Women in Tech, Part II: One year into COVID

Authors: Marguerite Thévenin-Viallet & Andrea Zhu

This is the second installment of a three-part series on women in technology (WiT). Be sure to check out:

• Women in Tech, Part I: Building and sustaining diverse teams
• Women in Tech, Part III: Breaking through to a way forward

The first installment launched on International Women’s Day and the series will span the course of Women’s Herstory Month. It is conceived and written as a virtual, asynchronous conversation around women in tech: members of the SSENSE tech community came together in a Slack channel used as a makeshift salon to share their voices, experiences, and advice.

Turns out a conversation about women in tech is a conversation about so much more. The discussion touched on teamship, career progression, learning, recruitment, parenthood, and allyship.

On the first anniversary of lockdown, this article focuses on the effects of the pandemic, and how it disproportionately affects women. Product Managers Marguerite and Andrea, lead conversations with some of their colleagues in Product Management and Software Development.

1/ COVID IMPACT

How has COVID impacted your life? Specifically, with the family at home, any differences or difficulties compared to peers in your team Learnings? How/if did SSENSE or your team help to overcome difficulties and lend support?

Sheena, Group Product Manager:

Personally, for me, COVID has had both positive and negative impacts on my family so here they are:

Positives:

1. Reduced travel time — I appreciate the time with my son at the breakfast table, getting in a quick workout, and still being on time for my 9 AM meetings.
2. Taking part in picking up and dropping off my son at daycare. This was my husband’s responsibility before COVID, as I could never make it on time. Lately, I have been able to help at least twice a week.

Difficulties:

The first few months when my son was home was extremely hard (period). I needed focus to be productive and I felt I was constantly juggling. Whether it was presenting projects to a 50+ audience or providing intel to our executive committee, my son walking into those meetings distracted me. In those moments I did learn that I was affected way more than the others with the interruption. However, I am happy that phase passed when daycares re-opened and remain open (fingers crossed).

The lingering difficulties are:

1. Work-life (im)balance: There is a temptation to “close” daily/weekly priorities. This leads to long working hours or the urge to keep working.
2. Coffee chats/personal connections: We end up meeting almost exclusively the same people that impact our work/network. However, it was easy to bond at coffee/lunch or meet new team members while we were in the office.
3. Increase in meetings: The number of meetings has skyrocketed with everyone trying to move priorities working from home.

How my team and SSENSE have supported:

1. Setting priorities/blocking calendar for work and family time. Mostly everyone respected boundaries especially family/daycare pickups.
2. Appreciate the ‘no meeting Wednesdays’ initiative implemented across the company.
3. The community of practices and lunch/drink catch-ups ensured we were still connected to new members

Clemence, Senior Software Developer — Tech Lead:

I built a real team with my kids to be able to go through the first lockdown 2020, they help me with laundry, cleaning the house, tidying up, etc. and they are rewarded with movies and video game time. Before 2020, my kids watched tv only during weekend nights when friends were at home, we forgot the idea of this rule since lockdown… we are slowly going back to less tv but it was a really good time to begin watching cool movies with them.

Nagasrinivas, Senior Product Manager:

COVID caused abrupt changes to our lives. Both my wife and I were working from home. So, the most challenging part was engaging my daughter and inculcating good habits for her.

How did we manage?

First, we acknowledged the effort that it takes to engage my daughter and the reality that neither of us has the skill set to engage effectively. Second, we had tight coordination on who is going to do what and when. Also, we tried to make time to engage my daughter by taking turns.

Here are some of my learning:

• Avoid the feeling of guilt that you are not being as efficient as before. Instead, set the right expectations based on the realities (E.g. taking care of your kids).
• By effectively managing your time and energy, we can do more.
• Daycare or school are very important to a better balance between work and personal life.

How did SSENSE or your team help to overcome and support?

• We had flexibility in work timing. I used to start early, log-out early, and login back late in the evening if need be.
• Blocking family time in the calendar — and importantly — my team members were open-minded with the idea.

