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Rise Up: One Woman On Why Equal Opportunities Are Essential To Workplace Diversity

Welcome to Rise Up, AllBright’s celebration of diverse careers, diverse experiences and diverse women in the workplace. Curated by our community, for our community, this is a space to champion the incredible work achieved by all women. This week, we hear from one woman on her experiences of navigating the world of work in the face of sexism and homophobia, and the steps that businesses should take to ensure they're championing inclusive opportunities for all.

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More than a third (35%) of staff have hidden that they are LGBTQ+ at work for fear of discrimination, a 2018 report from Stonewall found. So, what is the reality of being LGBTQ+ at work, and how can things get better? Jan Gooding, a marketer who also served as chair of Stonewall for six years, shares her story and advice.

Gooding graduated with an economics degree, but found herself working at Selfridges on their management training course. By her own admission, she “absolutely hated it”, but it gave her the chance to spend time with the in-house advertising department, igniting her love of marketing, and leading her to work in ad agencies. “I managed to get onto the board before I had children. I was the first woman; that's often the case with my career,” she says. “When I had my first child I developed postnatal depression, and the agency made me redundant. I say they fired me because that's what it felt like.” Gooding set up her own firm, with Kathy Eldridge, and was able to work from home at a time when it wasn’t usual. “I was lucky enough to be able to create a working culture, which suited me, which we now call smart working or dynamic working, or I've being lucky enough to enjoy that, you know, since my early thirties.” After a secondment with BT, she went back into working for companies, and spent 15 years at big corporates including British Gas and Aviva; it was at the latter that she became the company’s first ever global inclusion director. Among other things, she now works as an executive coach.

What was the marketing industry like in terms of gender and LGBTQ+ representation when you first started? I worked in three different agencies over 12 years, and there was a lot that I loved. Unfortunately, the societal underlying sexism was just so profound. I think it would be really unfair just to say ad agencies were dreadful; the world was dreadful. So in many ways I was very shocked at the lack of women in senior positions, but you could quickly explain it away. You also asked yourself what happened to people over the age of 40, because even then there was a prideful kind of ageism in favour of young people in the advertising sector, which I think still remains to this day.

"My personal experience was of the most horrible sexual harassment, sexism and misogyny"

Jan Gooding, Marketer and Executive Coach

How did you deal with the sexism, and with any homophobia you saw? Up until my early 30s, I think I would be very shocked and stunned by things when they happened. And when I did speak up, I was amazed at how difficult it was to get things to change, and how quickly you were seen to be a troublemaker. When I was put on the board, a number of women came to see me who said, ‘look, the agency doesn't have a maternity policy’. And they were saying ‘apart from the minimum statutory requirement, we've no idea what provision the agency might make for us’. So I just thought, great, of course, I'll get a maternity policy organised. And I remember doing all the work, then seeing the managing director to say, ‘look, I've developed this maternity policy. I'd really liked to take you through it. I've done all this research.’ And he was absolutely furious. He got up, shut the door, bright red in the face and said, are you pregnant then?

"Lack of disclosing who you are is as much of the problem, which is why I've always encouraged people to be out and to be themselves"

Jan Gooding, Marketer and Executive Coach

I think what happened when I came out as a lesbian, is that you notice around you the homophobic jokes and you notice the homophobic remarks and you feel like you can't tell people what you did at the weekend. And you talk about your partner and you avoid giving them a gender. I was out at British Gas when I was there. By the time I went to Aviva… I decided I wouldn't be out because someone said to me, ‘if you want to be taken seriously at Aviva, you don't want to be the most famous lesbian’. So I went back in the closet and I discovered how energy sapping it was; I was constantly trying to remember who might know what and how could I talk about things in a consistent way? So it's a combination, not just of homophobia, but homophobia as an active hostility. It's also the lack of disclosing who you are is as much of the problem, which is why I've always encouraged people to be out and to be themselves.

What do you think is required by individuals to create more inclusive workplaces? I think on an individual level, we've all got skin in the game. Whatever your identity or sexual orientation, we all want to feel valued, we want our differences to be valued, we all want to belong. I think as an individual, what you can do is decide ‘well, if that’s what I’d like, every day I care sufficiently about this to speak up, to make sure my voice is heard, to speak up for other people who I don't think are being heard. How can companies empower their LGBTQ+ employees? If companies really want to make progress they should do the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. It works whether you're public, private sector, charity, big, small. It's a methodology, which I think is incredibly powerful because it allows you to go, ‘where am I starting from?’ It allows you to evaluate where you are, and then it gives you loads of advice about how to improve.

"It's about saying we're interested in having a diverse workforce. We're interested in having an inclusive culture across the piece. We will all be happier if we achieve this"

Jan Gooding, Marketer and Executive Coach

The other thing that I think is helpful is if you have an inclusion policy and strategy in the round in your organisation. It means that you're looking right across the piece because the Equality Act talks about disability, it talks about sexual orientation, gender identity, maternity, and race. So you can do worse than just making sure that you have a strategy. It's about saying we're interested in having a diverse workforce. We're interested in having an inclusive culture across the piece. We will all be happier if we achieve this; it's not a zero-sum game. What advice would you give to women and non-binary people from the LGBTQ+ community to help them get ahead in workplaces or progress in their career? I would encourage them to be themselves. I just think that's the most important thing. I know it's difficult because the thing about coming out is you can't go back in again. Try to be true to yourself and be proud of who you are. If you don't feel able to do that, that's telling you something about the place where you're working, because I do think companies should make themselves visible as allies. Look for organisations that are signaling good intent.

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