Mentors, Sponsors, Allies: How to Build Your Personal Board of Directors with Anne Dawson
Episode #003 Show Notes:
Clare
Welcome to the third episode of the first series of the ‘Women in CX Talk Trends’ podcast, a new series dedicated to bringing you the latest news and insights from female leaders in customer experience and technology.
On a mission to ensure women are at the centre of important industry conversations, join me, Clare Muscutt, and my inspiring guests as we debate the hottest topics and explore current trends, helping you to stay ahead of the curve of the latest developments shaping customer, employee and women’s workplace experiences.
In today’s episode, sponsored by CallMiner, I’ll be chatting with Anne Dawson, Sr. Manager, Employee Development & Training, about the question: How can women in CX and EX take control of their career development in a time when traditional mentorship and sponsorship programs are on the decline?
We’ll explore how women can build a personal board of directors, expand their mentorship networks beyond their own organisations, and foster cross-functional collaboration.
We’ll also discuss the importance of sponsorship, the role male allies can play in driving meaningful change, and how women in leadership can lift others up as we all rise together.
Clare
Hi Anne, how are you doing today?
Anne
I'm wonderful. How are you?
Clare
I'm very well, thank you. Well, welcome to the Women in CX Talks Trends podcast, and welcome to everybody who's listening or watching wherever you are as well. As we always do with Women in CX let's just dive straight into the conversation today and I'm sure our audience would love to know a little bit more about you, so if you could give us a little introduction and tell us what brought you to your current role at CallMiner that would be a great way to start.
Anne
Absolutely. So I started my career in corporate America, or in the corporate world, back in the late 90s, and I started it in the telco industry. I worked for a local telephone company for many years and that's really where my passion for training and teaching came about. So I worked in contact centres, and I was a rep on the phone and in customer service-type contact centres for many years. The company I worked for was actually a union shop. So it was unionised and my roles are always represented by the union. And when they would move the work - because that's what unionised jobs do - they would pick me to be the person that got to travel from contact center to contact center all around our 14 state area to train the new employees on how to do the work that we were doing in the contact center that I was at. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
So that's what led me to get my bachelor's degree in communications and then eventually a master's in organisational management with an emphasis in training. And about 15 years ago, in 2010, I grew up, like I said, in the Midwest. I realised I never want to live somewhere where it snows again - I'm not a cold-weather person. So I relocated to sunny Florida, and that's how I came about working at CallMiner. I started working at CallMiner as the corporate trainer. So I was actually the person who flew out and trained our customers on our product. And I did that for several years, really loved that, and eventually became the manager of that training team. I managed training the professional services group, but that desire and that passion for employee training never went away. I really started to campaign about five years ago for us to have a training department that just focused on the employee experience and the training of employees. That campaign was successful with a lot of help from lots of mentors, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And I became the permanent manager of this department, which is the employee development and training department at CallMiner. And that's how I got here.
Clare
Oh, that's such a great story. And that red thread has always been there. It's awesome to hear how you campaigned for it. I definitely can't wait to hear more about how you made those steps. So today specifically, we're going to be talking about mentorship, sponsorship and collaboration. I think my first question would have to be, why do you think these are such crucial topics for women in CX and EX right now?
Anne
So my first thought immediately goes to the political climate, right? That we've seen this huge pullback of diversity-type programs across different areas internationally. But honestly, I feel like this all started during COVID, right? When we started to see these reductions in workforces, the diversity-type roles, the employee engagement roles, those were the ones that started to get eliminated from organisations. Because let's be honest, they're luxury-type jobs, right? When you're a small startup and you're trying to formulate a staff, you're going to get your cut-and-dry team, you're going to get your sales people, you're going to get your customer success people. But these types of employee support roles to help with your workforce come along later as you grow and mature as an organisation.
So when it's time to cut jobs, those are always the first to go, I've noticed. I really started to see a reduction in those types of efforts back then. And then, like I said, the current political climate makes it even worse. And my first reaction, I don't know about yours, but my first reaction was panic, right? Like, no, we're going backwards, right? But I have had to really remind myself lately that we're not; we're just going back to our roots. And what I mean by that is when I started out in the corporate world, I don't know about you, but when I started out in the corporate world, there were not a lot of organisations or communities or groups within the companies that I worked for that focused on helping women…
Clare
Yes.
