Propelling women's careers in IDG
The Women in Information & Digital Group (IDG) Programme is a development and leadership programme designed to help women grow at Warwick. The project received the Team Award at the 2023 Gender Equality Awards, celebrating its incredible impact across IDG. Clare Swift and Annie Davey from IDG and Vicki Fitzpatrick from The Wellbeing Focus received the award.
Clare Swift: "In 2021 we identified a lack of development and progression of female staff into more senior roles in IDG. The department has a 50% gender split, however, men occupied 75% of the management roles. We established an Annual Women’s Survey in 2021 which asked our female colleagues to identify their areas of concern. Their feedback inspired and shaped the Women in IDG Programme."
The judging panel said:
"This is a great programme and has had a huge impact on IDG, laying the foundations for future work for more women in IDG and managers who understand the challenges they face. This leadership and development programme with events is an important project which is clearly making change happen and sounds like a much-needed intervention."
Tell us about the impact of the programme so far…
Clare Swift: "The 10-session programme was delivered to 50 women in 2022 and 44 in 2023 in small cohorts, supported by an external partner – The Wellbeing Focus. The sessions included self-reflection as well as reading and podcast recommendations, on themes including imposter syndrome, strengths, leadership and wellbeing.
When we repeated the Annual Women’s Survey in 2022, after the first delivery of the programme, we found the following results:
- An improvement in IDG’s gender split overall, with men occupying 55% of the Grades 6-9 roles (vs 75% the previous year)
- A reduction of 13% in reported barriers experienced by the women in IDG
- A 38% reduction of those women reporting perceptions of barriers to their development based on their gender
- An increase of 25% of line managers helping their women team members remove gender-related barriers they experience at work.
As a result of the programme, we’ve found that colleagues in IDG feel able to openly discuss women’s cycles and the menopause where asked. Meanwhile, people of all genders feel more comfortable discussing feedback and the impact of imposter syndrome along with techniques to support each other."
What is the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Clare Swift: "Watching my female colleagues find their voice, grow in confidence, share their experiences, and in turn help others.
The programme has affected not only the women who have attended it, but their line managers and colleagues as well.We are creating an environment in which women’s voices are not only heard but encouraged, and men are seeking to understand and implement ways of making their teams more gender inclusive."
Annie Davey: "I'd like to credit all the women in IDG who put their trust in the Programme, engaged wholeheartedly with the content and gave us such fantastic feedback. Also, to IDG’s leadership team for continuing to allow us put our money where our mouth is – it’s important to have executive support.
We’re looking forward to running the programme again in 2024."
Top tips for gender equality work
Clare Swift:
- "Ask your target audience to get involved in the creation of their own resource: they will feel more engaged and the content will be all the richer!
- Establish a set of metrics and take baseline measurements before you start any initiative: you need to know where your initiative is having impact, where it is not, so that you can continually improve it … and you will be able to demonstrate a return on investment to your funder(s).
- Encourage the habit of self-reflection and sharing of personal experiences. The space you create to enable this to happen will set the tone for a whole new way of working that is inclusive and celebrates diversity."
Looking forward...
Annie Davey: "I’d love to see IDG’s programme become a blueprint or template for extension or counterpart initiatives in other parts of Warwick. The successful development and progression of female academics remains a challenge - but we know from Social Inclusion’s gender equity awards, the Inspiring Women Staff Network and WBS (recently becoming the first business school in the UK to be awarded an Athena Swan Gold for its work on improving gender equality) that this is what happens when you invest in women - demand, positivity, growth and achievement will follow."