 11 years on, I still think of her as how influential she was to me and I would do it to someone else, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely you are right. There are certain people along the way. You don’t realise the impact they have on your life.
Speaker 1:
No and I think I do the same thing and I think a certain manager is laid to down the line and think you know what, that that, that boss? In the end, you think I really love that boss because they didn’t say a lot. They’re almost elusive, but that meant that they didn’t give much away and everybody respected them. And then, as you start to move into leadership, I started to think of him and thought, actually, sometimes it is best just to say less. But it wasn’t until years later that I suddenly started to think of different types of leadership along the way. And yeah, you don’t quite realise at the time or that tiny thing that happens can be so impactful. Definitely you had a great advocate for you there who kind of, you know, dragged you literally in and sat you down. I wanted to talk a little bit about what organisations can do to foster a supportive environment for women in leadership. Perhaps you know, if you don’t have somebody that’s supportive within the leadership team, is there anything you think companies can do to try and help that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, we have our live programmes as well and I think, if you don’t have necessarily the amazing facilities we’ve had, like the women leadership programme and things like that, something like encouraging allies, I think, is something that every organisation can do, and we were talking about this together, about what it actually means to be an ally and an ally can be an obviously across a lot of different groups, but not just saying, yep, I’m a female ally and it’s like hey, but what does that actually mean?
Speaker 2:
and it means about challenging the narrative. So I mentioned aggressive earlier. And if someone was saying, oh, you know, for Jessica being quite aggressive, is she being aggressive or is she being assertive and direct about something? And you know the typical oh, they’re being quite emotional about this. Were they being emotional or were they being passionate? And I think that’s the number one thing an ally can do. Or for me, is that they can challenge the narrative and change it that way. So you’re not telling people, you’re doing it inclusively and encouraging. So I think changing language and just small things like that is something an organisation can be supportive of. And we’ve even looked at job descriptions. Were they traditionally written by men and therefore are calling out to men and will they appeal to women?
Speaker 3:
So, looking at language like that, agreed, yeah inclusive language, I agree, is a big one, and I think it just starts with being conscious of that which, in terms of maybe outdated and how that can marginalize like an underrepresented group. So that’s one thing. Just promoting more of that inclusivity with the language and calling each other out, but in a professional and kind way, that’s a big one. Agreed, the job descriptions is another. I think having our business employee resource group for women to help create more allies has been really powerful and just elevating that voice. I think also just we spoke a little bit about this earlier even if there’s a woman that’s a great leader or a great employee and they’re not in the room, still advocate for them and speak up for them even when they’re not there. That’s a big one. And another great thing that Wacuva has explored is just being more, just being diverse to candidates.
Speaker 3:
There might be oftentimes where women are sometimes overlooked for certain positions. Either maybe they’ve had a gap in their career because they’ve taken a break to start a family, but these are often really talented, very high potential, like hungry, very driven women. And we’ve worked with a company called Every Mother Knows in the Netherlands that actually promotes those return ships to work where maybe women have taken an extended career break and we’ve seen a lot of success with that Because, again, I think it helps bring more diversity and there’s all that research out there that says more diverse teams are stronger teams and more high performing teams. So it’s for the good of the business if you can really promote more of that inclusivity and diversity within your organisation. I think that’s so powerful.
Speaker 1:
Especially with return ships. So we hear that so often from our own community that ladies that are returning to the workplace are usually more loyal. And a lot of ladies that we’ve spoke to their mums they’re like you know what it’s the worst thing to think. I have to move job, or I have to change my routine in the morning, or I’ve just set up my routine and I can drop this child off there and that child there, and if I were to move jobs and then suddenly I’d have to rethink all of that. A lot of those ladies they stay put for a long time because of that and they’re very loyal because of it, whereas graduates can sometimes hop around, they’ll be with you a year.
Speaker 3:
So sometimes it’s just bridging that gap with those ladies coming back into the workplace and you’ve got yourself a fantastic employee and just creating an environment where they can also thrive I think is key, and making sure they’ve got a good support network. We were talking about reintegration after maternity leave as well it’s also something that companies can really look at how they can really help and support women further.
