‘Women, sometimes sit back and wait to be recognised [but] you need to ask early if you want a promotion or you want to work remotely or in a different technology,’ says Joanne Churchley, Group IT Infrastructure & Platforms Head of Delivery for SSE.
Raising her hand and putting herself forward has propelled her from the entry level position in the tech industry she took on aged just 17 — to the senior leader she is today. In her 35-year career she has worked in roles from consultancy and service delivery to software development and analytics — and seen many changes within the tech landscape as a result. The one thing that has stayed constant, she notes, is that asking is the first crucial step to getting — whether that’s a personal opportunity or making wider culture change…
What should people know about routes into the tech industry?
If you see an area of technology that interests you there is always a route to get there from where you are. Also, there are very few roles in IT that are 100% technical — maybe in research lab roles that’s the case, but in most IT jobs, you have to have good communication skills, there’s sometimes a bit of selling, project management, testing or there can be comms such as writing press releases or user documentation. The technology’s the easy bit to learn. When I interview candidates now, their technical skills are probably the last thing I look for — because tech is easy to train people in. I interview for cultural fit; are they a nice person to work with? Are they going to add value to the team? Technology changes so quickly and as a result you’re always upskilling your staff. So, if the person doesn’t have the technical skills, that’s not the issue for me — the issue is can they talk to a customer? Can they present all the different non-technical skills?
How have you created opportunities for yourself within IT in your career?
When I started out, I was working in an insurance company and when our first computer system was rolled out the instructions said, press F1 for a help screen. We were all pressing F1 — and the screens were blank. The IT guys said, ‘we don’t have anybody to write the help screens because we don’t have anybody that understands the business rules’. Then I found out they got paid a lot more in the IT department on the same grade, so I sold in my business knowledge. I said, ‘you don’t have anyone who understands the business therefore you’re designing systems that don’t take into account how easy they are to use or have help text’. And I got seconded to that project for six weeks to write that text. It’s important to know what you’re good at and what you’re not. I like to find a problem and go and fix it. Two or three times in my career, I’ve created a job out of a problem by saying , ‘you don’t have anyone who understands the business therefore you’re designing systems that don’t take into account how easy they are to use or have help text’.
Has diversity improved in IT throughout your career?
When I first transferred to IT, I was one of the only two females in the department. I ended up finding a mentor and role model in a female contractor who come in — she’d been in IT a long time and showed us what could be done. Things have changed now, but I’m still not seeing diversity in the those applying for the senior roles. I asked one of my team why they hadn’t applied for a more senior job recently and they said, ‘I’m busy enough as it is’. So there’s a perception that if you get more senior, you become busier. But you don’t have to keep your own job and take on a new job. As a leader, I make sure when I log off on a Friday, I don’t send emails at the weekends and I work on a compressed week which sometimes is a bit challenging, but I want to model to other people that you can do a job at my level, four days a week, and still have work-life balance.
What does success look like for you?
Success for me now is a role where I can make a difference, and continue to learn, grow and bring people on — whereas success, when I was younger, was about proving myself and worrying if I was in the right role. I was about being the person that got the promotion and the recognition, whereas now I’m more relaxed about that — I’ve been recognised. I’m still hungry for improvement though, and still looking for the roles and advancement, but success for me now means that I’ve managed to build a high-performing team. And also, that I go to work and still enjoy it.
What are the hallmarks of a good leader in tech?
Understanding what ‘good’ looks like for your team, giving people the space to do their job in their personal style, and looking at the results rather than the way that they’re doing it. That was a big lesson for me to learn because for me it’s so easy to say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do it like that’. You need to know what the individuals in your team need too. I’ve got people in my team who have been managers for 20 years, and some in their first management roles. Ultimately, adults don’t need you to tell them how to do their jobs — but they do need you to keep some of the pressure away from them. And as a leader, you need to be able to explain the direction and strategy to them, and tie that back to the company’s strategy, how that affects your department and the value it brings. There’s a danger for purely technical people to do things because they’re technically interesting, but it’s important to keep asking, ‘is it taking us forward?’ The downside of hiring people who are passionate about tech is that you often have to wrestle off them whatever they’re developing in order to put it live for customer use — otherwise they’d just keep working on it.
What key changes have you seen in IT over your career?
Well, you don’t have to dress like a man anymore. I used to have to wear a suit; I played golf; I went to the pub; I did all the things that the rest of the IT team did and we did it because it was our peer group. I don’t play golf and I don’t wear suits anymore. And going into work and seeing people dressing in the way they want to and being whatever they want to be, creating a far more diverse workplace is just great. Just seeing people being comfortable to come to work as themselves and not a ‘work self’ is progress. I am also in awe of the current cohorts of women coming into the IT industry that are changing the ways of working, and encouraging more open dialogues around gender, flexible working, menopause and portfolio careers. Until recently, I would have never mentioned the menopause. However, I’ve mentioned it in a few meetings now and the first time I did it felt alien to just say the word aloud even though it is normalising it — and you have to do that. The second time it felt less alien, but I could still see some people looking uncomfortable. It can be out of your comfort zone too, but again, nothing bad happens to you if you say it. If you feel a bit uncomfortable, you just…feel a bit uncomfortable.
What changes would improve the diversity of the IT pipeline?
Getting the message out there that you don’t have to have a degree in computing, mathematics, statistics or physics to work in tech — unless you want to do advanced analytics or statistical modelling. If you just want to work in IT, join as an apprentice — come with your English or history degree. Channelling people too early in school to say ‘you’re an arts person’ or ‘you’re a STEM person’ is a blocker — if you’re not a STEM person at 14 it doesn’t mean you can’t be one at 18. And we need to increase the understanding of the opportunities within the industry. When more people equate tech to the ‘stuff they use every day’ then we should be able to get more tech in the hands of people outside of IT. The lines are just going to get more blurred now — and that’s probably what’s going to help increase diversity in IT.
What do you wish you’d known when you started out?
I wish I’d known that you should ask for things earlier. Women sometimes sit back and wait to be recognised [but] you need to ask early if you want a promotion or want to work remotely or in a different technology. When you ask for an opportunity you rarely get an absolute ‘no’. If you don’t get exactly what you want, the person doing the refusing is much more likely to compromise and find a way to put something your way.
