TüV SüD Women's Network Interview

Q: You′ve been recognised as a champion of women. What behaviour makes you stand out when it comes to empowering female colleagues or team members?

I’m honestly very flattered, but I think it’s somewhat undeserved - I don’t really think of myself to be a “champion” of women, especially if you look at my team - only 30% of my team members are female and so I still have some way to go in order to ensure real balance in my team. What I have tried to do however, is become increasingly aware of my unconscious bias and managing it. It’s through talking to my wife and understanding the challenges she faces in the workplace including biased use of language e.g. strong male leaders are considered “determined”, strong female leaders “pushy”, the gender discriminatory language used in job descriptions etc. that I have developed a better sense of awareness towards gender bias. Before I used to justify the high male proportion of team members by saying it`s due to the field of engineering in which less women work, but now I’ve realised that this isn’t true. I have people, both men and women, working in all different fields whether it’s engineers or auditors; I have sales people, I have managers there is no difference in terms of the roles that they are doing. But there is definitely more of a sway towards to the male employees.

Q: You’ve lived and worked in both the UK and China. Is this bias anchored into a specific country or culture?

I am not sure if this is an issue in one country or one culture. However, in my opinion, things are probably easier in China. I see that there are less gender specific roles and less societal pressure to do one thing or the other. In the UK, if you saw women working on a construction site you would probably think that was not a gender typical role. Whereas here in China there are women working in the fields that would normally be considered kind of male dominated in the UK. Having said that, when working in the UK, the two best bosses I have ever had were female bosses. Both supported me, helped me and pushed me a lot. So I don`t think it`s everywhere, but I think it is harder for them to get into those positions.

 Q: What is your definition of diversity?

In my view diversity is all about embracing different opinions, different views, different backgrounds, different cultures for sure and different voices. It stops you having this echo chamber or just having the same opinions all around you. You get different ideas, you get different ways of doing things, different perspectives and I think that`s what we need. We should all be striving to make the company push ahead with new ideas in all regions, all divisions, and the decision makers in the company need to consider the bigger picture and make sure the needs of diverse groups are taken into consideration.

Q: How would you bring out and draw out effectively that diversity you are talking about different voices?

I think it is very difficult to try and draw out some of the quiet voices in meetings. The way it works for me being in a group with people who are aren’t so keen to talk in front of larger groups is to run smaller group activities or to change the way ideas are collected. You write down three ideas of yourself and you must get them into a smaller team to get the best three ideas and then you go to a slightly larger team, you will get people championing their ideas. But you must pick the right environment, for example a group of 150 people in a meeting in Munich gets people talking, but 150 people in MS teams doesn’t. Over here, there are times when you are in one big group and you have people dominating the conversations who have stronger voices and wanted to be heard. Another possibility would be to try and coach the quieter folks to learn to speak up and out.

Q: When it comes to career advancement, what strategies for increasing diversity in leadership roles you think would actually work?

What we have in the company in terms of leadership development programs are very good. I have been involved in Asia with both Jump! and CHAMP programs, as well as local programs like HiPo and ALP. I don’t think that there has been a high difference in the proportion of male vs female. Most of them have been a 50/50 split, male and female candidates. And this is good, in a way it’s producing a new generation of people who want to make the company better because they want to make themselves better. That is the generation of people that I think we need to encourage in the organisation. By empowering people giving them the right tools and skills and self-confidence, that is the right way. But, it will take time. 

Q: What is your advice for women who want to make their way through the ranks within TüV SüD?

The first thing is what you have already done in the Women’s Network – it’s about building a network, it is about using that network to help each other. It doesn’t need to be a women’s network, it’s any network, it is about building yourself and getting yourself recognised for the right things. It’s about the confidence in yourself in terms of putting yourself forward.

I read some research that showed that a man reads a job description and will apply for a role if he meets around 50% of the requirements. A woman reads the same ad and will only apply for that job if she meets 95% of the requirements. So you have a lot more men applying for positions that they are not qualified for, but they are going for. But the women who are well qualified are holding themselves back as they wait for that JD that fits them perfectly. I see the same behaviours in female friends, family and colleagues, as they are trying to push themselves through their companies to find a new job. I know it’s not easy, but my advice would be: don’t wait for people to notice you, you’ve got to put yourself out there.

Q: In my view a lot of women are put off from applying for roles with small children due to their family commitments perhaps not enabling them to work 100% or the extensive travel requirements for more senior roles. Is there any way we can change such requirements such that they could become more appealing to women?

Absolutely. With all the changes we’ve witnessed in the last few months around the coronavirus - working from home and the use of digital technology. Companies have to become more flexible and recognise that working from home is not easy but it’s a viable alternative then being in the office. How much difference is there with working there in a small office with the door shut, compared to working from home?

I don’t think there is a need for us to be so inflexible. And I think the other thing that we need to be more careful of as well is understanding that many couples these days have dual careers and decisions made shouldn’t reflect the position of the person of the company. What I mean is just because you say no to an opportunity because it isn’t right for you and your family, doesn’t mean you aren’t interested in something else or progressing per se. As a company it shouldn’t mean putting that person on the bench. There are a lot of people in the company that can do a lot more for the company, but perhaps the timing isn’t right or the circumstances wrong or doesn’t fit for the family. We have to be careful we’re not going to judge them once on their decision on roles just because we think it is a good opportunity. That is something that the company has to recognise and be flexible about as well.

Closing remarks: I come from a very lucky background: My mother was always working, my wife works and like I said I had two very good female bosses. Until recently, I have never realised that there was an issue. Because to me it was not a problem. And now I realised that this lack of recognition is the issue. I will take what I have, my experiences, and try and do what I can to do correct certain things in my team and work towards making TüV SüD more embracing of gender diversity.