‘Clearing the path’ towards inclusion

A career in STEM and IP felt like a natural fit  for Gillian Taylor from Reddie & Grose, until she realised that, as a woman, she was part of a small minority in the patent profession.

Most of us will understand the literal meaning of the word inclusion, but I’ve tried to gain a bit more insight into what it really means in the context of the workplace.

I found a definition online which I thought was helpful: “Inclusion is the culture in which a mix of people can come to work, feel comfortable and confident to be themselves and work in a way that suits them and delivers your business or service needs. Inclusion will ensure that everyone feels valued and, importantly, adds value.”

What I like about this definition is that it frames it as a bit of a win-win where the value flows in both directions.

Based on this, the concept of inclusion in relation to women is really about how we can provide a working environment that enables women to feel included by being listened to, valued and respected. How can we create a workplace where stereotypes are challenged and where women can be given fair opportunities? How can we empower women to get involved in the decision-making within a business and to have the confidence to step up into leadership roles, so that we can continue to build diversity at the senior level?

Developing workplace inclusion can be challenging—not least because everyone is different and different things are important to them. It’s crucial to have the right policies and working practices in place but I think what we are recognising at R&G is that it’s equally important to foster inclusion through creating the right culture and values. We need to increase education and awareness of the differences between all of us and maybe think a bit more deeply about how best to support people in their jobs and careers, in light of these differences.

A natural path

As for myself, I think science is probably in my blood. My mother was the first in her family to go to university, where she studied biochemistry. She also went on to get a PhD and was the first ever female postgraduate student at her college in Cambridge.

There was never a real lightbulb moment for me, it just felt like a very natural path to choose.

However, when I joined the IP profession back in 2003 it was very male-dominated. In fact, around the millennium, I believe 80% of people joining the profession were male. It has improved a lot since then but it’s certainly not balanced yet, particularly in patents. And this really isn’t surprising when you consider the male to female ratios in many of the university courses that we recruit from such as physics and engineering. It’s difficult to achieve balance in the recruitment process, when the pool from which people are being recruited is itself so unbalanced.

The root of the problem

So, one of the main challenges facing the profession is therefore how to get more women into this pool in the first place and this can only really be addressed by getting to the root of the problem, which is that not enough girls are studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects at school and university.

Improved recruitment of bright and talented women is the first step, but then it’s also important to ensure that we can retain these women, so that they can progress in their careers and eventually become leaders and decision makers.

I’m pleased to say that R&G now has a group of trainees which is about 50/50 male to female, but we want to ensure that we are doing enough to make sure that we can keep this balance as those trainees move up through the firm.

One of the things that we are most proud of at R&G is providing a good work/life balance for employees. There is definitely a shared desire to provide flexibility to employees so that they can progress and thrive at work while also devoting time and energy to their family or personal life.

This can be particularly helpful for women, especially those who wish to have children and juggle that with their career. Personally, I have benefited hugely from this culture.

It has been challenging (but rewarding!) to juggle a career with raising three children, but I am very lucky that R&G has been extremely supportive and I have been given enough flexibility to be able to balance my work and family.

And despite three maternity leaves and all the various challenges that go along with being a working mother, I have continued to build a career at R&G and have hopefully cleared the path at least a bit for the women coming in behind me.

I’ve learnt that it’s important to be realistic about how much you can take on and not put unreasonable expectations on yourself.

Inspiring initiatives

While my experience has been positive there’s still more work to be done. We acknowledge that progress within our entire profession can be slow, but as a firm, we are continually looking at how we can improve to ‘inspire inclusion’.

We hold an active membership with IP Inclusive and the firm is a signatory of the IP Inclusive Charter. The organisation aims to promote equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing throughout the UK’s IP professions. A number of us are members of the subgroup ‘Women in IP’, which is a community that tackles specific issues that women face in the IP profession providing support and networking for existing members and the next generation.

As a firm, we really try to prioritise personal and family values with a range of family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and paternity, shared parental and adoption leave all of which are regularly under review.

R&G also has a particularly generous flexible working policy and we are very well set up for hybrid working. This freedom of choice, undoubtedly, improves quality of life and work whilst the acceptance of remote working helps remove barriers for inclusion.

Finally, our entire organisation has participated in an in-depth values project that allowed us to understand our culture and decide what we want to work toward. One of the many positive outcomes is our recently assembled equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging committee who will play a pivotal role in reviewing and advancing our diversity and inclusion strategy.

While progress has been made, we need to keep striving to find ways to make the profession more inclusive, particularly at a senior level.

Gillian Taylor is a partner at Reddie & Grose