Anne
…helping minorities, helping underrepresented groups get representation within the organisation. So, as far as getting help and assistance from women, that was something that was a grassroots effort within all of the organisations that I worked for, right? It was women helping women and women grabbing women along the way, and being like, “come with me, I can help you.” And so I feel like we're just going to have to return to that. I feel like we need to get a little bit more exposure to that. Like we can do this, we've done it, and this is how we do it.
Clare
Yeah, there's probably a lot I could say about that. I think it is challenging, isn't it? Because I think it's more about...it's less about the DEI programs and more about the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion more broadly. So I agree with you that the grassroots stuff is highly valuable, but a lot of the checks and balances that came with DEI policy, law, legislation…was a guardrail, I guess, to ensuring, for example, when a leadership role came up for recruitment, that there was a diverse set of potential…
Anne
Applicants?
Clare
Yeah, applicants in the first place. And you know, anonymised, gender taken out of the equation, interview processes to ensure that bias can't happen. Because I don't think people go to work thinking, “right, I'm going to oppress any particular marginalised or minority group”...
Anne
Right.
Clare
But so much of bias is unconscious, isn't it? So I think for me, I am really concerned. It’s fab that we have built momentum and culture as women to be able to do that for one another. But I'm also afraid of what the kind of open challenge to diversity, equity and inclusion might do in the workplace as well. Because if it's not protected the way that it is today, does that mean people who maybe do come to work with not subconscious but very conscious biases could negatively affect women and minority groups significantly in the coming years? But yeah, that is a trend that we're seeing, isn't it? We're to see it play out, but yeah, I think that…
Anne
Yeah. It's scary. It's definitely scary.
Clare
Yeah, scary is a good word to describe it. But, you know, it's always one of the ways that we can ensure women continue to rise up and occupy positions of leadership. It's about how we build our communities around ourselves, isn't it? I thought it'd be great to move on to now talk about what it's like to build a personal board of directors for yourself. I know that was a word that you used, so I just wondered if you could explain for our audience a little bit more about what it is and how this personal board of directors can differ from traditional mentorship.
Anne
Yes. Absolutely. So the concept of the board of directors was introduced to me by another member of the community, Renee Fokken. I think that's how I pronounce her last name properly. I went and attended your UnConference that you held in Dallas last year. It was a phenomenal event. So if you get the opportunity to attend, folks listening, absolutely sign up and attend for the one that they're going to hold this year. But there were a lot of collaboration sessions, as you know, and she attended a lot of the same collaboration sessions that I did. She even mentioned in one of them, “Ladies, let me ask you all a question…do each of you have a personal board of directors?” And that really piqued my interest. I'm like, what is that? And she's like a group of mentors and people that you go to for advice and suggestions, just like a company has a board of directors that helps them determine their path and their way forward. You, as an individual, should have that for yourself and your career. And I just absolutely loved that idea.
She talked about how you need it from different areas of your life, right? It shouldn't just be people within your own company to help you advance within your own organisation. It needs to be people from your personal life and people maybe in your industry, but not in your company. And that's where I realised I was really lacking. I have a ton of mentors at my own organisation. I have mentors in the other realms of my personal and social life. But I didn't really have anybody who was familiar with my industry but did not work in my organisation. So I touched base with Serena Riley from ConverSight AI.
Clare
Another queen.
Anne
I asked her…I actually went up to her at the end of the conference and said, "Hey, I love this idea of the personal board of directors. I'd love for you to be on mine. Would you be willing for us to connect?" And she was like, absolutely! We shared information, and we've been connecting. We meet once a month. We have a Zoom call, and we just kind of catch up on how we're doing, and I really respect and admire her career. So she's a mentor to me in that way. But we also - I believe to a certain degree - kind of co-mentor each other because we have a lot of the same things in common. We both have a huge respect for work-life balance. So we connect really well on that and all of those types of things. So I think the major difference is that, whereas traditional mentorship is usually found within your own immediate work company, the board of directors is a more well-rounded approach to mentorship, if that makes sense?
Clare
Makes total sense to me. I was just thinking, who's on my personal board of directors? Yeah, I think similar examples professionally, but I think I'd probably also include my therapist, my personal trainer and my coach in that as well.