Speaker 2:
I returned in March from maternity leave so I feel very passionate about it as well. I think I wasn’t as aware of it until it happens to you as well, and so I think I mean I was aware of what it is to come back and the need for reintegration, and we support people, whether it’s medical leave or maternity leave, with a reintegration. But I think that flexibility as well of the hours. So at Wickey we can work anytime between 7 am and 10 pm. That works with you. You can block on your calendar for family time. So I put block sing Oscar time for afternoon when I wanna be able to spend time with him to do dinner and bath and bed. I don’t wanna miss out on those moments. And then if I’m needed in the evening, that’s my choice. I want to jump back on cause it’s quiet and I can get some things done.
Speaker 2:
But that’s a choice that I’ve made and I feel in control of my calendar and I feel that I’m trying to get the best blend I can with a work-life balance. But allow that flexibility and I think we do have a very good appreciation for people’s personal time, whether it’s to do with family or not. But the reintegration we’ve introduced recently a staggered return from maternity leave, so which, basically, you just don’t just throw people straight back into it because your brain’s been out of action for a little bit. It’s gone through a difficult time to then come back into it and not have to feel you’re talking about your own time, to feel that you need to be there and confidence-wise, but being able to give yourself that time to come back into it and build back up to where you were.
Speaker 1:
Yes, so please do mention that. I had a question I wanted to ask you about balancing work. I think some, especially mums or people that got other commitments, they do worry, don’t they? When you step into a leadership role, are you going to be asked too much of you? Can you do it? It’s great that you have a staggered program for that as well. Coming back in, how have you found that, both as leaders, have you found it difficult, once you stepped into leadership, to then kind of set those boundaries as well with work.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s naturally like the demands of leadership. You always feel like I don’t think we ever feel like our job has ever done, like there’s no sort of right. I finished my day in tick you sort of there’s always things to do of course You’ve actually started thinking about it.
Speaker 2:
So you have to have discipline and that was something that actually an external coach was very good during my pregnancy, before I went off for work, because you’re used to giving 150% to work for 11 years and then having to basically shut the laptop.
Speaker 3:
But that’s not sustainable. To-. We all have peaks and troughs, I think, in our work, in our career, and there are times when maybe it’s necessary to go that 100, 110%, but you can’t sustain that. Because, that’s not healthy.
Speaker 3:
Sometimes you need someone to tell you to have some discipline or you need to have it yourself Absolutely. And I think also you can fall into that trap, especially earlier on in your career, especially in leadership, that you really feel like you need to prove yourself. So you will just work yourself to the bone. But that’s not healthy, because then also what kind of example is that setting for your team?
Speaker 1:
I was gonna say your company doesn’t want you to do that.
Speaker 3:
No no.
Speaker 1:
They’re looking at you thinking please, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
We’ve often had time difference problems. So we work, we’re in three continents, but here in Europe there might be times when someone just throws a meeting to your calendar, there happens to be seven till nine pm and probably without realising that that’s actually after hours. So I think being able to set those boundaries and I think we need to set that example for newer managers that, by the way, you can push back and say, actually, can you move this two hours earlier? Or you make the exception and say I’m making this an exception, but this isn’t actually at somewhere hours.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think if it’s something that you, that you struggle with and I think some people do find this harder than others it could be also a personality thing. It could be the environment you’re in is like find an accountability partner or someone because we’ve had this, but we’ll message each other, like slack each other at work and be like hey, like you know it’s 7 pm, like it’s time to log off now, yeah, and when you?
Speaker 2:
you should probably take a holiday if you used any PTO recently. So trying to part of the leadership thing, as we were all encouraging each other to sell soothe um and take that bit of time off and actually shut off and, like you said, accountability around when people are on holiday. Don’t message them, because then you you don’t want to be messaged when you’re on holiday, so hold yourself back. Everything can wait. You know. You’ve got to respect that family time, respect that holiday time.
Speaker 3:
But then I know there are some people who like that will actually help reduce their anxiety if they just log on during holiday and check their email, and I think that’s fine.
Speaker 3:
If that works for you, totally cool, but that’s not for everyone yeah so I think it’s just knowing your own boundaries and you know, I’ll book a yoga class at like a certain time on a Friday because I’m like, no, I’m, I’m sticking to this, I’m holding myself accountable, and that’s a good way to then unwind and and switch off, because then I also know I can be a better an employee if I’ve taken that time to rest and have that down time and recharge, and then you can come back, yeah, fully reinvigorated and like ready to take on.
