EP31: How Men Can Advocate for Women at Work

Interview with Paula Ratliff / Tech Leader, Workplace Thinker, Kentucky Colonel

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Men far outnumber women in tech, but Dads have the ability to even the playing field for working moms, says Paula Ratliff, president of Women Impact Tech, which helps women thrive in the tech space. She talks about the “He’s for She’s” that helped her in her own career and can help women today. What’s needed she said is more mentors for working mothers and also great appreciation and understanding for working parents – who have proven they can work effectively in a remote or hybrid workplace. While she’s been doing this work for 20 years, there is a sobering statistic that still persists: mothers get a five to 10%  pay cut for each child they have, while fathers get a 6% pay bump per child. Listen to her discuss why she’s optimistic that coming out of the pandemic the tech industry is at an inflection point that could bring real change for working parents.

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Transcript

00;00;05;03 - 00;00;24;06
Paul Sullivan
I'm Paul Sullivan, your host and the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad in a world where men were the primary. Parents often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their roles. One thing I know from personal experience is being a dad is not a traditional role for men.

00;00;24;09 - 00;00;47;21
Paul Sullivan
When you work full time, part time, or all your time to your family, parenting is so often left to mothers for paid caregiving. But here at the Company of Dads, our goal is to shake all that off and create a community for father. Truly dad, and to welcome other dads. Want to learn more about them today? My guest is Paula Ratliff, president of Women Impact Tech, which helps women thrive in the tech space.

00;00;47;24 - 00;01;09;16
Paul Sullivan
She's been doing this work for 20 plus years, and it seems, I hope at least, that we're at an inflection point, or at least an outrage point where things might begin to change. Let this stat sit with you for a month. Mothers get a 5 to 10% pay cut for each child they have, while fathers get a 6% pay bump for child.

00;01;09;18 - 00;01;26;29
Paul Sullivan
We're going to talk today about how fathers and men in general can step up to support working moms in the workplace, but also how companies need to look at the world of work differently. In 2022 versus how they may have looked at it pre-pandemic in 2019. Paula, welcome to the Company Dads podcast. Thanks for joining me.

00;01;27;02 - 00;01;28;29
Paula Ratliff 
Thanks for having us, Paul.

00;01;29;02 - 00;01;49;01
Paul Sullivan
Okay, I got to get this, out front. Right away. This is the first time I interviewed a Kentucky colonel. You, Elvis Presley. Illustrious Kentucky. And hard at what? Tell the listeners what a Kentucky colonel is and how this how this came about.

00;01;49;03 - 00;02;24;11
Paula Ratliff 
So I was nominated for a Kentucky colonel. Right after I had held the title of Miss East Kentucky, a beauty pageant title where I was advocating for that eastern part of our state, around the entire state of Kentucky. For advocacy, women, and our place in the workforce. So I started really young. My mother was one of the working moms in the 60s and 70s, and I admired everything she did and continued to advocate for working women.

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;25;27
Paula Ratliff 
Throughout my career.

00;02;25;29 - 00;02;34;06
Paul Sullivan
That's wonderful. Now that they know, am I not supposed to say that you now live in Indiana? Is that, like again? No. You're in Kentucky. Colonels live everywhere.

00;02;34;08 - 00;02;57;17
Paula Ratliff 
We do live everywhere. But even though I love the state of Kentucky, we had the opportunity, to move just into a suburb in southern Indiana, still only 11 miles from Louisville, Kentucky. For schools, there's amazing schools in southern Indiana and a small town feel, to crossing the bridge and moving into a little smaller community.

00;02;57;24 - 00;03;04;22
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. That's wonderful. Tell me how you got into tech and how women impact tech came about.

00;03;04;24 - 00;03;40;27
Paula Ratliff 
Yeah. So I spent 22 years of my career in staffing. And so early on in my career, we sold both traditional staffing for, traditional work and administrative, clerical and light industrial type of jobs. And probably about three years into my job, I learned that we had a technical division. I was interested in that division, and I started co selling with a young lady that sold in my market for our technical side of the business and very early on I recognized there was this gender inequality.