Anne
Yeah.
Clare
People I know I can turn to for very different needs, for when I need to make decisions or make progress in an area of my life, particularly to do with health and wellbeing. I think that would just be my addition to it. Sometimes, having professionals to be part of your board of directors is also really advantageous. Oh, I do love that. And yeah, huge shout out to both Renee and Serena, absolutely incredible women. I'm so glad the community have put you guys together. So super!
Anne
Absolutely, me too.
Clare
So, thinking about the importance of women role models and mentors specifically, I've got some data here for us according to the most recent Women in the Workplace report in 2022, which is a little while ago, but still the most recent one, 48% of companies offered career advancement programs with content tailored for women. By 2024, that number had dropped to just 37%. The decline is even steeper for women of colour, falling from an already low 25% in 2022 to just 15% today. That's the signal, isn't it? Because these kinds of programs haven't just disappeared overnight. It's been happening since the pandemic and has gradually been retreating for quite some time. So my question here is, how can women in leadership positions be more intentional about lifting others up?
Anne
Yeah.
Clare
I'm sure you've got some great examples because I know the women at CallMiner are incredible at this.
Anne
They are! Number one, I feel like we, as women in leadership in any kind of position, have a responsibility to pay it forward, right? One of my favourite sayings that I've gotten from spiritual advisors is “you've got to give it away to keep it”, no matter what that is. Whether it's love, happiness, or wealth, your career is the same. You've got to give away the experience that you have in order to keep it. I believe, like I said, we have a responsibility to do that. I have been so fortunate that so many women along the way in my career have grabbed me and assisted me. I've got a couple of different examples that I can show you. And so I feel like I have that responsibility as well. And as you said, the women that I work with at CallMiner they're all very intentional about this, too.
We have an employee resource group here at CallMiner for women specifically. It's called the Women and Employee Resource Group here at CallMiner. We get together once a month. Jill is kind of our admin for that group. She really mediates and does all the administration and scheduling of it. She's fantastic at it. But all the women that you know from the community, Lauretta, Alex, a bunch of those women, all participate and attend. And it doesn't need to be formalised. I feel like even during those conversations, every single one of the women has at some point in time spoken up to the other women in the call and said, "Hey, if any of you ever need to talk to somebody about anything, no matter how minuscule you may think it is, I'm here. Here's my phone number. Here's my cell phone. Here's, you know, you don't have to just do it in the realm of work hours. You can reach out to me outside of work. I'm here to help you. I'm here to offer advice or offer my experience." And like I said, pay that forward.
So the two examples that I have for my own personal career were number one, one of the times that I was sent out of state to do a training at the phone company, the person who ran the entire call centre in that area was a woman. And she made it a point to come up to me and say, “What are you doing tonight? I'm taking you to dinner.” And we and her went out to dinner. And here I was, this little level entry, 20-year-old, entry-level employee. And here was this director who was running this multi-thousand-employee call centre, who took me to dinner. And it was simply to be like, what are your career... I mean, I didn't come to her. She came to me, and it was simply like offering up her mentorship. What are you trying to do with your career here? Where do you want to go with this company? Because I can help you. What do you need my help with? And you know, she's like, I see something in you. And I loved that. I was so grateful for that because I wouldn't have had the courage to go up to her by any means.
And then, years later, after I got my degree, I was pursuing the employee training side of things at the phone company, I had a very candid conversation with one of the leaders of HR there. It was another woman, and I told her this is what I want and this is what I'm trying to do. And she took a chance of being very honest with me. And said, “Look, this company has gone from 70,000 employees to 35,000 employees in five years. We are a union-represented company, which means anytime you apply for a position, it is always going to boil down to who has the most seniority. It has nothing to do with your skill set, it has nothing to do with your performance. It's always seniority.” At that point in time, I had been at the company for 10 years, but because of all the reductions in workforce and everything again was based on seniority, I had very low seniority, even as a 10-year employee. So she said, “I'm going to be completely honest with you. You will never get the opportunity to work in this field at this company. And if you really want to pursue this, you are going to need to leave us.”
