Folge 8: Women in Tech@JobRad

00:00:05:

00:00:16: Hello, lovely people from the interwebs.

00:00:21: This is actually the first time we are doing an English episode.

00:00:25: The reason why was, we'll explain in a second.

00:00:30: And so this is why we are doing this interview in English now.

00:00:35: Hello, lovely people from the internet, like I said.

00:00:37: Welcome to a new episode of Increased Cycle Time, the podcast by the JobRat development folks.

00:00:43: I'm Holger, software engineer in a product team by the JobRat video, the product and tech organization.

00:00:49: And like I already said, next to me on the mic is my lovely colleague Urs.

00:00:55: Hello Urs.

00:00:56: Hello Holger and hello internet.

00:01:00: Yes, as Holger just said, I'm Urs, I'm working in the PTO as a team lead developer experience and Holger and I together are producing this podcast to show you the ins and outs of software development at Jobrad.

00:01:12: And with us today is Madi.

00:01:14: Welcome, Madi.

00:01:16: Thank you, Urs.

00:01:18: Thank you, Holger.

00:01:20: Hello, everyone.

00:01:20: My name is Madi and Holger and Urs are my colleagues in PTO, but I work in a different team, my team is service care where we take care of service management.

00:01:32: As you are aware JobRod offers services, software is a service where we give portal services where people, employees, employers can lock in and do their business.

00:01:46: And when we talk about services somebody has to manage it.

00:01:49: and ensure that we meet some kind of international standards and our approach is a bit of professional and my team takes care of it.

00:01:59: Thank you.

00:02:01: Good to have you.

00:02:02: And today's episode is not so much about service care.

00:02:07: It's more about your site business at Chopra.

00:02:13: Yeah, we had a chat about it.

00:02:15: I don't know when.

00:02:17: It was in August.

00:02:18: in August.

00:02:19: You know exactly.

00:02:20: Okay, it was exactly in August.

00:02:21: It was in our beautiful cafe here at the Jobbot campus, where you told me a little bit about the Women in Tech organization here over at Jobbot.

00:02:31: or maybe you drew a broader picture here.

00:02:35: And well, I think... with me.

00:02:39: and I think we thought well this is important and interesting and it's a very very fitting topic for an episode.

00:02:51: And well, let's talk about that.

00:02:54: Here we are now.

00:02:55: So maybe

00:02:55: first of all, what is women in tech?

00:02:58: Can you explain that for our dear listeners?

00:03:01: Yes, women in tech is an initiative that we few ladies or few women who are working in the tech branch came together and we thought it would be nice to build a support or a community where we can encourage women in tech branch to want to grow.

00:03:28: career-wise and to support and to onboard and give this continual, how do you call it, continual feed or inspiration which will make women in tech comfortable to take on new journeys, to take on new projects, new initiatives and stuff.

00:03:52: Why did we do this?

00:03:55: I think it was like in we see that the numbers prove the percentage of women who work in tech branch is always lower than the percentage of men.

00:04:11: So we noticed it on a day to day basis when we were working because back then when I joined like on the floor where I used to work there were three women or four women on the whole floor.

00:04:24: you know and that was one thing.

00:04:27: Second thing was my team lead was a woman and she also noticed that like when she was staying in these board meetings and stuff and the decisions that were being made or when they were discussing about a problem it somewhere lacked perception of a woman or the thought process of a woman or the feedback what a woman would give.

00:04:55: So all these things we noticed and we thought maybe we could change something here

00:05:01: if

00:05:01: we all women came together.

00:05:03: Was there like a trigger moment at some point where something happened or you just thought now we need to act and we need to found something like the Women in Tech Initiative or was it like a continuous development?

00:05:15: Until at some point you said, now let's put it into action.

00:05:20: It was not a big bang.

00:05:22: Yeah, let me tell you that.

00:05:23: It was not a big bang and then it happened gradually.

00:05:26: Yeah.

00:05:26: And it really did happen gradually.

00:05:31: And then we had a lot of these, how do you call it, offline chats.

00:05:35: coffee chats and then we always used to like when we went for lunch together and then we would just observe the different scenarios.

00:05:43: then we thought this is where we could help.

00:05:45: this is this is the topic that we could have find solution by all the women coming together and then thinking about this and stuff like that.