Ludovic, Group Product Manager:

On my end, just like many, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. My wife, being an ICU nurse, had to make a tough decision when the pandemic hit last March. She decided that my 3-year-old daughter and I would move in with my in-laws in the country-side until we knew more about the situation in hospitals. Once we came back to Montreal in May, we had to put new routines in place to compensate for the absence of babysitters or grandparent support due to COVID, the long shifts and overtime hours, and the irregular work patterns (day/night/weekends) that were required for my wife while juggling with our 2 busy work schedules.

A few things that have helped:

• Over communicating and building a solid plan/routine (through many iterations, trial and errors… and also using Trello lol) to support one another and make sure the impacts on our daughter were limited.
• Completely shutting down the phone every day for at least 90 minutes for family time — no exceptions (this has made a huge difference in my ability to be fully present with them).
• Daily meditation and exercise — again no exceptions.
• Coffee (lots of…).

2/ WOMEN, KIDS, AND CAREER

Ivana and Sheena, it’s common for parental leave to be a concern when it comes to career progression, yet you have both managed promotions in parallel to taking leave. What has been your experience making this happen?

Sheena, Group Product Manager:

I am happy to learn about others’ experiences because I am sure there is a better way to deal with starting a family.

Starting my response by throwing flowers at individuals who made it easy for me:

1. My husband: I have a super supportive husband who understood how important my career is to me, and offered to explore options like him taking a step back (parental leave) and hiring help to open possibilities.
2. My manager: I have had great managers who accepted this news with open arms and supported me every step of the way. Sara was exceptional!
3. Structure/help/outsource: My husband and I don’t have family around, but have decided to put some systems in place by hiring help and outsourcing some tasks to invest in our sanity and careers.

Concerns in my head:

1. How will this pregnancy impact my career and/or evaluations?
2. How long should I take for maternity leave?
3. Will I forget everything when I come back from maternity leave?

This journey also made me realize the biases I had about pregnancy:

1. 1-year maternity: for some, it could be 3 months and for others, it could be 18 months. This is a personal choice and we are lucky to have this option.
2. Past performance vs. future leave: Evaluations are based on past performance and upcoming maternity leave no matter how long it is does not impact one’s performance.

Here are two articles I recommend:

• We Are Failing Working Mothers. Here’s What Leaders Can Do
• 5 reasons why moms make exceptional leaders in the workplace

Ivana, Senior Product Manager:

One year off is indeed daunting, a lot went through my mind (‘Will I still know what to do?’, ‘Will I still be relevant?’, etc.) and it wasn’t easy to navigate. Ultimately, you’re the one choosing whether to take a full year or not, and either way is OK. I haven’t felt pressure to take less time at SSENSE, but def felt judgment from friends/relatives/coworkers when I mentioned that I wish I had taken a shorter leave…

When preparing for my mat leave, my boss at the time asked me this question, which helped me organize my thoughts when the time came to get back to work: What does it mean for you to have a kid and be working, how will you organize yourself to deliver on both? This prompted me to then figure out what is a ‘must have’ and ‘nice to have’ for me, from both sides of this equation.

Like Sheena, my promotion came just before my mat leave, so it was based on past performance and not impacted by the fact that I was leaving. The key point for me personally, when thinking about the future and how my leave would affect that, was accepting that career progression will be on hold — but career (and personal) development is not: you’re still learning, and I chose to use this time to find the balance that works for me (so that when I’m ready to focus on career progression again, I know what my family balance looks like and where my boundaries are). This is also important to discuss with your manager when you’re back from leave!

Last, but not least, was the support and understanding from my partner. We talked about this at length and he understands that it wasn’t easy for me to put things on hold. He is also very aware and on board with the idea that one day, he might take more on the family side of the balance so I can focus on career progression.

3/ COVID LEADERSHIP

Sara, you took care of homeschooling your twins in a critical year for them (learning how to read), built a whole new domain structure, managed engagement & recruitment in the Product team, lead category expansion for SSENSE and, to top it off, you were promoted to Senior Director in Tech. Could you tell us what this challenging year taught you, and how you were able to achieve all this?

Sara, Senior Director of Product:
Make sure you carve out time each day to focus on what is the most important to you at your core; for me, it’s family, close friends, and being active outdoors — no matter what.