00;03;40;27 - 00;04;04;26
Paula Ratliff 
There weren't a lot of women in tech. So I was drawn to that and drawn to making a change and advocating for companies to really look at their tech department and bring diverse thinking into their departments around hiring women. So I spent a large percentage of my career leading sales for, our technical division of the company that I worked for.

00;04;04;29 - 00;04;46;21
Paula Ratliff 
And after about 22 years, I decided to take a break from that type of sale and had the opportunity to come lead, as the president for women in tech with a lot of the same mission. But really completely mission oriented, where we focused on creating a network for women, where they if they are one of only the only woman in their tech department, we create networks for them in their community where they can network with other women who may only be the woman, the one woman on their team and their tech department so that they can build a network where they can support one another in the technical space for advancing their careers.

00;04;46;24 - 00;05;14;13
Paula Ratliff 
And then the other thing of that we do not only supporting the the advocacy for women in tech, we create a culture for companies that are looking to advance their program and their community of technical workforce so that we can help them improve the statistics on their hiring. So we know that diverse teams produce, better production of revenue results.

00;05;14;19 - 00;05;41;03
Paula Ratliff 
So many companies, they do really great with setting DNI objectives for hiring women in tech, but often the execution is where they need some support. So we create environments where we can match our network of amazing, female technologists to the sponsors to start to bring in more females in their departments and then create leadership paths and a culture where they can really thrive in technology.

00;05;41;10 - 00;06;07;14
Paula Ratliff 
So we've married those two things together. We do conferences in local communities where tech is a big hub. We do six of them around the United States. Starting in San Francisco all the way to New York. And we do those three get throughout the year to really help both companies and women advocate and ensure that they have an opportunity to find a home where they can thrive in their career.

00;06;07;19 - 00;06;25;26
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. When you talk about, you know, you're doing this, so did the work start so that the 90s, the 2000 that. Yeah. So you think think about and and we're talking about here how you know men can can play a role how dads come into dads podcast. If you're the only woman in the department maybe you're leading the whole department.

00;06;25;26 - 00;06;49;21
Paul Sullivan
Then you have a whole bunch of men reporting to you or, you're putting up to a man. So when you look at it over your decades of experience in the tech space, when, and this is all we'll start off pre 2019, when you think of examples of, of men, of dads, stepping up and doing the right thing by their female employees and helping them to sort of, you know, feel welcome to appreciate the diversity of their knowledge.

00;06;49;26 - 00;06;56;21
Paul Sullivan
What are some of the examples that that stand out of positive things that that men and dads have done? Textbook.

00;06;56;24 - 00;07;19;25
Paula Ratliff 
Yeah, I, I will tell you, I think dads have been they were the first case for CS because they are the first to really understand how hard, their significant other works in the home. And then to see them really executed successfully in the workplace, most of them become advocates for their career success of their counterparts that are female.

00;07;19;27 - 00;07;41;07
Paula Ratliff 
So I can tell you from my own personal experience, most of the forces that sponsored me and helped me along my career journey had very strong wives at home, and they would often say, I don't see how you guys do at all. Like, you know, their Rocket home does everything you know to keep the family going, to keep them organized.

00;07;41;09 - 00;08;09;23
Paula Ratliff 
And even the males that I work for that would often talk about how great their wives were. They were still actively involved at home, but they would admit that the their counterpart did most of the heavy lifting in their in the home. So when they would see these women perform exceptionally well at work, they had a great purview into how hard they were working, both in their parental responsibilities in their home life as well as in the workplace.

00;08;09;25 - 00;08;34;22
Paula Ratliff 
So I think they were the first case verses in recognizing, you know, if it was one woman in their department or multiple women in their department, they had an appreciation for how hard that individual was working after the working hours of the workplace shut down, where they often had the luxury to go home to their spouse. That was a woman, and carrying some of that heavy lifting.

00;08;34;24 - 00;08;54;26
Paula Ratliff 
So I found my earliest sponsors in my career were working dads that had the, you know, luxury of having a wife at home, carrying heavy responsibility and a great appreciation for that responsibility at home, and recognition for what that meant in the workplace and how much of a heavy load they carried.