And I was like, even after you guys spent all this money to send me to school? She's like, “Yes, we hate to see it, but I'm being honest with you and I'm telling you that if this is what you want to do with your career, you are going to have to leave.” That level of being that candid and honest with me, I was so appreciative of it because it's what gave me the push out the door and moved me to Florida and got me in with CallMiner. But again, I've tried to take that to heart and pay it forward. You know, any woman that I mentor, I try to be very honest and candid with any of the women I've managed, I've tried to always be very honest and candid with them as well.
Clare
Yeah, that radical transparency is so important, isn't it? And to keep somebody in your workforce because you don't want to lose them, even though that's not going to be the best thing for them, that's definitely happened to me before. I've been promised something that was, when I, you know…after a couple of years, realised that's just not going to be achievable within the next five years. And I don't have five years, I want to be moving up now. So that's a really good example. There are lots of different ways of calling it, isn't it? Like sending the elevator back down or giving a hand to the person behind you on the ladder. I think it is critically important, and it is about being intentional. I think for me as well, when it comes to diversity, that's really important as well. So not just supporting and lifting up people who remind you of you, but also women who are different. Women and men, as well.
Anne
Love that. Yes.
Clare
I think two of my best examples of people whose careers I supported from that kind of…giving them the first big opportunity, I'd spotted their talent - they were both actually guys. But they've also gone on to pay it forward as well. And I think you have to kind of see and feel the power of that, don't you sometimes?
Anne
Yes, absolutely.
Clare
To be able to pay it forward yourself because you know what it felt like to have that woman early in your career, be like, “I see something in you…come on, let's go for dinner.” Those moments are unforgettable, aren't they? And they really do shape your career. So yeah, looking for those moments, those opportunities to how we can be that person for someone else, even if we didn't experience it ourselves. Yeah, I really love that one.
Anne
Well, in understanding that you need to be your own advocate and being able to share that advice with other women and even men that I've managed. For instance, it took me years of working in the corporate world to understand that companies only pay you what you ask for. I was so naive and so young when I entered the workforce. I thought, well, if I get in the door and I work really hard, they're going to realise it and then they're just going to start handing me money. And that's, as you know, not how it works. So I had to learn like upfront, when you interview, you need to say this is how much money you want. Need to ask for that right up front and not waste anybody's time. So again, over the years, the people that I've mentored, the people that I've managed - men and women - I've tried to pass that information around. For lack of a better term, don't pussyfoot around the subject of money. If you need a certain amount of money, state it and be very candid and upfront about it.
Clare
Yeah, or even state 20% higher than you actually need - they can knock down. I remember somebody teaching me that one. And I've definitely passed that on to pretty much every single woman that I've met who's considering that. Ask for what you want plus 20%.
Anne
Yes. Give yourself the negotiation room. You got it. Love it.
Clare
Yeah. So I suppose finding mentors can be a bit of a challenge. I thought you gave some really great examples from where you found yours beyond your organisation. If you were to give any advice to women who were in that position and they were trying to find someone who really understands their challenges, what would you tell them?
Anne
Let's say, look outside of your company, right? Take advantage of things like communities. Women in CX is a perfect one. As you heard me say, I've found several mentors and people to be on my board through this organisation. So different communities that are out there, also social groups that you might be involved in. Like I said, your board of directors and your mentors don't necessarily only have to be from a career aspect. We all want to have a well-rounded group. So as you mentioned, you've got, you know, your therapist, you've got your personal trainer. I love all those examples, because that's true. I have a spiritual advisor, you know, if you belong to a church, go find somebody in your church, if you're in the PTA, maybe find somebody in the PTA… your gym, right? Find whatever you're interested in. When you see a quality in another woman that you admire, don't be shy to go up and be like, "Hey, I love this. And I would love your advice on this, because I would like to get better at that," right?
Clare
Yeah, that's a really lovely way to describe it. I was thinking, maybe mine's less of a personal board of directors and more of like a personal advisory board. Quite often, I'm looking for expertise that I don't have. So I think, yeah, sometimes like, finding mentors that are very different to you…
Anne
Love that too.
Clare
…from different industries or different subject matter experts but are proven leaders can be very powerful because they're not as emotionally attached to the technical subject matter as you are sometimes and can ask you better questions about why is that or how does that work that makes you think about it because it isn't just an automatic assumption. Yeah, I agree with you.
