"I guess your company just hires pretty young blondes." This was the comment - from a male client - that pushed WORK180 co-founder Gemma Lloyd over the edge. But on the other side of that edge was an incredibly successful start-up - WORK180 - championing fairness, equity, and compassion for employees in the tech industry. Here, we speak to Gemma about why being understanding, king and empathetic brings out the best in employees and why these values are the cornerstone to WORK180, which platforms ethical workplaces by allowing users to see whether companies support their employees in a number of key ways.

"If you already have an employer in mind”, Gemma explains of WORK180, “you can go and search if that employer is endorsed by WORK180 and then you can actually see what their benefits are. So, that might be things like how much paid parental leave they offer, what types of flexible work, if they pay superannuation payments on paid and unpaid portion of leave. There's about 35 different things you can look up, which are the types of questions that most people find very uncomfortable to ask in an interview.” Gemma knows first hand about being uncomfortable. Facing sexism and discrimination in her former workplaces - and seeing her co-founder Valeria Ignatieva struggle in the system as a single mother to a son with a disability - she decided to take the plunge and make a difference herself. Although she had no idea how to start a business, she counts that as a positive: “I was so naive to the complexities of starting a business. I just thought ‘why not’, did some Googling, and just took whatever steps I found on Google and didn't realise how difficult it would be. But I think that worked in my favour.” The first few years were tough, but with tenacity, the pair were able to make it work. They learned some lessons along the way. “I remember when I put together the business plan and it had some ridiculously high revenue number in the first year we were going to generate” Gemma says. “It was quite out there, but the reality is you don't go from 0 to 100 in a day. It is lots of baby steps to get there. So, we bootstrapped the company for three years.”

It worked. Five years on, WORK180 is thriving, with a growing team, and over 70,000 women finding their chosen employer through the platform. We spoke to Gemma about her incredible journey to success. From the investor who used a meeting to try to get her to take a hotel room with him, to her failsafe approach to capital raising and building client relationships, this is a crash course in taking calculated risks, standing up for what’s right, and rejecting the status quo.

Let’s meet the amazing Gemma Lloyd…

www.work180.co

Gemma Lloyd and Valeria Ignatieva, founders of WORK180

I want to start with your 'why' for launching WORK180 - you experienced sexism from male clients. So take us back, what was the last straw?

The last straw was when I went into a client meeting, and I was with a male colleague. When we walked into the client meeting, the client looked me up and down and said, "So I guess your company just hires pretty young blondes." I was really shocked and taken aback. I looked at my male colleague and he looked a bit sheepish, but didn't say anything. We had the meeting, as usual, and then I went back to the office, and I said to my manager, "This has just happened, what should we do?" My manager said, "Well, don't do anything because you'll ruin the relationship." And that was really upsetting and frustrating for me because I thought, ‘why should I have to deal with a lack of respect in the workplace, and comments like that?’ I came up with the idea to create a place where women could go and find employers that were going to support them, that genuinely wanted them there, and quit that job and left that all behind.

Tell me about how you and Valeria came together, because I know that her frustrations lay more in the family field...

We had worked together at a software engineering company, so we both knew each other. Then we both left that company, and a couple of years later reconnected when we both joined the board of females in technology, Intel Communications, which is a not-for-profit network supporting women in IT. Whilst we were on that board both of us were very passionate about encouraging more women into the industry. Obviously then that incident happened, and I came up with the idea of WORK180. I rang Valeria at the time for marketing advice, because that was her background, but she actually said, ‘I love this idea. Can I do it with you?’ Here we are and it is the best thing ever. I am so grateful that Valeria has been able to be on the journey because it wouldn't be where it is without her.

Where did you actually start? How did you actually have the courage to resign, and what were the first steps in getting the business off and running?

The thing I had on my side was that I was so naive to the complexities of starting a business. I just thought ‘why not’, did some Googling, and just took whatever steps I found on Google and didn't realise how difficult it would be. I think that worked in my favour. I remember the night we registered the business name, and I had a glass of wine and I was like, ‘Right, okay, ABN - got all that set up.’ Honestly, it was just a lot of Googling. How do we do this? How do we do that?

Obviously, there's been some really big steps that you've taken, but would you say there's also been a lot of baby steps that have led to where you are today?

Yes, absolutely. I remember when I put together the business plan and it had some ridiculously high revenue number in the first year we were going to generate. It was quite out there, but the reality is you don't go from 0 to 100 in a day. It is lots of baby steps to get there. So, we bootstrapped the company for three years. We had to be very savvy around how we actually grew the business without having any capital investment into the company. We did things like built out lots of partnerships, so we could leverage other people's networks. We got very grassroots within the community, and going to a lot of events, speaking at events, and such. The first set of employers we had on the platform (there were five employers), we let them have free access initially, just to get something going. So, it was just doing things in a smart and shoestring budget kind of way to get it off the ground.