00;08;55;02 - 00;09;04;11
Paul Sullivan
How did that change, though, as the years went on, like paint a picture of what it might have been like? You know, pre-pandemic 2018, 2019? Yeah.

00;09;04;13 - 00;09;43;06
Paula Ratliff 
I think pre-pandemic we were all running hard, like, I can, in my own personal environment, we all were running at 100 miles an hour. And I think the corporation lost vision of, you know what? That parental responsibility looked like. We really were focused on productivity. And and there, you know, I unfortunately this has been corporate America for probably the last 15 to 25 years where we were so focused on our results that there was very little effort taken to understand their work life balance, the need for work life balance, and the companies that did that.

00;09;43;09 - 00;10;08;25
Paula Ratliff 
It was often lip service, right. The statistic you share around compensation is a great example. Women are certainly underpaid. Working women are underpaid in the tech department significantly, and across the workforce, they're underpaid from a quality of pay. But they're also underappreciated. So we find because so many, of our counterparts are leading organizations that are male.

00;10;08;27 - 00;10;38;15
Paula Ratliff 
Women often don't even get a seat at a table in the tech department. And when they do get a seat at the table, it's almost a courtesy to tell them what's happening. They really don't have a voice when they sit at the table. And I've you know, I hate to say that I was in an industry that was very heavily male dominated, and I found myself the only executive female in the room many times, and I would share great ideas and innovations that would drive business results, and it would fall flat.

00;10;38;15 - 00;11;01;07
Paula Ratliff 
No one would pick up on that idea and get really excited about it. So I tell this story and people always laugh. I found a male counterpart that was a good sponsor advocate for my work, and I would get him really excited about my idea. And I would say, hey, why don't you pitch that the next time we're in our quarterly meeting to see if we if it don't get legs and go anywhere.

00;11;01;07 - 00;11;06;06
Paula Ratliff 
And every time he would take the exact same idea into the business room.

00;11;06;09 - 00;11;11;01
Paul Sullivan
And what do you give you credit for it? What do you give you credit for it afterwards or absolutely not.

00;11;11;03 - 00;11;31;25
Paula Ratliff 
Hey, we can talk about the idea and get everybody super stimulated. And then it would take off. And I loved that story. In the aspect of for me, it validated, oh my gosh, my idea had the, you know, vision that I imagined and it's going to be successful. But the sad thing is that we had I had to find I.

00;11;31;25 - 00;11;45;28
Paul Sullivan
Couldn't get the credit for it. No, it's pretty selfless of you. And you think about it for yourself was that you were putting the company ahead and said, here's this guy, you know, getting all the credit. And if you get all the credit, well, chances are you're going to get a raise. You get a promotion. But it wasn't even his idea.

00;11;45;28 - 00;11;50;21
Paul Sullivan
And this is not like 1960. This is like the 20 tens. Yeah.

00;11;50;22 - 00;12;15;10
Paula Ratliff 
Well yeah. Exactly Paul. And sadly, you know, I was still energized by that. I still it gave me validity, right. That imposter syndrome that women often have in the workplace and feeling that they're not valuable enough, that they're not good enough, they shouldn't be there. And it's a horrible statistic. Like 80 some percent of women have this imposter syndrome at some point throughout their career.

00;12;15;12 - 00;12;36;09
Paula Ratliff 
And I guess you could say I was in a position where if I could pass my idea to somebody else and get validity that, oh my gosh, I do belong at this table. It's a great idea. That was enough to really inspire me to continue and be successful at my job. But that's what's happened even today with women is they undervalue themselves.

00;12;36;09 - 00;13;11;12
Paula Ratliff 
They know they need some flexibility around their parental responsibilities, whether that's the hours that they're working or the flexibility to be in and out. And so they accept that maybe they make a little less money because they need the ability to take care of their family or their elderly parents or whatever that responsibility is. And oftentimes, women, we aren't the first to be as vocal as we should be about, you know, not having equal compensation, about not getting that voice at the table that we deserve because we bring diverse ideas and thought.