Anne
Yeah, so to your point too, you've got the…we got the pay it forward or like I said, you've got to give it away to keep it, but that's assuming that you have the information or the experience in the first place. So to your point, we can't transmit something we haven't got. A lot of times, my mentors are giving me advice on experiences that I have zero experience in, and that's why I need the help.
Clare
I was thinking as well, sometimes we think mentors have to be CEOs or very senior directors, they have to have done everything. But for me, finding someone who's just a few steps ahead of you is also really powerful, particularly when you're trying to figure something out or even somebody who's been through an experience that you haven't yet. I'm always connecting women with one another, let's say if they're going through a career transition, redundancy, might not be a long-term mentorship relationship that you need. You just need some people to give you the low down on how they navigated a challenge or how they dealt with it, and being able to find them in a shorter term.
So, back to some more statistics, and I think we've mentioned the guys, but I think we should dive into that a little bit more. I've got some more statistics. So, from the 2018 Women in the Workplace study by Lean In.Org and McKinsey and Company, it revealed that only 54% of women have sponsors compared to 63% of men. The 2024 figure showed that less than one in four companies has a formal sponsorship program. So, just to help the audience understand a little bit more about the differences, we often hear about mentorship but less about sponsorship. But sponsorship, I believe, is probably more important to career progression than mentorship. So, to help everybody just get their heads around two words that sound like they might do a similar thing, what's the difference between mentorship and sponsorship?
Anne
I think of a sponsor as somebody who's going to campaign on your behalf, especially when you're not in the room, right? And they're really going to help push. So a mentor is somebody that is…it's a relationship of…I hate to talk about it from a hierarchy perspective, but it's like, if you're a mentor, you're usually helping somebody and you're just feeding them the information down, right? But if you're sponsoring them, you're trying to feed that information up, right? You're trying to tell other people that are either at your level or higher up, like, "Hey, take a look at this woman. She's incredible. She did an amazing job." And that, I think, as a manager, you have a degree and a responsibility of sponsorship in your role, right? But you don't have to be somebody's manager or even their mentor to sponsor them, to campaign on their behalf. If you see women in your company or minorities or any underrepresented group that you know is not getting the type of recognition that they deserve, speak up on their behalf because you oftentimes have the mic or the spotlight if you're in a leadership role where these other people don't have the opportunity.
And again, that's one of the things that I absolutely love about the company I work at. I think all of our managers and all of our leaders do a phenomenal job of sponsoring their employees and their teammates. And nobody's trying to take all the credit. Everybody's like, hey, I couldn't have done this without him and her. And, you know, it's amazing. But I think that that's the primary difference, right? Mentorship is usually a quiet one-on-one relationship. You and I are going to talk, I'm going to pass on my experience or give you some advice. And you're aware of those conversations. You're not always aware of the sponsorship somebody does for you.
Clare
Yeah, that is really true. Yeah, definitely some of the most pivotal moments in my career have been through sponsorship when I wasn't in the room. I went on a guy's podcast, lovely guy, Martin Teasdale, runs a contact centre-based community called Get Out of Wrap. And we were having this conversation around what does allyship and sponsorship really look like? And we gave an example of maybe there's a project coming up. It's not a promotion, but it's a really great opportunity for someone in the team to actively get more visibility. Think about who automatically your brain goes to, and then think about. But who else? So, being able to think about, you know, this incredible woman. She maybe hasn't had the chance to do this. She's highly talented and has a really high potential. Rather than giving it to the person we know we always default to, could there be somebody else who deserves that chance as well?
Anne
Love that. Yeah.
Clare
But also simpler things as well, particularly for women around our life-shifting sponsorship. It could be being in a room and hearing a woman getting spoken over, and being the sponsor in the room and saying, “Hey, what was that you just said, Clare? Or Dave, you just spoke over Clare. What were you saying?” You know, just providing that opportunity and correcting other people's behaviour.
Anne
Speaking up. Yeah.