00:05:53: so it developed gradually and then we made a proposal and then we had to do some sort of meeting where we could invite all the women and then understand what.

00:06:04: what are they going through?

00:06:05: One, and what feedback do they have?

00:06:07: And three, we introduced about our initiative and we asked them, what do they feel about it?

00:06:12: So we had to do all this and we had to do surveys and stuff to build a concrete plan, to build our concrete vision and mission and to build a concrete, how do you call it?

00:06:23: Milestone, what do we want to achieve?

00:06:25: Short-term, long-term and stuff like that.

00:06:28: It happened gradually.

00:06:29: I see.

00:06:30: And is it inspired by some external influence?

00:06:35: Do other companies have the same or something comparable that you were influenced by?

00:06:39: Or was it mostly an internal thing that you just agreed?

00:06:43: this makes sense and we want to do that in our company or at our place of work?

00:06:48: Yeah, maybe other companies that you worked for had similar structures.

00:06:55: Interesting question.

00:06:57: I really have to give credit where it is due.

00:07:01: So it was actually started, it was the brainchild of Sandini.

00:07:05: And I did not really, I joined the party later, you know, she's now in on parental leave.

00:07:14: So I really did not get into much of the background.

00:07:17: But yeah, she was the one who was like really driving it.

00:07:20: And then she noticed it.

00:07:21: And she was the person who was in on all these board meetings.

00:07:24: I did not, I don't have.

00:07:26: and answer to it.

00:07:28: But however, the inspiration where it came from was like, if I may add a bit of my personal experience.

00:07:35: Of course.

00:07:36: So India is a bit of a conservative country.

00:07:39: And then for my mom's generation, it was still conservative country.

00:07:44: And then it's a patriarchal society, right?

00:07:47: And my mom was a working mother.

00:07:50: And she had a lot of problems.

00:07:53: She was there like the women at work place.

00:07:55: It was it was not so Friendly women friendly back in those days.

00:08:00: Yeah, I can tell you there was a situation where she did not have toilet in their working space.

00:08:07: Like you know men and women or just think they did not have it.

00:08:10: and then I can't imagine my mom used to like hold it up for like two three hours.

00:08:15: She would come back to home and then she would like you know leave herself and then go back to office like these small things.

00:08:20: then that's when it started impacting.

00:08:22: you know like.

00:08:22: yeah like workplace has to be women friendly and and yeah when I came to Germany I understand like it's it's not a patriarchal society and but but when it comes to tech barrage we still that there is.

00:08:38: There is still room for improvement when it comes to equality in tech.

00:08:41: Be it the numbers, be it the salary and stuff.

00:08:44: But yeah, I drive the inspiration from my mom and which is why I was so motivated to like, you know, let's contribute, let's see how we can make this better.

00:08:51: Yeah, and I can imagine that it's a problem that is making itself worse, basically, because if you don't have women in tech, then tech has no reason to I don't know, improve working conditions for women in all the various possible ways.

00:09:09: And if working conditions don't improve, then why would women work in tech?

00:09:12: So in German, I would say a Hene-Ei problem.

00:09:15: Yeah, absolutely.

00:09:18: That was the thing, right?

00:09:19: So I told you, we had these meetings before we started off officially.

00:09:23: We had these meetings where we all came together and then we were like talking about, okay, what is good?

00:09:28: What is bad?

00:09:28: What can we improve and stuff?

00:09:31: few things that we heard or most of the women gave feedback about was one at the workplace for the new mothers, onboarding new mothers who came back from the parental leave.

00:09:45: The conditions were not so favorable or everybody is nice but there is no an extra step that is being taken by the Arbitergaber where they could make it more comfortable.

00:10:00: I'll give you an example.

00:10:02: When new mothers come back, there has to be a nursing room and stuff like that and it has to have certain standards.

00:10:09: and when there is a new mother, you have to onboard, you know.

00:10:12: Somebody should take them by the hand and they say, you know, you're a new mother, we understand your problem, here is the Ketah.

00:10:18: Because you have to understand they are in a different mental state.

00:10:20: They also need somebody who can give them that kind of emotional support at the workplace who say, you can always come and talk to me, you know, I'm here, I have been mother, I understand what your this thing are, you know.

00:10:30: So that was not their like, take by the hand and the onboarding and then also give them a bit of tour.

