I choose to challenge… because you can definitely do better

Despite the changes we made the past year to make the security industry more diverse and inclusive, we are still not there yet- 2022 is a year where I think we are all hoping to see more than a little bit of change.

After two years of unprecedented challenges and constant disruption, it’s going to be a year when we all take stock of how far we’ve come, and what we need to do next to reach our goals.

Personally, I’ll be watching progress in five key areas where I choose to challenge you to do better in making progress towards gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. These include:

HR DEPARTMENTS AND RECRUITERS

Despite constant claims about cybersecurity skills gaps, companies continue to push out job advertisements filled with laundry lists of esoteric skills that few candidates possess – convincing them of their inadequacy before they even get a chance to plead their case.

Many potential candidates, women in particular but also those from neurodiverse, gender diverse and other backgrounds, report being intimidated by conventional recruitment processes. Companies need to think more about how they are engaging with potential job-seekers, what processes they use to determine the skills a job requires, and how they evaluate the people that could actually do the job.

Here’s a checklist that you can use when arguing for change within your HR organisation:

• Up-skill line leaders to remove bias and focus on core competencies in job design
• Write job ads to be gender-inclusive and welcoming to all
• Design your job ads with role flexibility as the starting point which enables flexible working
• Broaden the focus on technical skills, as most roles require this
• Focus on the desired impact/ outcome of the role, not just the skills and experience that you think are needed.
• Engage individual hiring managers to help them understand that pure technical experience shouldn’t be the only screen for possible candidates
• Consider requesting gender-blind applications
• Develop and execute a segmented employment brand aimed at target populations (such as women and other diverse groups)
• Identify key female talent within your organisation and encourage them to apply (including any employees on parental leave)
• Resist ‘referral cultures’ that might unconsciously result in homogenous teams. Where employees are encouraged to make referrals, ensure there is rigour in the process
• Invite potential recruits into your workplace so they can experience the working environment, meet future colleagues, and discuss any questions or concerns about an advertised role
• Consider interview panel composition for diversity and gender balance, section or departmental diversity and/or external perspective
• Train interviewers to uncover nontechnical merit objectively instead of relying on gut instinct or ‘fit’
• Review pay offerings to eliminate like-for-like gender pay gaps in the salary offered to the candidate

We need to start addressing the bias itself at its roots so that people actually make the right decision in the first instance.

Choose to challenge yourself. Try to understand where biases come from and how they affect your hiring decisions, so you can help your business take that next step towards discarding unconscious bias.

CHAMPIONS WHO AREN’T REALLY CHAMPIONING

There are real champions for women in security and a more diverse workplace – and then there are the individuals and companies that like to talk about how they champion diversity and inclusion, but actually do relatively little about it.

Stop posting diversity memes on your socials and start considering how you can be a champion for women, and other marginalised groups, every day.

How many individuals have you really helped get to the stage that has been recruited into a role they wanted, and offered guidance; supported; elevated; advocated for; given a job to?

This isn’t about you, or what people think of you. I challenge you to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

If diversity truly matters to you, here is a checklist of things you can do to help:

• Listen.
• Attend a bias training to educate yourself on the systemic inequalities that exist so that you are better equipped to help
• Make sure women’s ideas are heard.
• Celebrate women’s accomplishments by maximising their visibility
• Follow diverse voices
• Encourage more women to go for it, be it change of roles, further upskilling, a job they wouldn’t usually go for, or moving into security.
• Give direct feedback
• Mentor women
• Choose individuals to help grow, enable, and develop within our industry
• Help educate these individuals on where the gaps are and what they need to do to improve
• Sponsorship can open doors like nothing else. Having someone to back you and put themselves out there for you can create opportunities that wouldn’t come about otherwise. Sponsors should also help the individuals navigate the system, teach them how to read a room and create connections and opportunities for them.

Awareness is great, but it’s not going to get us across the finish line. As Alan Armstrong put it:

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.”

EVERYONE TO CALL OUT INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR

Toxic behaviour is everywhere, but women shouldn’t have to put up with it when at work trying to be their best selves. So stop standing on the sidelines, and start intervening when you see toxic behaviour.

All organisations are made up of human beings, and sometimes they behave in less than acceptable ways. Do you really want to keep looking the other way?

Think about the last time you saw behaviour that made you uncomfortable. What did you do?