As a user, what I will get out of WORK180. As a woman, when I log on, what happens?

If you already have an employer in mind, you can go and search if that employer is endorsed by WORK180 and then you can actually see what their benefits are. So, that might be things like how much paid parental leave they offer, what types of flexible work, if they pay superannuation payments on paid and unpaid portion of leave. There's about 35 different things you can look up, which are the types of questions that most people find very uncomfortable to ask in an interview. Then in addition to reading about the benefits, you can see how those benefits are actually lived through different stories that are written or video content, and then go through to apply for a role.

If you're not sure what employer that you want to work at, you can go through and search for a job, and then you'll see all of those benefits listed that that employer actually has. We also have a very cool feature where you can compare employers side by side, and all of their benefits, like if you were purchasing insurance. You can see who has the best benefits.

That's amazing because it makes organisations want to do better, because there's transparency there...

Yes, exactly. Last year there were 111 benefits improved by employers on our network. It's because of that comparison piece. And we have a bird's eye view of what lots of people are doing, so, we share that.

Last year, obviously, flexible working was something that organisations had no option but to embrace. Do you think companies will continue this flexibility seeing that it does work?

It's definitely a big mix. So, we've seen companies like Atlassian who have said, ‘You can be all remote, you can be all office, or you can do a mix of both, it's completely up to you.’ Then we've seen other companies, unfortunately, kind of regress a little bit in terms of dictating that everyone needs to be in the office. For the most part, what we've seen is employers who were scared - for lack of better term - of going flexible. They've realised that, ‘Hey, we didn't see a productivity decrease and this actually works.’ And so, they're sticking to it at some level. It may not be 100% work from home, but to some extent.

With flexible work, what do you think companies are most scared of?

I think it's managers who don't really know how they're going to measure the success of their team. If they can't see them, do they know that they're doing the work? To me, that just says that you probably need some training and some process improvement.

WORK180 only lists jobs from businesses that are pre-screened against a set of 20 criteria. About 80% of companies who apply to work with you pass your criteria. So what are some of those key criteria?

Well first of all, we've devised that criteria from both surveying candidates around what is important to them, and also around what we know makes the biggest impact in terms of gender equity in the workplace. The main things that we look at with the minimum benchmarks are paid parental leave, flexible working, and also the minimum tenure to take that parental leave as well, and women in leadership. The main things that we see companies fall down on are the flexible working, and the paid parental leave. What we really like to see is that with paid parental leave, that it's regardless of gender, it's regardless of primary or secondary care status. We see Deloitte offering 18 weeks for anyone who's a parent and that's kind of a best practice sort of initiative.

What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen?

One of the really big things that we drove in 2019 was around stillbirth. If you were unfortunate enough to have a stillborn baby, and there's six born in every 1000, you had to take your sick leave and then go back to work as per normal, which would be absolutely devastating and very difficult to do. If you had a stillborn baby, you need access to the same amount of paid parental leave that you would have had. The second biggest thing that we've been driving is the implementation and or increased benefit around domestic and family violence policies. So, we've seen companies do some really great things around if someone's a victim, paying them extra money on top of their salary into a private bank account, or organising safe places for an employee to go and stay. Because around the financial piece, we know that one of the reasons people can't leave those types of relationships is because their finances are frozen in that relationship.

How do you work to spread your key values, which are to be kind and understanding to your workers and you'll be rewarded with the best talent out there?

We have customer success partners who work closely with all of our endorsed employers, and in those kinds of sessions they're always talking about, it might be from a benefit level, but it also then might be more so around like the inclusive practices within the workplace. Not just being inclusive but also taking it a step further to make sure that people, when they go to work, really feel like they belong in the workplace. And obviously part of that is being understanding, being kind, being empathetic. We run workshops and things like that with our employers to make sure that they've got a best practice kind of initiatives in place.

I want to talk about the Starmate Accelerator. Tell me about what kind of entrepreneurs you think that accelerator programs suit, and what did you get out of it?

It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. I was skeptical around what to expect when I was going in there, but within the three months that we did the accelerator, we raised a million dollars in capital, which was our first ever capital raise. We launched internationally into the UK, and we actually rebuilt our entire tech platform.

We were three years old, but we had quite a small team. It was like 10 or 11 of us and they made you really focus on the metrics, which were really important, and kept that accountability every single week, which I really loved. They also have a network of mentors who have done it before. They might be entrepreneurs or they might be investors, but they're very knowledgeable people, who are very generous with their time and their knowledge. I would say that if you're thinking about it, just go on, apply. Go and suss it out. I don't think you need to think about, ‘Oh, am I right?’ Or what kind of person would it necessarily suit? I think even actually going through the experience of applying for Startmate, you actually get a lot of knowledge and feedback even going through the interview process and office hours. And even post that, that was 2018, I get so much value from the network.

When you were capital raising, one investor asked you to get a hotel with him during the meeting. So, how did you respond to this? And what advice do you have for women who might have a similar experience to this?