00:10:35: So much changes when they come back, you know, they would have left one year ago and they come back, so much would have changed at the workplace, right.

00:10:41: So show them around, okay, where is the workplace?

00:10:43: Where can they get what this thing?

00:10:44: Where is the nursing room?

00:10:45: One thing, yeah, that were like onboarding of the new mothers.

00:10:49: Yeah, so so many people they take like they're on maternity leave and I think majority people.

00:10:54: there is always a majority of the people who think yeah I don't think work is for me especially or they were like yeah like now I have a child I want to focus on my child I don't want to work anymore and stuff now.

00:11:05: now there might be a shift in the perspective when I know Like, you know, I still have somebody at office who will take care of me, who is there to like, you know, onboard me whom I can get the support that I need, you know, at the workplace.

00:11:19: And when it's comfortable, they would still think, yeah, yeah, I can manage, you know, it is not going to be that draining.

00:11:26: That is the change.

00:11:27: And second thing is like, when it comes to the career growth or few rooms position, we had really less numbers or equal to zero percentage.

00:11:37: And these were the two things that were discussed and we thought, something we can do about it.

00:11:42: Yeah.

00:11:42: And

00:11:43: then how did you convince the decision makers?

00:11:48: Or was it even hard?

00:11:50: Or did they just say, wow, good idea, go on?

00:11:53: Or was it the journey where you needed to prove that there lies value in doing these things?

00:12:00: Because as I said before, if they're just, I don't know, two or three women in the tech branch and you change conditions for them of course it makes things better for them but the majority maybe doesn't profit from it or at least from the perspective of the business there's no big profit in it maybe.

00:12:22: It was first question I will answer you was it difficult to convince the decision makers about our initiative?

00:12:28: no it wasn't.

00:12:30: that difficult to convince them.

00:12:31: We really had supportive decision makers back then who were like, yeah, let's do it.

00:12:36: We were like equality and then like, you know, people-friendly company back then and like the decision makers.

00:12:45: So we did get the support.

00:12:47: Okay.

00:12:48: That doesn't mean that we did not prove our case.

00:12:51: Right.

00:12:51: And when it comes to innovation, back then when we started, right, we had We wanted to be very innovative.

00:12:59: We wanted to like when it comes to technical Development or technical evolution.

00:13:05: We wanted to do so much That is possible with it only with the diversity.

00:13:10: like.

00:13:10: you cannot have one way thinking and think oh, I will.

00:13:16: How do you call it?

00:13:16: conquer the world doesn't happen?

00:13:18: you?

00:13:18: you really need different perspectives.

00:13:20: and when we talked about why we wanted to build this community or build this.

00:13:27: We told them it is going to add to their strategy which they had about like being innovative and bringing in a lot of different perspectives and then making something that is relatable to everybody.

00:13:41: So these were the things like.

00:13:42: it worked both ways.

00:13:44: It wasn't difficult but also we tried our best to prove our case and then ensure that we are going to bring value.

00:13:53: Can you talk about maybe some concrete things that you changed for the people here at Jobrad?

00:14:01: Oh, yeah, so many, so many.

00:14:03: Yes, of course.

00:14:04: Okay.

00:14:07: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:07: Top

00:14:08: three.

00:14:08: Top

00:14:09: three, okay.

00:14:09: Yeah, top three.

00:14:10: Okay, first thing was... The nursing room, that was really bad.

00:14:15: We did not really follow any standards or stuff.

00:14:18: Or it was, it could have, there were a lot of rooms for improvement, opportunity for improvement.

00:14:24: So we... did work on that and now it is so pleasant.

00:14:28: and then we get so much of feedback, people saying, okay, the ambience is good, like the nursing room and stuff, it is really needed for the new mothers, you know, for the nursing purposes and everything.

00:14:40: First thing.

00:14:41: Second thing, we also have the habit of doing regular surveys.

00:14:49: And every time in the surveys, one of the interesting part that came out was, People are nice, right?

00:14:56: Like people are really nice.

00:14:57: but however this social sense or civic sense of using the right language, using the right gestures when women colleagues are around, we are lacking there.

00:15:10: We lack that sensitivity.

00:15:13: So the awareness about equality, awareness about like Sexual abuse or like what is acceptable?