Did you call out the offender on the spot? Did you talk about it after the incident with your friends? Did you report it to a manager? Go to HR?

It’s one thing to understand that toxic behaviour in the workplace is wrong – but something else entirely to fix it.

Here are a few things to remember:

• Leadership isn’t about titles, but more about actions and activities. By speaking up, you are setting a new standard and redefining what leadership is in your workplace. Call it when you see it
• Your co-workers are looking for role models, and once the role models appear, the followers get onboard. Once that happens, we have a movement – and it will quickly become ‘the way we do things around here’
• Those who bully and harass are experts at keeping their behaviour out of the limelight, they must have a spotlight shone right on them when you see it happen and call them out for what they are
• If your company does nothing about those bullies and harassers, we will start industry registers across associations worldwide to get them involved and speak up when you can’t.

Don’t rely on others to fix the problem. Truly courageous individuals call out behaviour from a place of kindness, encouraging bullies to appreciate the impact their choice of behaviour has on you and on others. If you have those conversations out in the open, everyone can deal with the behaviour and move on, openly and constructively.

SENIOR LEADERS TO ELEVATE AND MENTOR

It’s hard to overstate how important mentorship can be to women – or to any employee, for that matter – in helping them establish their careers and even their sense of themselves. The approval and support of senior staff are easy to provide and can make all the difference – so why aren’t you getting your mentor hat on?

This year, I had the opportunity to mentor an individual outside of my organisation. Sometimes it was fun and sometimes scary. I didn’t think I was ready – but I did it. I learned a lot about my mentee and myself, and I ended up with a new friendship and new insights into ways I can evolve and help my community more.

Being a mentor is being a trusted advisor. It means making yourself available to support and advise someone when they need it, delivering that support in a way that makes sense to them, and always keeping that person’s best interests in mind.

It’s a long-term commitment where you will come to know and understand your mentee’s personality, learning style, and goals – which will help you offer richer, more relevant advice over time.

Here are a few tips for being an effective mentor:

• Approach each mentorship differently, everyone is unique. It’s important to take the time to think about what kind of commitment you want to make.
• Set expectations in the beginning.
• Take a genuine interest in your mentee as a person
• Know when to wait before giving advice
• Don’t assume – ask
• Be forthcoming about your own career mistakes as that helps build trust, gives them permission to share their own mistakes, and strengthens the relationship
• Celebrate their achievements
• Seek out classes or projects related to skills your mentee wants to develop – to look for situations – create situations – where mentees can get involved to learn some of the skills they’ve been hoping to learn.
• Give them long-term guidance
• Lead by example

Stop trying to manage and motivate employees with group emails and cute pictures of cats. Roll up your sleeves and lead from the front, so your employees know you are fighting for them every day, and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish together.

COMPANIES TO TAKE A CHANCE

With the borders effectively closed for most of the past two years, Australian companies have had to get creative about the way we hire people. We need to keep the businesses going, right?

Maybe, just maybe that person who shows great promise, initiative, and potential will still be a valuable employee even if they don’t have a laundry list of technical certifications that would let them hit the ground running.

Yet many companies are still falling back on the old recruitment practices – posting long, complex job ads with demands for years of experience and capabilities that very few people have, here or overseas.

HR departments are overriding well-meaning managers that have simplified their job descriptions, complicating things needlessly. They’re automating themselves into a corner by adopting AI to screen resumes, disqualifying people before they even get a chance to argue their case.

Holding out for the perfect candidate is a fool’s game these days. As Darryl Kerrigan would say: tell ‘em they’re dreaming!

Companies need to learn to manage the risks of new hires rather than trying so hard to eliminate them that they get caught in decision paralysis.

And don’t get me started about companies that are looking past qualified visa holders just because they aren’t citizens. It doesn’t mean they are automatically going to run and take your training and development dollars with them.

Is that really what is happening? Attrition can happen with any candidate, so either way, it’s a risk. But maybe they will surprise you. I practise what I preach and have hired a full-time event and marketing specialist on a visa, as she was the best person for the job. She knew my business inside out, is exceptionally hard-working and is a very valuable asset to my company.

Treat your employees right and they will become valued members of your business, no matter what boxes they tick or don’t tick. I’m a small business that managed to see past that bias – so why can’t you?