When I was going into that meeting, I actually pulled up out the front of his office and I got a phone call from my dad. I quickly answered the phone and my dad said, ‘Your nan's just passed away.’ I was quite shaky and I thought, well, this is a big opportunity to meet with this investor. Just pull it together and go through with it. We can worry about the other stuff after. Because I was quite shaky, I felt I should tell him what's just happened - otherwise, he's going to think I'm nervous about the meeting. He said, ‘Don't worry. Just relax. Let's go have a coffee together and let's go step out of the office.’ So, we went and actually sat down in a hotel lobby, which was where he took me for the coffee.

He was not asking me any questions about the business, and I kept trying to take it back to the business. Then he just blatantly asked me if I wanted to get a room with him. I really politely -because I was quite taken aback and very nervous after the news I just had - said ‘no’. And then quickly wrapped up the meeting and left. I think what was really bad about that situation was it wasn't just that he asked me. I was in a vulnerable position for two reasons. Number one, I was asking for money for my business. So, there's a big power imbalance. Number two, I just had news that made me more vulnerable than I would usually be. It was really predatory behavior. I wish that I had given him more of a piece of my mind in that moment.

It's so hard though, when you're put in a position which is so unbelievable and shocking. You don't have time to react because you're in shock...

That's exactly right. I even went to another investor networking event, and one of the investors was getting really close to me and it was making me feel uncomfortable. So, I took a step back. He actually physically grabbed my arm and pulled me in towards him. It was mostly men - it was really ‘spot the woman’ in the room. People saw, but they didn't say anything until that guy walked off. Then people came up and said, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ But in the moment, no one stepped in to say, ‘Hey mate, what's going on? That's not okay.’ So unfortunately, within the investment entrepreneurial ecosystem, there are some people that obviously abuse their positions of power. As a woman entrepreneur, it’s really about doing research around who you're going to be getting involved in different networking groups with. Look for other women entrepreneurs, looking for venture capitalists, which have a good gender balance team themselves - that's probably my main piece of advice.

You were pregnant when you were capital raising. So, how did it feel when you were pregnant, and did you feel like you experienced discrimination?

Yes, I definitely did. I was nine months pregnant, and I couldn't travel, so I did my meetings via Zoom. You couldn't tell that I was pregnant, but I did purposefully tell people that I was, to gauge their reaction. Some people would look shocked and then wrap the conversation up quickly and get off the call. So, that was a $2.2 million round. All of it was, I think, driven from existing investors and or investors that I'd known for a while, and they all knew I was pregnant and they were really supportive. And hey look, I had a baby, I'm still the founder. I didn't go anywhere.

Capital raising is hard and you will get so many no’s. How did you pull yourself up after the nos?

I'm pretty good at being resilient and just going through the nos. But one of the things that I did really make sure I did, is if I got a no, ask for feedback. Then I use that feedback on the next meeting to make sure I improved. I also, when I went out and met investors, didn't necessarily pitch them on the first time as I met them. I said ‘I'm looking at raising capital. I would love to share my idea and see what feedback you have around my pitch deck’. It was a much nicer way of going in and building a relationship other than just saying, ‘Hey, can we meet, because I want your money.’ For example Giant Leap, which is one of our investors now, they spent quite a bit of time with me before they gave me money, refining my pitch, looking at my business, and we built up a relationship. By the time then I was ready to do a capital raise, it was a very easy conversation.

In order for startups to grow, founders need to listen and be willing to be challenged by the team. Tell me why this is so important and how have you learned to do this?

It's important because you don't always, as founders, have the best ideas. You're not experts in everything. If you don't listen to your team, then you are setting yourself up for failure by not getting the insights from people that know more than you, in specific areas of the business. So, we have a really strong leadership team now and very smart, very capable people. It would be crazy of us not to let them tell us what to do in particular areas. We say we want to go here, but they are the ones who are saying how we get there in the way that they have experiences. But we always ask the team for feedback. They always ask their teams for feedback. So, I think that's really important. We just try and really actively encourage open discussion, challenging each other with the CEO, but I think we've tried to create a fairly flat structure within the team knowing that ideas can really come from anywhere.

This week, women all over Australia marched. We're angry and we need change. What do you think it would take for men to speak out and help us make change?

It's such a good question. The reason why I'm just struggling to answer this question is because I feel like this has been a conversation for a very long time. Why aren't there enough men speaking out right now to make that change? There's definitely still a big lack of understanding around what it's like to be a woman in the workplace, or in society, from a male perspective. There's also a fear, probably from men in the workplace thinking, ‘Oh, if I stick up for somebody, is it going to come down harder on me?’ At the end of the day, workplaces need to create a culture and set very firm boundaries around what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable in the workplace. Also to reward and encourage speaking up and speaking out, so that we do have more men sticking up for us. And, obviously, an education - just keep having the conversation, and men, keep listening to understand what it's like.