00:15:22: What is not acceptable

00:15:24: for like stupid jokes?

00:15:25: Yeah, exactly exactly The thing is.

00:15:28: you have to understand.

00:15:29: Jabra is so homegrown home developed and stuff Everybody knows every other person.

00:15:34: So somewhere in my mind It's like yeah, he's just my neighbor, you know, it was a silly joke.

00:15:41: Yeah, like I can say it I can just be myself.

00:15:44: It might be okay, but when we have people from the diverse cultural background, diverse educational background, diverse sexual orientation and stuff, some things hurt, some things become non-acceptable.

00:16:00: Because everybody is nice, people wouldn't speak out.

00:16:04: And then this is where The feedback kept coming up that that's weak sense or the decorum that has to be followed.

00:16:14: There is so much that we can improve.

00:16:16: Okay, and then we took up this and then we started.

00:16:20: that's when we started talking to the HR department who were responsible for the learning and then we started introducing these courses online courses and workshops Which were towards this, you know equality like.

00:16:34: how should be the so like you know office decorum when there is a female how do you call it employee?

00:16:40: around or at the discussion table.

00:16:43: Did you see an impact then?

00:16:45: It takes time.

00:16:46: It doesn't happen from one day to another.

00:16:50: An interesting fact was we made through we like during the women's day celebration we created a board observation board where we made it as like through women's eyes.

00:17:00: So it was like, we did not name names.

00:17:02: So every woman, we asked them to just write us stick notes about how do I feel in my everyday life.

00:17:08: The words that I hear in my everyday life, you know, the things that I have to fight for in my everyday life.

00:17:15: And then we were like, we stuck all those six stick notes.

00:17:18: And then in our women's day celebration, we also had male colleagues joining us.

00:17:23: And when they saw that men were shocked, And then they really realized, oh my God, like I told you, they were really nice people.

00:17:32: They just did not change their perspective and think, oh, it could have been understood like this.

00:17:37: And when we made that, that changed.

00:17:40: But that's the first step, you make them aware.

00:17:43: And then you train them.

00:17:44: And then you make a habit out of it.

00:17:47: So we are in the phase of training them.

00:17:50: Awareness is there.

00:17:51: Now you have to train them.

00:17:52: Like, you know, you have to create those neural parts that this is not okay.

00:17:55: This is not okay.

00:17:56: So yeah,

00:17:57: that's

00:17:58: what we are doing.

00:17:59: What I find really interesting about what you just explained is many of the problems that you just described, like being in a situation and somebody makes a silly joke, for example, that's not an exclusive problem for women at work, like for all minorities.

00:18:14: That is true.

00:18:16: By doing the Women in Tech initiative and acting on those things, you basically make life better not only for women at tech, but for probably many people in tech, because I think most of us have to some degree a situation where we are impacted by words for some reason.

00:18:38: Maybe I have a sick grandma and people making joking about, I don't know, tumors or so might impact me harder than anyone else.

00:18:47: And so just being aware for people is such a big impact of this initiative.

00:18:54: And we were talking about the value of that.

00:18:57: I think there's huge value in that and not only for women.

00:19:01: Absolutely.

00:19:02: Absolutely.

00:19:03: Like I can tell you the simple things that would have triggered some people.

00:19:06: Oh, you look very colorful today.

00:19:07: Yeah.

00:19:09: I might be going a hundred things and then today I just wanted to cheer myself up even when I didn't feel like getting out of bed.

00:19:16: I made an effort to even put on this colourful dress just to cheer me up.

00:19:19: And then somebody says, oh you look very cheerful.

00:19:21: I was like, no, not today, please.

00:19:25: These sort of things, definitely.

00:19:27: It's for all the minorities, not just for women.

00:19:30: Another point, we also work closely with Aagege, who likes handlers.

00:19:34: We need to explain that for... Everybody that is not familiar with job-right abbreviations.

00:19:38: We got complaints that we use too much job-right lingo and too much abbreviations.

00:19:43: How do you call it?

00:19:44: I don't know.

00:19:45: But it's Gleischhandlung.

00:19:46: It has got something to do with

00:19:47: it.

00:19:47: Gleischstellungsgrunze.

00:19:50: Okay, Arbeitgeber Gleischstellungsgesetz.

00:19:53: Arbeitnehmer Gleisch.

