Widening the pipeline of tech talent into your business

With greater diversity comes greater volume

A panel at the Cybersecurity festival discussed the benefits of attracting more diverse talent, and supporting that talent to maximise productivity and skills retention.

Are diverse cybersecurity teams at an advantage in threat detection and remediation? Holly Foxcroft is Head of Neurodiversity in Cyber Research at Stott and May Consulting. Holly is currently undertaking research with the University of Portsmouth on precisely this point. She provided an example of cybersecurity awareness advice as an area that would benefit from input from some neurodivergent individuals.

"One piece of cyber awareness advice you see a lot is telling you to look out for spelling mistakes, and that doesn't really work for me as my dyslexia is strong," she says.

"In our research we're noticing more neurodivergence in cybercrime and that means we're going to see a lot more in tech and cybersecurity."

Holly acknowledged that neurodiversity could be a strength but that this wasn't necessarily so and cautioned against perceiving neurodivergent individuals as superheroes.

"We're not superheroes and we shouldn't have to appear like them to be socially accepted. Having said that we can have some particular patterns and strengths and one of those is aligning with were cybersecurity skills are."

What advice did the panel have about creating a safe working environment for neurodivergent team members?

Dr Andrea Cullen, CEO and Co-Founder of social impact business CAPSLOCK which runs award winning cybersecurity skills bootcamps said:

"I'm autistic and for us communication is key. There needs to be an open and honest dialogue that means if there are certain things needed there's a safe space to talk about it. Everybody is different and will have different needs and certain things that work better for them, but they need to be able to talk about it."

The ongoing push to encourage workers back to offices also has an impact on almost all aspects of diversity. Whilst employees are free to request flexible working, evidence is beginning to indicate that if they're granted that flexibility they'll end up being punished for it to some extent. How do we stop a two-track workplace developing?

Sophie Creese, founder of Motherboard and Co-Founder of HeyFlow:

"If everyone is ordered back to the office it will impact women more than men. We need to be able to put a business case forward for flexible working so leaders don't think they're going to lose out by having people working flexibly.

"We know that being present makes you more promotable. There needs to be investigation into the impacts of flexible working in promotion, networking and the impact of visibility on sponsorship of the people who put you onto promotion tracks."

Andrea Cullen pointed out just how ridiculous the whole concept of presenteeism actually is.

"We're 100% remote but I know from previous roles how important presenteeism is. I've sat there before when the boss is in to see how long people do sit there and it becomes almost a game of who gives out first. You need to be seen to be there even if you're idle. To tackle it we need to start talking about it and vocalising it."

Holly Foxcroft pointed out that given the maligned tendency of GenZ and Gen Alpha to prefer interacting in cyberspace rather than physical space (research published recently by Uswitch found that a quarter of people aged 18 - 34 had literally never answered their phones, preferring to ignore calls from unknown numbers and message friends or family rather than returning calls), no matter what older employers might think about the wisdom of messaging over Teams when you're three metres away from the person you're communicating with, employers are going to have to work with this.

"We need to understand cyberspace as a living domain and learn to work there more. You can have open breakout rooms, have visibility of a culture that works remotely. Have spotlights – what's someone done recently that's great? Share that consistently not just in a once-a-month or quarter newsletter. Use your cyberspace presence to keep people visible and motivated."

What other steps can companies take to encourage neurodivergent workers? Holly Foxcroft suggested showing a visible commitment to support such workers.

"You can use a neurodiversity passport which specifically lists acts of neuro inclusion. Examples are asking what kind of interview format they would respond well to or asking if you need questions in advance."

One particularly interesting question came from an audience member asking whether current norms around tech job descriptions and requirements were effectively gatekeeping, and ensuring that the tech talent pipeline stayed distinctly homogenous. Andrea Cullen thought this was very much the reality.

"We work really closely with business about how to word job descriptions. It's more around potential critical thinking, analytical skills, problem solving. We work with employers to ask them what is it specifically that they need someone to do? What skills should they be able to bring? A degree or certification is just one indicator.

There's a huge talent pool out there that just hasn't had the opportunity but they can go on to do incredible things and be really driven."

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