00;13;11;14 - 00;13;23;16
Paula Ratliff 
And so we we undervalue ourselves and we undervalue what we can bring to an organization because we need this flexibility and work life balance that's not as essential for our male counterparts.

00;13;23;19 - 00;13;38;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I guess, but I would argue that if the pandemic showed us anything, it's like one we could all work remotely, particularly in something like tech. I mean, replacing somebody is hard. We actually have to be in an operating room in tech remotely. But two, I think it also showed us that, you know, we're wasting an awful lot of time at work.

00;13;38;11 - 00;13;56;09
Paul Sullivan
We were we were yakking it up at the watercooler and whatever we're doing and suddenly, like, we could be as productive or more productive while balancing, you know, terribly stressful. But, you know, we we could figure out, did did the pandemic cause of the rethinking or resetting or let me not put words in your mouth. I mean, what did the pandemic do?

00;13;56;09 - 00;14;03;23
Paul Sullivan
What did the year, the first sort of 18 months, what did it do for, you know, working moms and working dads in? Yeah.

00;14;03;25 - 00;14;29;03
Paula Ratliff 
Well, I think unfortunately you saw over 800,000 women exit the workforce during the pandemic. It was just a disturbing number of women that left the workforce. And I would argue they had to right you even if you had, a balance in your life where you could send your kids to school. Now, the kids were working from home on computers, and you really had to be attentive to ensure that they were getting that work done.

00;14;29;03 - 00;14;56;16
Paula Ratliff 
And you became a co-teacher, quite frankly. And that was too much for women to manage the work. And that and parental responsibilities of their children or elderly care of their parents. So there was a lot of responsibilities that women took on. But I also will say as companies made decisions to downsize, as typically has happened in our history, women were one of the first to be cut from the workforce when jobs were eliminated.

00;14;56;21 - 00;15;21;11
Paula Ratliff 
So it was a compounding problem of women needed this. You know, some women, a large percentage needed this break to be able to take care of their children or parents. And then you had this other, you know, the other dichotomy of downsizing and women were cut. So and they were in industries that were cut the hardest. So you think about the restaurant industry, the hospitality industry.

00;15;21;11 - 00;15;55;22
Paula Ratliff 
A lot of those areas that saw the deepest cuts were very heavily populated by female workers. So you saw, you know, significant impacts to women during the pandemic. But as you said, companies should have learned remote working was fantastic. It was we could do flexibility because when people were working remote, you could track whether working evenings, days, nights, whatever they were working and you would have thought that we would have come back with flexibility as king and with, the ability to hire almost 75 to 85% of all the jobs in a remote environment.

00;15;55;25 - 00;15;59;23
Paula Ratliff 
But in tech, that didn't happen. Maybe. Why, why.

00;15;59;23 - 00;16;01;26
Paul Sullivan
Why do they still want the person in the office? I mean.

00;16;01;28 - 00;16;03;15
Paula Ratliff 
I really wish I had an answer.

00;16;03;15 - 00;16;10;10
Paul Sullivan
Person walk into the computer and the person probably answering a phone saying hey, or answering an email saying, hey, help me out here.

00;16;10;12 - 00;16;31;11
Paula Ratliff 
And when you go anywhere. Yeah. So when you talk to some of the tech leaders, what they're sharing with us is the innovation that comes from being together in an environment, they can get more done. The project type work because their shared responsibility around projects. They feel that that can be more powerful when people are in pods or in groups.

00;16;31;14 - 00;17;04;06
Paula Ratliff 
And some of the biggest tech names invested significant, dollars into building out campuses to attract talent. So I think it's, still to be determined with the job market, the way the market is today, how many companies will stick to that and really, continue to place the value on being in person and how many companies will continue to put some, flexibility and in the scheduling and allow for more flexible workforce and for remote workers.

00;17;04;13 - 00;17;28;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, you talk about men and dads, needing to advocate for flexible hours, the ability to work from home, onsite childcare and equal family leave because, I mean, there's another part of this is that, you know, oftentimes, I mean, women are on the run in this, but oftentimes the man who who wants to take time off to, to to be a better father, to be a better husband, or, you know, is seen as is less committed to work, and that's a thing against him.

