Women in IT: don't get stuck in 'glue work' if you want to get on

Every organisation needs its helpers but their efforts often go unrecognised, says ENSEK’s Sarah Smith

Sarah Smith joined ENSEK, a provider of a software platform for energy suppliers, after a decade of business consultancy, which she thoroughly enjoyed, and prior to that recruitment, which she didn't. Consultancy necessitates a great deal of travel, something incompatible with being a new mother, which led Smith to look for something close to her Nottinghamshire home. She hadn't considered tech before, but having an in-depth knowledge of the energy sector from her consultancy days and especially in view of the convenient location, she thought she'd give it a shot.

Four years later, including a period of maternity leave, she is now head of migration, assisting new energy startups - and increasingly established firms too - to transform their businesses using cloud. Smith enjoyed the learning process, but the experience of working in the technology brought home a few realities of being a woman in a male-dominated industry.

Inequality is a deep-seated issue that will only be resolved through concerted effort, Smith told Computing: "There is a huge amount of gendered role stuff that happens at an incredibly early age, and there has to be better provision through schools, and encouragement of girls and women to go to university to study STEM subjects".

That said, she's encouraged by the number of schools and charities that now offer after-school coding lessons for girls and young women. Prior to the pandemic she was looking to support such ventures through ENSEK. (The company also supports a programme at Nottingham Trent University to help women with STEM degrees get into tech firms.)

I don't think there is a lot of conscious bias, but there's cultural and societal patriarchy

But of course, issues around diversity don't stop with getting a job. Without a critical mass within organisations, minorities tend to find it harder to climb the ladder.

"I don't think there is a lot of conscious bias, and there's certainly no conscious bias within ENSEK, but there's cultural and societal patriarchy, and that's internal as much as anything else," Smith said.

"No-one is consciously stopping women progressing, or not many are, but the people who take on a lot of glue work may find that they're not progressing up the career ladders as much as they would like to, even though they are giving so much to the company."

‘Glue work', a term coined by Squarespace software engineer and blogger Tanya Reilly, is "all of the stuff which link things together within an organisation", Smith explained.

"It might be realising that something that you're doing in a development team over here is similar to something else over there, or it might just be being on the ents committee, or being a fire warden, or being the person who organises a birthday presents or cups of tea in meetings, and those activities fall disproportionately to women within the workplace."

And because women are under-represented in tech they take on more of these important but unofficial tasks, sometimes because no-one else will step up to do them.

"There is a societal thing where we are expected to be great cooks and all that and there aren't a lot of men who will fall into this camp," Smith expanded.

"I spend 20 per cent of my time on ents committees, and organising socials, and Christmas cards, and making sure that the rock star developer in this team talks to everyone in that team. That's great, it makes things happen, it makes the business succeed. But it won't necessarily come up on my review."

And that is the crux of the issue. Glue work is vital, but it is not captured by performance metrics, unlike, say, the heroics of the rock star developer. So, when glue workers seek promotion their records can appear less impressive that those of colleagues of a less cooperative nature.

"People who take on a lot of glue work - and sometimes it is men - tend to find they are not progressing up the career ladder as much as they'd like to, even though they are giving so much to the company."

For women with executive roles another form of glue work is mentoring. With fewer females in the boardroom, the job of helping more junior women to make the most of their talents tends to fall to them.

So, what can be done to achieve a critical mass of women in sectors or departments such as tech? Smith is cautious about recommending affirmative action, although she believes it can work in the right circumstances. Initiatives can be done "well or badly", she said.

"It can be helpful to try to have female-only shortlists, but I think for small startups the practicalities are not the same as in large corporations."

'We always appoint the best candidates' is a cop out

It is always useful to question why things are as they are.

"People should always be aware of unconscious bias. The answer, 'we always appoint the best candidates' to the question of why you've got no women or BAME people is a cop out. You need to be trying to understand why you're not getting the right people into your pipeline in the first place and how you can ensure the pool is there in a few years' time."

The situation is better in some Scandinavian countries where a higher proportion of women occupy senior roles, Smith notes, but to change the status quo will take a concerted push from within as well as without.

"I think more women should get into tech. And I think that the best way to elicit change is to be in the companies, and challenging and pushing and nudging for change from the inside.

"I've always found that quite a success I think maybe I'm lucky that in the board at ENSEK are used to me challenging about things and are quite open to listening and making changes."