Speaker 2:
I think you can then support those managers in your team. So I have a manager on my team who’s returned from maternity leave in September and so, having very recently been through it myself I, for example but she has a different way of working to me so she doesn’t put the blocks in her calendar and I said, oh, but if you, you know you need to make sure you’re eating lunch, make sure you get some blocks there in the evening when she’s like no, no, I’m fine, I’m like that’s fine. I’m not going to push her because we might work in a different way, but just trying to be able to pass on. So I know that when I returned, god you take a confidence hit that I never expected and I think you come into any new job you would have a confidence hit. But I’ve been at Wikiver 11 years. I wouldn’t have expected to have a confidence knock, but the imposter syndrome was on fire when I returned from maternity leave.
Speaker 2:
And just that pressure of like I need to run this team, I need to be seen to be making an impact straight away and trying to prove a point. You don’t have anyone to prove. But you know your reputation speaks for yourself. But you put yourself under that pressure. But now I have a whole different respect for that, for other people going through the same thing and so might reach out to someone else in a different department saying like I know you just recently turned.
Speaker 2:
I imagine you must be feeling this if you want to talk about it. So I think encouraging, if people are open to encouraging people in the organization to reach out to other peers, whether it’s managers, whether it’s individuals just be able to share your experiences and be and I think for me, that’s what I sort of take away as a woman in leadership is to owe it to others, to pay it forwards, to be open and vulnerable, maybe where I didn’t see that vulnerability before. That you, this image of a woman in leadership needing to be fearless, yeah, but if that isn’t you, that’s okay. I mean there will be these women that are fearless and there’ll be ones that are stereotype of powerful and strong.
Speaker 1:
But powerful and strong can come in so many other ways of kindness and openness and vulnerability oh, so that doesn’t work for every team as well, being that, that fearless female doesn’t work for every team. And, yeah, I completely agree, it’s finding your style and what works, especially if you’ve come back from, from leave and then and then settling into that. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I also agree with the fact that you you said that you dip in and tell each other, you almost tell each other off when you see we do that she can code, we see somebody on late online or somebody on on line when they’re on holiday. We said get offline. Or just somebody would message like clock off because it it shouldn’t be. And I do agree, rebecca, sometimes it is easier to log on when you’re on holiday or you just think you know, I’m just gonna, it’s just easier when I come back and check a few things. But all of your team should feel like they have to be doing that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, important difference there, I agree, and the tech world so fast-paced and fast-moving by nature that you sort of feel like a bit left behind. But it doesn’t need to be that way. I mean, everything can wait. People can have a holiday, yes, and the world’s not on fire, and so it’s about having that discipline.
Speaker 3:
I think it also sends a good message that, like you trust your team, you carry things on in your absence, and I think it helps give people exposure to take on more responsibility and step up. So yeah, you can also look at it from from that angle as well yeah, I agree and we spoke a little bit about.
Speaker 1:
You know things like um, like words, like powerful, you’re expected to be fearless or in all of those things that you you kind of think of as a leader, but you don’t have to be if you’re not um. Are there any skills that you think are essential for women stepping into leadership that you just think you’ve picked up along the way and thought, actually I wish somebody had told me if I just had that skill I, that would have made my leadership journey a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:
I think authenticity, which you talked about, is yeah number one for any leader is that that’s what you’ll bring to the table, and if you’re authentic, it builds trust and it builds openness, and so I think that’s a huge one.
Speaker 3:
I would say empathy, yes, is another really important one, and even I mean everybody can be a leader in their role, and I think being empathetic is something that will help you in your career, no matter what role you move into, no matter what come what company. Will help you in your personal life as well, like being a good listener and really trying to see something from another person’s perspective, and it’s not just internally within your company, it’s like your customers, your partners that you’re working with as well. I think if everyone could be more empathetic, we would be more productive and I think we would actually, well put, be a better place.