00:19:55: Yeah, I think so.

00:19:55: Please

00:19:56: write this down.

00:19:56: If you do not want to do not write comments, people listening to this, do write this in the comments below.

00:20:03: Yes.

00:20:04: Or I would like to tell you.

00:20:06: The same treatment

00:20:07: law.

00:20:07: Ah, you can do the Google stuff.

00:20:08: Yeah, like googling.

00:20:10: That's why I work in tech.

00:20:12: Nice.

00:20:15: Indeed.

00:20:15: So we also work closely with them.

00:20:17: You know, it's just not a women problem.

00:20:19: We also try to, it's part of the thing how we handle the minority, right?

00:20:24: So we also work closely with them and then see what we can do together.

00:20:29: So I just don't say like women.

00:20:30: Again, when you say women, Asian women, there is European women, there is black women.

00:20:36: Like, you know, again, again, you can break it down at so many levels, right?

00:20:40: So we work closely with them.

00:20:42: And then,

00:20:44: yeah.

00:20:44: Yeah, well, what I find in this, what you just said, that the top result of a survey, like, I don't know the survey questions, I don't know the other contents, but the top result of a survey is, well, Those stupid jokes are actually bothering me and that is not one person saying this but a significant whatever significant means.

00:21:07: but a Many people are bothered by that and that I think guys have the well have may have the tendency to say, ah, it's just a stupid joke.

00:21:20: Exactly, exactly.

00:21:21: It's like if you're with your childhood friend.

00:21:24: Yeah, I do

00:21:24: that.

00:21:25: Exactly, exactly.

00:21:26: Like if you're with your childhood friend, you take it, you're like, yeah, this person understands me.

00:21:32: It's a harmless joke, right?

00:21:34: But even though if you're a childhood friend, in that phase of life, if your childhood friend is going through something, that word hurts.

00:21:42: You should be a little sensitive towards it, right?

00:21:45: And Understand, egalbas, we are in the working environment.

00:21:51: Please maintain the decorum, right?

00:21:55: You cannot forget, like, no matter how friendly the colleagues are and everything, but it has its own respect, you know?

00:22:02: Give that and take that.

00:22:05: That also, like, I think personally, I believe, that has to always influence.

00:22:09: No matter what, I'm in the working environment and then I have to... That is what another thing when we were doing this workshop on equality Another thing that is like what we fail to do when you are like male colleagues female colleagues and other minority colleagues when everybody is there Because we understand the person who is making the joke.

00:22:33: What we do is, the person who is going through stuff or who is being joked about, we try to explain away to this person who is suffering.

00:22:42: We say, ah, it's a harmless joke.

00:22:45: Ah, you know he is always like that.

00:22:47: So one of the standard things, or preventive this thing is, don't explain away.

00:22:52: When something is wrong, it is wrong.

00:22:55: So that is one of the, really the professionals.

00:22:58: what they say is, if you want to break this bias, Like it's called bias, right?

00:23:02: It's unconscious bias or it's unconscious bias.

00:23:05: When you have to break the bias, so don't explain away.

00:23:08: Don't.

00:23:09: You just accept it what the person who has suffered is telling you and then act on it.

00:23:15: I understand.

00:23:15: Yes, that is not correct.

00:23:17: Let me talk to the person or let's see what we can do together.

00:23:22: So that is the thing.

00:23:23: First thing, don't explain away.

00:23:25: So yeah, if you guys know that yes, yes, please yeah, and There are other few things that we we always ask is like at a discussion table.

00:23:38: This is also one of the things that came out in the survey.

00:23:40: at a discussion table When a woman is talking about something or she has a feedback or she has to share some opinion.

00:23:50: one thing is she's always cut off because She's always cut off by the male colleague that is there.

00:23:58: She's never allowed to complete her opinion or complete what she wants to say.

00:24:03: And another thing, she's not taken seriously.

00:24:07: Okay?

00:24:08: And what happens when she's not taken seriously is, if the same thing, if a male colleague says, then they're like, then there are other people like, ah, exactly, that opinion is so right.

00:24:16: You know, let's do it what you're saying.

00:24:19: So these situations happen on the discussion table, right?

00:24:22: So you as male colleagues, If you notice it, you have to say, stop, she's talking.

00:24:29: Let her finish.