00;17;28;08 - 00;17;56;04
Paul Sullivan
But when you look at this now in 2022, we're talking about sort of individuals and individual agencies. But, but we know that individuals can only do so much. I mean, are companies seeing, doing and having these parent friendly policies as is beneficial to retaining their top talent or, or as a perk to their employees? Or is it, you know, kind of retreating to what you said, hey, look, we got these big campuses, we might as well fill them with bodies.

00;17;56;07 - 00;18;33;13
Paula Ratliff 
I think it's a little bit of both. So yes, we are seeing great benefit packages. I have never been so proud of working for and working hard for the tech industry as how I saw the tech industry respond to Rowe versus wage, you know, being turned over. I, was so proud of that group coming forward for reproductive rights and offering travel and and really burdening a lot of expense to offer women reproductive, healthcare in different cities or states, whatever they needed.

00;18;33;15 - 00;18;52;25
Paula Ratliff 
Tech did a great job and was at the forefront of coming out very vocally on what they were going to offer and expand their benefit package. So on that side and that note of it, I think they recognize to be inclusive with a female workforce, they got to offer the right benefit packages to attract, that talent.

00;18;52;27 - 00;19;21;03
Paula Ratliff 
However, I do think that we didn't see as many remote jobs in tech that we'd like to see. There have been commitments to advancing women in tech by a really large tech organizations, and the numbers are staggering how they want to grow their percentage is such an improvement over what we've had in the past, and leadership is the area where we see, you know, overall, women have about 28% of the tech jobs, but they're usually lower jobs.

00;19;21;05 - 00;19;43;17
Paula Ratliff 
And we'd like to see more women in leadership jobs. So many companies have come out and they want to double their numbers, move to 20% female leadership over the next year to three years, which is amazing. But I think it's going to come with some cultural understanding of the flexibility that's required for women to thrive in their careers.

00;19;43;20 - 00;20;06;03
Paula Ratliff 
And often what we see is women get these great opportunities, and then they hope they don't stay with one organization because there's not enough flexibility for them to be successful. They either leave tech and move into a different industry, or they end up going to a more progressive organization, that has better benefits, that are more flexible for women in leadership.

00;20;06;06 - 00;20;32;17
Paula Ratliff 
So I think we're learning. I think the tech industry is understanding what it's going to take. It's just a little bit slower progress than we'd like to see. Because if you look at the women that have been really successful, they've been given the opportunity to have flexibility in their scheduling, their performance, have has given them that opportunity where leadership will kind of look the other way and give them the flexibility.

00;20;32;17 - 00;20;59;24
Paula Ratliff 
It's not necessarily a blanket package that says, hey, we're going to give these benefits equally across our organization, but they certainly do it for their top performers, for us to make an impact and attract women into tech and attract more leaders in tech, we're going to have to be more, public about what the plans look like and how will the flexibility allow for them to have and manage their one life.

00;20;59;24 - 00;21;02;07
Paula Ratliff 
Right. It's not just work life balance anymore.

00;21;02;08 - 00;21;16;03
Paul Sullivan
That's my argument. It's a it's your life and it's how you divide it up. But I think work life balance I've yeah, we all end up using the terminal five. It's a bad term because you have life and then like okay, some part of that life I'm going to be working some part, I'm going to be parenting some part.

00;21;16;03 - 00;21;23;27
Paul Sullivan
I'm going to be, you know, with my spouse or my friend, what have you. And then it's your choice of how you allocate the finite number of hours you have. Yeah.

00;21;23;29 - 00;21;44;19
Paula Ratliff 
And Paul, you know, this, you were you know, you've had a great career. The top performers are going to be top performers regardless of what additional parental responsibilities they take on, because it's typically in their DNA. If you're a top performer, you're going to find a way to make it work. Whether you create your own flexibility or convince your boss to give you the flexibility, get it done.

00;21;44;21 - 00;22;00;07
Paula Ratliff 
They often will keep those top performers. But to draw in new talent and future talent, we're going to have to be more open to having those conversations about what top talent needs if they are a female and burdening additional yeah.