Clare
I know I talked about this a lot recently, with it being recently International Women's Day, I was casting my mind back to examples of this that I thought about being sat in a room and not particularly confidently coming up with an idea that everybody just seemed to miss. And 10 minutes later, a guy next to me confidently said exactly the same thing I said and got a completely different response. But somebody in the room going, “Hang on a minute, that was Clare's idea”, just to be able to be the advocate in the room. Or if I don't know, you get asked to make the tea, somebody saying, "Hey, no, that's not her job. You go make it yourself." Smaller examples, obviously. So, in terms of men holding the majority of senior leadership positions in many organisations, how can male allies play a more active role, specifically in supporting women's career growth? Is there anything that we haven't already talked about that you'd like to add to that?
Anne
Not that we haven't already touched on. I think exactly what you said is the key, right? They need to speak up when they witness. Oftentimes in my experience, it's not blatant sexism. It's usually some unconscious bias. And then saying, like you said, I had a coworker that had that exact same situation that you spoke about, that was like, she already said that, right? Giving credit where credit is due. And that's really important.
Clare
Yes.
Anne
I've been very fortunate, like I said, when I was campaigning for the role that I have now, my biggest sponsor was a man. So we do need male allies.
Clare
100%.
Anne
At the time, he was a COO, and he was the one who was like, "She deserves this job, she's qualified for it, she gets stuff done, she'll be amazing at it." I would not have gotten the role, I believe, it weren't for his campaigning and his sponsorship. So I'm eternally grateful to him for that. But I also believe that communication is key. We don't have control over the way the men in our company or our lives behave, right? But what we can control is the way that we communicate in those conversations that we have with them. And sometimes it's necessary to have those uncomfortable conversations. I'm a big believer that you catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar. So I try not to come at somebody in an attack mode, but to have a calm, respectful conversation. And I've been very fortunate that when I've had to have those conversations, they have gone over well.
So one of the examples that I utilise a lot, and you kind of touched on this, but they'll go make the tea. Early on in my career, this organisation, there was a male executive who oftentimes, whenever we were in a meeting, he'd say, Anne, take the notes. Never asked a single man sitting in that room to take the notes for the meeting.
Clare
Just the assumption, isn't it, the automatic.
Anne
Yes, and it was so demeaning to me because I felt like he was treating me like I was his secretary. I was again an entry-level employee. It really bothered me. So one day I said to him like, "Hey, are you aware that this comes across as incredibly sexist? You don't ever ask the men in the room to take the notes. I feel like you're treating me like I'm your secretary. And because you are in such a position of power, you are a very high-level executive. I think that it's giving the impression to the other men in the room that I am a secretary and that they can ask me for these things too." And he was like, "I am so sorry..."
Clare
I bet he had no idea.
Anne
Yeah. It was like, thank you for telling me that. I had no idea that's how it was coming across. He's like, "Honestly, Anne, the reason I ask you to take my notes is because you're an incredible note taker." And Clare, I did that to myself. I would, every meeting that I attended early on at this organisation, I'm a diligent note taker, because I always need it to reference back on. To be a good employee, I was communicating and sharing my notes with everybody who attended the meeting. So he assumed, “Hey, if you're in the meeting, I'm assuming you're taking the notes anyway. So that's why I was just like, Anne, you'll take notes. All right, distribute them afterwards. I didn't realise it was coming across like I was treating you like a secretary, and how bad that looked.” So he doesn't do it anymore.
But I also had to learn the lesson of, you know what? Don't offer to make people tea. Go make myself a cup and sit down, and then start my work kind of thing. So here I always thought I was being polite, but I was actually setting a bad example. But again, having to have that really candid conversation with somebody who was several levels higher than me. And to say it like, I was nervous to have that conversation with him. I was afraid he was going to get angry and defensive, and I'm not sexist, and I'm not treating you that way. Wasn't how he responded at all.
Clare
Yeah.
Anne
It's like, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that's how it was coming across. Thank you for telling me this. I had no idea you felt this uncomfortable around me for so long. All of those types of things.
Clare
Yeah, we gave him access to insight he didn't have about himself, which is a very valuable thing, isn't it? For any leader. I was just thinking maybe a slight extension of that. So I think what male allies can also demonstrate is actually listening and opening up space to have those kinds of conversations. So, tell me about your experience of being a woman working in this environment on our team or in this company and creating that space and permission for those things to be raised because it is a very difficult conversation to have and unless invited, I don't know whether we would always be able to speak up or it might turn into something much nastier like an HR grievance type conversation.
Anne
Right!