This year taught me the need to prioritize rigorously in both work and non-work life, to communicate clearly, and to be brutally honest and transparent to manage expectations along the way.

I was fortunate enough to work with people I trust, who are smart, humble, and whom I enjoyed spending time with and — to have the support of a boss who also had kids. And yes… lack of sleep…

Overall, what have you learned about yourself regarding managing your time and team under these unique circumstances?

Sara, Senior Director of product:
Lessons learned:

1. Set clear vision and expectations, communicate them to team members, and provide continuous feedback along the way.

2. Ensure to have the right communication channels, meeting types, cadence, and artifacts to support.

3. Coach and empower each PM or GPM to make decisions, take action, raise flags to encourage transparency and visibility (eg. if you don’t tell me about it, how would I know how and when I can support you).

4. Have patience, assume everyone is trying their best, has conflicting priorities, and has their realities to deal with; listen and adapt to each other when possible.

5. Constantly, constantly re-evaluate (daily) what the #1 most important thing to do now/this week/this month… and coach my team members to do the same.

6. Keep me in check.

On this last point, with COVID, I am working more — and yes, working more efficiently as well. Though, the hours are slightly different. I start the workday much earlier (no commute, yeah!) and work much later in the evening. Self-discipline is definitely needed, which I lack at times and where I have an amazing husband who tells me it’s late, it’s time to switch off and helps quite a lot here! Though, 5–8 PM is now fully dedicated to family time, which is a blessing. I didn’t know what I missed by not being home when the kids came back from school, and now I get to know first hand what they did during the day, the ups, the downs and yes, help in their continuous education by spending time with them on their homework. I am lucky to have this time with them.

Marguerite, during last year’s International Women’s Day event, you explicitly chose not to ask our Senior Director of Product, Sara, about her kids; stating that you didn’t want her role as a mom to define her at work. Can you share more about your thinking here?

Marguerite, Senior Product Manager:

Asking about parenting is often one of the first questions that come to mind when interviewing a woman on her career, especially when in a leadership position. Not when interviewing a man.

I have always wondered why (and I know why deep down) we always ask these questions when we do women-focused events. Parenting is a topic that should be addressed on its own. The pandemic highlighted the need for this conversation. As parents became teachers while managing their full-time job, new dynamics were created in the families and at work. All genders’ points of view are relevant here.

At the time, when we organized the panel, Sara was the only parent on the panel. As we chose to ask only 1 to 2 questions per person, we had to prioritize the questions we would ask each one of them. If we had chosen to ask a question about kids, Sara, as the only parent of the group, would have had to take that question. I did not want Sara to be defined by having kids, unless, she explicitly wanted to share her experience as a parent. She has a lot to offer and to teach us on work, leadership, collaboration, prioritization…

During last year’s edition, we ended up discussing parenting during the Q&A and it was a very good conversation.

Andrea, Associate Product Manager:

I loved that you were looking out for other women and so intentional with your question asking. We hold so much power when we choose where to shine a spotlight. Too often there is a discrepancy between what (successful) people are asked based on their genders.

Sara, Senior Director of Product

You are 100% correct Andrea, having power over where we decide to shine the spotlight. Marguerite, you rose to the occasion and lead by example speaking up and questioning the easy route — it’s easy to ask the mom about being in a leadership role and having kids.

When you told me the story, I felt both relieved that you had spoken up and decided to change the conversation to focus on less obvious things, AND quite proud and touched to be working with a group of individuals who think about each other and support one another. We have something special here at SSENSE, to be surrounded by such a kind, smart group of people who believe in each other and are happy for the success of others.

CONCLUSION

Stay tuned for the final installment of this SSENSE-TECH series focused on conversations around Women in Tech. We would like to thank the support of Senior Director of Product Sara, Group Product Managers Sheena and Ludovic, Senior Product Managers Nadja, Ivana, and Nagasrinivas and Senior Software Developer — Tech Lead, Clémence.

Read more about our Women in Tech here:

• Women in Tech, Part I: Building and sustaining diverse teams
• Women in Tech, Part III: Breaking through to a way forward

Concept & Afterword by Andrea Zhu,

Editorial reviews by Deanna Chow, Liela Touré, and Paolo Pazzia.