00;22;00;09 - 00;22;23;23
Paul Sullivan
It's also in behavioral finance. What I want is sort of an anchoring bias. You see these top performers and you say, okay, that woman, she was out to do it. Look at her. She's whatever early 50s, great career. But you don't know the full story. And you have those top performers now, future top performers now in their their 20s, and maybe they're having children in their 30s and maybe, you know, husband or wife are having a conversation as to what they want to do.

00;22;23;23 - 00;22;37;23
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, my argument is you don't have to worry about your worst performers because they're not going to leave. You know, nobody wants to hire them. It's that top performing, as you said, something. They leave the industry, they go to a different firm, they finally get promoted, and they say, you know what? You were a jerk all those years.

00;22;37;23 - 00;22;57;25
Paul Sullivan
I don't want to be here anymore. I'm. I'm leaving. And so to me, it does seem very, you know, shortsighted. And so I'll ask you this question. You said, you know, you, for better or worse, you had men, you know, sort of mentoring you in your career. But now that some women have have come up in the ranks, you know, in tech, are they mentoring?

00;22;57;27 - 00;23;13;02
Paul Sullivan
Women in a better way or are they mentoring them in a different way? I'm going to I think this is, you know, probably part and parcel of what you're doing, with women impact tech. But talk to me about how the mentoring has changed or, or how it could change if it has it.

00;23;13;05 - 00;23;55;12
Paula Ratliff 
Now, it's a great question. And you're right. There are there are a few bad eggs. We have heard women who feel, you know, I had to earn my stripes. And so I'm creating and, you know, keeping a culture in my organization where you have to kind of earn the stripes, that's not really what we need to achieve the goals that we have for, you know, improving diversity in, in, in the organizations as women promote in, in their companies, they have to create a, pave a create a path or pave the way so that it's easier for women to advance and that they can appreciate and genuinely give them the opportunities to advance, knowing what they

00;23;55;12 - 00;24;27;29
Paula Ratliff 
had to do and how many hoops they had to jump through, because many of them are unnecessary. So we do create a lot of, keynote speakers and panelists that talk about helping to mentor and pave the way for our females that are starting in the career, in tech so that they don't get burnout and that they believe they can keep that one life balance that's necessary for them to be a great parent and a great employee and be recognized that that we appreciate.

00;24;27;29 - 00;24;51;04
Paula Ratliff 
They can be great parents and great employees and have those very open conversations in their one on ones with leadership. And we talk a lot about the females using empathy in their leadership roles, which we know in business in general, is one of the key drivers that's missing in a lot of leaders and why you have a lot of employees, leading companies.

00;24;51;11 - 00;25;20;21
Paula Ratliff 
So one thing that women can do is continue to use empathy for their fellow women that are coming up behind them, mentor, coach and sponsor, those women along the way in tech for sure. And we give them a platform and, and a network of women to talk to so that they understand it won't be every culture today, but there are many cultures in the, in various industries that are driving tech today.

00;25;20;27 - 00;25;45;26
Paula Ratliff 
And the digital revolution that we're seeing, you're seeing great tech jobs in companies that aren't your traditional tech companies, but companies like Chewy's and companies like Bed Bath and Beyond that are really expanding. Carvana, you know, companies that are really expanding their tech departments, where women can be at the forefront because they're great consumers of products. You know, that's one thing women know how to do.

00;25;45;26 - 00;26;16;29
Paula Ratliff 
We know how to shop. And so if we can enter the tech force in areas where we're seeing great opportunity and women can take leadership roles right away, I think that's will help, advanced women in this space much faster than what we've seen in the past. And I was thrilled. We women in tech, we did our inaugural first year of honoring 100 companies that we're not just talking the talk about what to do for equity and inclusion for women in the workplace.

00;26;16;29 - 00;26;42;09
Paula Ratliff 
But these organizations were truly walking the walk. We checked very public areas for women and underrepresented communities to give feedback on what they thought about their culture, and we chose and what they were investing for diversity, chief diversity officers and leaders in diversity. And of that 100, it wasn't just your typical 100 tech companies, it was companies like Chewy's and Bed Bath and Beyond.