Clare
I know this guy Martin Teasdale, who was saying he actively pursued those conversations and said, “Tell me about your experience as a woman working here. How is it?” And he found out so much stuff. Just being open to learning about the lived experience of others, and maybe not just women, but people different to you, can show you so much because…
Anne
I love that. And they have to be willing to be vulnerable, like even to be on the flip side of that. You know, I had an employee that was a minority and when we started our employee resource groups, they tried to have one for minorities and the HR…one of the HR folks came to me and said, can you go ask her why she didn't volunteer to be a part of this employee resource group? She's, you know, one of our African-American employees. We were hoping she would join because she's amazing. So I had to go have a really…like I had to be the vulnerable person to be like, "Hey, can I ask you why you didn't sign up to be in this employee resource group? Because you are a black employee." And she said, "Yeah, I don't want to be the black spokesperson for this company." And I never thought of it that way. I was like, thank you for being honest and for having that conversation. And I never thought of it that way either. I've had the same thing. I had a gay coworker who wouldn't sign up for it, and she said the same thing. I don't want to be the spokesperson for all gay people at this company. That is a part of my identity. It is not my entire identity, and I don't want it to become that in this organisation. So I don't want to be involved, and I have to respect that, right?
Clare
Yeah, I think when you've got employee resource groups that are really genuinely supported, that they are actually change agents, where they're given budgets to make the changes happen that they need to, or, you know, finance to be able to host events, actually do something with it. That's great. But I think so many people are burned by ERGs that are set up and poorly orchestrated, never really genuine in the first place, DEI programs that are actually just a tick box exercise. And it certainly isn't anybody's job to educate the majority, whatever marginalised minority group, including women. And I can imagine, yeah, like that automatic assumption is something maybe you don't want to be.
Anne
So the way you combat that as an organisation is, to your point, you prove that this is not just a lip service type group, right? We do want to be advocates for change here at this organisation, but a lot of folks understandably are in a position where they're like the two employees I spoke to that said they didn't want to be the spokespeople, they probably would have joined if down the road they saw that this resource group was actually making some changes, right?
Clare
Yeah, tell me about the changes you've already made, and then I'll think about whether or not I want to be a part of it. I know this friend of mine has worked in a lot of big tech companies, and she's joined every single resource group around race and gender and repeatedly had exactly the same experience. It was only skin deep. It wasn't real and genuine. And when there were real actions that needed to be taken, they'd report things up.
Anne
Yeah.
Clare
And then nothing would change, nothing would happen. So yeah, I think the shake-up of what's happening with not diversity, equity and inclusion, but DEI programs in some cases is only taking away something that didn't help or made things worse anyway. But for companies who have established genuine cultural transformation for diversity, equity and inclusion, I suppose they're probably still going to be all right, right? Because then they're not going to change who they are just because a policy doesn't exist.
And I spoke to somebody the other day saying, yeah, we're one of the companies that has government contracts. And we had to publicly say we were rolling back on DEI because the threat was you're going to lose your government contracts. But we haven't actually done that around recruitment. We've still got an eight-stage process. It's still going to be completely anonymised. It's still going to be blah, blah, blah, blah. But being forced to kind of appear to be following…
Anne
The guidelines.
Anne
But you can't unlearn what you already know, right? So if you've already been exposed to all this information about, you know, groups that aren't fairly represented, like to me, that's never going to go away. So maybe your company doesn't support you having some kind of a formal meeting around DEI. It doesn't mean that you guys can't meet over lunch and still talk about these things. You know, one of the things I learned is that if you want a better-represented applicant pool, you want more women, you want more minorities, you want those people to start applying for your jobs, then go advertise in those, you know, go to historically black universities and post your roles, go to women unit, Sarah Lawrence, all of those types of organisations and post jobs on their job boards. If that's the type of applicant pool that you want, nobody, if you work in HR and you have that ability and you're the one posting the jobs, you can still go after those applicant pools. There's nothing to stop you from doing that. So like I said, you don't need to unlearn what you've already learned. And you can still take...
Clare
Yeah, it just blows my mind, though. Sorry [to interrupt].
Anne
No, go ahead.
Clare
It still blows my mind, though, because the data is there that proves the value of diverse teams on the outcomes businesses have; more profitable, better long-term performance, and greater strategic objectives met both within the company and the impact that the company has. So we'll move on from that conversation now, you can tell I'm very passionate about it. Thank you for showing so many great examples.