Speaker 2:
I’d say empathy is a key one for me yeah, and I like, connected to that, it’s cross lateral empathy, which is you know, you were talking to it around empathy for others. I think it’s not just about your organization and making sure your organization succeeds, it’s about making sure the company succeeds and everyone’s brought along with that. And I think, cross lateral empathy like, if my team does this, how does that impact Rebecca’s team? How does that impact this other team? If there’s a reaction or something you need to support as a leader, an escalation, well, why is that probably happening? What are they probably thinking and going through? And that’s the thing. I think that’s something different that we can bring. I think lean into the femininity and lean into those, those skills that are innate within us that do bring something different, because and I think, rewrite what the norm is for a leader I think being a good leader is, you know, the things we’ve talked about authenticity, compassion, empathy, vulnerability, vulnerability and being open.
Speaker 2:
I think that that’s what we see more of nowadays. Is leaders being more open, more genuine? Yeah, you want to be an open door that people feel they can come to you with their problems and tell you what things are, so you can help. Yeah, um, so opening up to the point where you feel comfortable, but opening up, because we’re all human.
Speaker 1:
We’re all going to run into like difficult challenges at some point in our life mistakes, mistakes, and I think it’s how that leader deals with those mistakes, and whether or not you move forward as a team and work together to move past that, yeah, or if it will just go. It’s entirely wrong, that happens as well, but right, showing that you’re vulnerable, that you don’t have to know everything. You can make a mistake, but it’s fine, we moved through it.
Speaker 2:
I think that’s a good point. We talked about this, how it’s okay to make mistakes. We always tell our teams that we want them to be open, so we’ve got to be open ourselves, the best way to learn sometimes. Yeah um, and we always say like there’s. You know, there’s no such thing as a silly question. We ask questions ourselves um. But I think I think it also should be you had to be humble to also admit when you’ve made a mistake or you don’t know something.
Speaker 3:
yeah, and I think naturally, maybe women are a little bit more humble, but also, you know, that means that we might not speak up about our accomplishments or successes, so you need to make sure you’re balancing that as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think being the leader that you want or that you wish you had and parts like that.
Speaker 2:
We were saying to each other that leadership actually can be quite lonely place, yeah, so, yes, we’ve talked about how we look out for each other and we hold each other accountable, but we, you know, we each run our own organisation and it can be a very lonely place. I think for certain. When you first come into leadership, there’s probably a lot more of you as managers, and then, as you work your way up, it gets a smaller and smaller group, and then, when you’re leading an organisation, it is very lonely in some ways, and so then you need to, even more than you, just take the time to spend time with each other and check in on people and how they’re going, because they’re very likely going to be experiencing very similar pressures to you and not just can’t share that as well when you’re in leadership.
Speaker 1:
That’s why I thought of my boss, who just barely said anything Because he was so senior he couldn’t share things.
Speaker 2:
He’s probably going through a lot.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, you don’t want to alarm your team. The more senior you can’t talk about those decisions that are happening and you think it is incredibly lonely. Yeah, and you’re right, just finding that network to at least share something.
Speaker 2:
I connect with a peer who leads partnerships as another software company and I connect with her every so often and we have, you know, and we say it in my chat, and we have very similar experiences and so I think it’s really it doesn’t have to be within the organisation. You can lean out, and you mentioned earlier, like, how do people find a mental or the same way that you could also lean out to other peers, Whether you go to networking events or whether it’s a friend could introduce you to someone that’s like oh, actually, this is quite a similar job to you. I think people in leadership, no matter the industry, have very similar situations. I mean my husband’s in leadership and we often converse about are you like, what would you do in the situation with this? And it’s very similar, a completely different industry, but very similar situation you have. So I think that’s where we can all help each other is be a lot more open. I think probably in years gone by it was very different.
Speaker 2:
And that’s something that can be done differently nowadays.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, definitely Ladies we. I could talk to you for several more hours on this topic. I am disappointed that we only had a few questions to get through today, because you are both a fountain of knowledge about moving into leadership and I’m sure our ladies are going to find it so, so interesting to hear your journey. So thank you so much, Rebecca and Francesca. Thank you so much for coming in, sharing your journeys and life at Workiva. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on today.
Speaker 3:
Well, thanks so much for having us Pleasure for us.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for inviting us, Thank you and for everybody listening. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