00;26;42;09 - 00;26;56;00
Paula Ratliff 
And, you know, great companies that we don't always think of. First and foremost, when we think of tech, that there are opportunities for women that are endless in cultures that have made great investment for equity and inclusion for women.

00;26;56;02 - 00;27;03;01
Paul Sullivan
Well, I think that those companies I think, you know, Carvana obviously knew and Chewy's two of you mean like the pets.

00;27;03;08 - 00;27;04;06
Paula Ratliff 
Play.

00;27;04;09 - 00;27;23;27
Paul Sullivan
I got dogs. And so, yeah, I understand that it's it's basically online a bed bath and beyond. You know who knows is going to happen those gigantic brick and mortar stores, however you're going online, you're buying. So is it easier, though for the newer companies without this legacy, without this history to say, hey, you know what?

00;27;23;29 - 00;27;43;02
Paul Sullivan
This is how we're going to do. We're going to be more inclusive. We're going to realize that people have one life. We're going to try to get the best employees we can, and we got to give a little. We'll get more on that. Is it easier for those, newer companies or a bed Bath and Beyond, case IT companies in transition than it is for a set of legacy companies where things have been chugging along fine.

00;27;43;05 - 00;28;09;22
Paula Ratliff 
Easier. I don't know that it's easier, but it certainly may come with less controversy from top leadership. Right. So top leadership have done things one way. They've grown their business in tech, fairly successful. They've been very open minded and innovative in a lot of areas. This is just an area where we need them to continue to focus and drive and take more of a leadership for other tech companies to follow.

00;28;09;24 - 00;28;45;28
Paul Sullivan
Okay. Great. Paula, out of this been a wonderful conversation. Thank you. I always get the last, question to the to the to the interviewee. And I want to ask you this and give you the last word. And that is, if you look at, you know, companies out there that, you know, want to do better or not doing better, if you could tell them, you know, three things that they could do to help, you know, working moms and dads, you know, who are working, can you tell them, you know, three things that they could do to make it easier for those people to continue working in tech and still be productive?

00;28;46;00 - 00;28;47;25
Paul Sullivan
But what would those things be?

00;28;47;27 - 00;29;13;29
Paula Ratliff 
The first thing would be flexibility. Allow flexibility. Trust that if you are flexible, not just with whether you're remote or in office, that flexibility and hours, flexibility and their, ability to get the work done and set goals for what needs to be accomplished and allow, your female employees to achieve that goal on their flexible time. That would be the number one thing.

00;29;13;29 - 00;29;36;02
Paula Ratliff 
I think you would be amazed at what women will accomplish for you when you give them complete flexibility in their scheduling, and they're doing it anyway, whether they're telling you or getting it done. We are working the hours needed to be, successful. So if that means we put our kids to bed and work 2 or 3 more hours in the evening, we're getting we're doing it anyway.

00;29;36;05 - 00;30;01;24
Paula Ratliff 
So, celebrate that. So offer the flexibility and celebrate the flexibility. The second thing would be create a culture where you are giving them a voice at the table. They women will bring the most innovative ideas, diverse thinking to your leadership group, diverse thinking to your boards. If you haven't got females on your boards, I encourage you to do that because it will drive diverse thinking.

00;30;01;24 - 00;30;29;01
Paula Ratliff 
It will provide you an opportunity to mirror the market that you're selling your products and goods and services too. If you don't have a female voice at the table, you're missing an opportunity to be more profitable as an organization. And then the third thing I would say is create a culture where you celebrate, where you celebrate successes for women that are actually advancing their career and doing a one life.

00;30;29;03 - 00;30;47;28
Paula Ratliff 
Because it's hard. It's definitely a lot to take on and be a great parent, a great mom, and also be a great employee. But a lot of women are doing it and, they aren't celebrated enough. So I would say celebrate it and create a culture where they can feel celebrated and respected and valued.

00;30;48;01 - 00;30;55;28
Paul Sullivan
There's been great. Thank you again to Paula Crowther, Kentucky colonel and president of Women Impact Tech.

00;30;56;01 - 00;30;56;26
Paula Ratliff 
Thank you, Paul.