But before we go, we haven't talked about the huge part of your experience and expertise and the conversations we're always having where I consider you the subject matter expert. Someone asks a question about employee experience, and I always come to you, don't I, Anne? So, think about that direct collaboration between customer and employee experience now. We all know that employee experience are kind of two sides of the same coin, aren't they? But sometimes, because of organisational structures, those departments might be kept quite separate. One might be sitting in HR, one might be sitting in marketing, and never the train shall meet. So, I suppose closing thoughts around this, how would you say these two departments, especially if they're sat far apart from one another, can collaborate better together to create better outcomes for all? And the answer might not necessarily be having the same direct reporting line that may well not be possible and isn't possible for many. So I think that would just be some great advice you could share.
Anne
I think you're right. I think in most of the organisations I've worked in, they don't have the same reporting structure at all. So it's speak up, no matter which side you're on. So for instance, if you're on the customer side, if you are noticing like a trend or a drop in your customer satisfaction, don't forget if you're going to go out and start compiling data and doing research and doing outreach to your customers to also do that same outreach and compile data and information from your employees. Because, like you said, it is two sides of the same coin. Because a customer interaction occurs between your customer and your employee. So we are usually as most organisations phenomenal at collecting that data and that information from the customer mouthpiece. We're not always fantastic about collecting that information and that data from employees. And the reason that's so important is cause there is that direct correlation between employee experience and customer experience. Meaning if you have happy employees, you're going to have happy customers. And the same reverse is true. I guarantee you, if you have unhappy customers, you can research that back and tie that back to, I've got some miserable employees. Because, as I mentioned before, we can only transmit what we've got. And if I'm miserable inside and coming and sitting at my desk every day, that's what I'm transmitting to the customers of yours that I'm interacting with. So always research both sides.
Clare
So true. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I would never do a discovery around customer experience without looking at...voice of customer, voice of employee and voice of stakeholder. I call it the holy trinity of research to be able to do all three of those things. And when you're designing experiences, if there is an employee aspect, which invariably, with customer contact, there always is, no matter how much technology and digital we integrate into that, you have to be designing for the users as much as the employees are. Sorry, as much as the custom ones are as well.
So I'm afraid we've run out of time. To bring this one home then, if you had to pick one thing from our conversation today, what would your one big takeaway for the audience be?
Anne
The pay it forward, especially if any of us sit in any kind of leadership position. Like you said, reach down, hold that ladder down and help up the people below you. So be intentional, be vocal. Like I'm willing to mentor, I'm willing to be here. And it doesn't even need to be a formalised mentor relationship. It could be, hey, if I have anything that you admire and you want some advice or just want to pick my brain, I'm here, reach out. And vice versa, don't be afraid to reach out and ask those other women out there as well when you see something that you admire about them. The analogy I really like that a friend of mine uses is if you go to the same well all the time to draw water, that well's going to run out of water. So all of us with that, our board of directors, or you said your advisory board…
Clare
It was your advisory board!
Anne
…It's different wells. You're essentially going to all these different wells and you're drawing water from each well, so that none of your wells dry out. Also, so that you get a more well-rounded experience. So pay it forward and draw from different wells.
Clare
Love it. Love it. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me today, Anne.
Anne
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this. You know, I love this community. I'm the biggest fan. So anything I can do to support it. Happy.
Clare
Thank so much, I've really enjoyed talking to you and thank you to everybody who listened or watched wherever you are. That's it for today, I really hope we see you again next time. Bye for now!
Anne
Thanks, bye.
Clare:
Thank you so much to CallMiner for sponsoring this episode of WiCX Talk Trends. CallMiner offers an AI-powered platform that allows organisations to analyse their customer conversations from both a CX & EX perspective in order to pull out actionable insights for a better customer AND employee experience!
Thanks for listening to the WiCX Talk Trends podcast with me, Clare Muscutt. If you enjoyed the episode and you don’t already, please, please, please do drop us a like and subscribe to our channel – the bigger the following, the bigger the impact we can create on our mission to amplify the voices of women working in CX and technology! Well, that’s all for now! I’ll see you again next time!