00:24:30: Or if there are ten people and two are women colleagues, make a conscious effort of asking those two women colleagues, what do you think about it?

00:24:39: I see that you were quiet throughout the discussion.

00:24:41: Do you have any opinion to share?

00:24:43: Look, you don't have to be a woman to fight against inequality.

00:24:49: You can still be a male ally and then say, okay, I noticed something is not right here.

00:24:53: in you know like interview and then do something about it.

00:24:58: Understood.

00:25:00: Yep.

00:25:01: I'm looking at the time.

00:25:02: Yeah.

00:25:03: We are twenty six minutes in.

00:25:07: That's a nice round number.

00:25:08: That's a nice round number.

00:25:12: Do you have some other points that you want to to make that you want to talk about?

00:25:19: So we have some some more minutes left.

00:25:21: We could do that.

00:25:26: not really like.

00:25:26: if you can give me a situation I could tell you maybe

00:25:29: something we talked about.

00:25:31: what are next steps for the women in tech initiative?

00:25:35: you were talking about that.

00:25:39: the goal the scope isn't just job right itself but Will Freiburg area?

00:25:46: Yes,

00:25:47: yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:25:49: If we could touch on those points.

00:25:51: Absolutely,

00:25:52: absolutely.

00:25:53: So we have, we started this initiative with three goals in our mind.

00:25:57: One, to provide a better working environment for the women who are working in the tech branch.

00:26:03: Yeah.

00:26:04: By providing them all the tools, resources and trainings and stuff, which will help them grow.

00:26:11: And second thing is to attract women talent into the job at tech branch.

00:26:18: okay.

00:26:19: and the third thing is.

00:26:21: Something very generic and then which is which is lies in the heart of everybody's to build a community where women can come together in tribal region and talk to one another.

00:26:30: you know like beat like.

00:26:33: career tips if you want or there are some things that you're dealing with and maybe you could ask for mentoring for somebody else or just come together and then know that and understand oh what is really happening in different tech branch of different industries?

00:26:47: you know what's new what's not okay.

00:26:49: are they seeing something in the trend and stuff just to keep us informed?

00:26:53: you know.

00:26:53: so those were the three goals that we we nice.

00:26:58: maybe just the question that I had and right in this moment The women in tech community, is it an English-speaking community?

00:27:06: So if someone from the Freiburg area wants to join, should they prepare to join an English-speaking community?

00:27:12: or is it mixed language?

00:27:15: The thing is, language is no barrier, to be honest.

00:27:18: But understand, we have a lot of international participants there.

00:27:24: like people from France, people who have just moved in from Brazil, people who are from Asian countries who have just come to Freiburg in search of job and stuff.

00:27:32: So yeah, like when it's international community, people tend to use English, but also like it also helps other people to learn German.

00:27:41: So we also promote German speaking, but language is no barrier.

00:27:45: You know, we always find some way to communicate with one another.

00:27:49: Don't don't don't make that stop you from joining us.

00:27:54: Yeah, but how could people then find you...

00:27:57: Meetup!

00:27:58: We are in Meetup.

00:27:59: So we are called Women in Tech.

00:28:01: Okay.

00:28:02: We will put that in the link below this very episode.

00:28:08: We will do.

00:28:08: Yeah.

00:28:10: Alright.

00:28:11: Cool.

00:28:12: That was so interesting.

00:28:14: Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about it.

00:28:17: Thank you much for taking the time.

00:28:20: That was a really great episode.

00:28:22: Amazing.

00:28:23: And I learned things today, which I will put into action.

00:28:26: All right.

00:28:29: Everyone should.

00:28:30: Wonderful.

00:28:32: Wonderful.

00:28:33: So Ues, would you want to guide our listeners

00:28:38: to the door?

00:28:39: To the next activity.

00:28:41: Well then everyone, thank you for listening today.

00:28:45: If you have thoughts on this, if you have questions, we will probably link to Maddie's profile as well.

00:28:53: And I guess you have LinkedIn.

00:28:55: Yes, I do.

00:28:57: And you can contact us as well anytime.

00:29:00: And we are happy to hear your feedback.

00:29:02: And other than that, we wish you a nice remainder of the day and hear you soon.

00:29:09: See you.

00:29:09: Bye.

00:29:10: Ciao.

00:29:11: Bye.