Diversity as Strategy: The Case for DEI in Water Operations with Joanne Kay, General Manager for Wastewater Operations at Scottish Water

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange 15-minute podcast in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:11] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark, and my guest today is Joanne Kay, the general manager for wastewater operations at Scottish Water, and we're gonna be talking about diversity in the workplace.
[00:00:21] Piers Clark: Joanne, brilliant to have you with us. Thank you for taking the time.
[00:00:24] Joanne Kay: Hi, Piers. Lovely to see you on this sunny day.
[00:00:28] Piers Clark: Now, we always start by learning a little bit about our podcaster. So, walk me through the potted history of your career. How did you get to be general manager, wastewater ops at Scottish Water?
[00:00:40] Joanne Kay: I went to uni and studied environmental sciences and biology. My passion was always about environmental protection, then that took me to my first job as a water sampler for one of Scottish Water's predecessors, East of Scotland Water.
[00:00:56] Joanne Kay: And through time and restructures, I became a process scientist, which is where I discovered my love of wastewater. Did the science role for 13 years, and then through there progressed into climate change strategy planning, and then back into operations, which I think is where my heart always lies, to regional manager and then general manager, which I took on during COVID, which was a very interesting time.
[00:01:25] Piers Clark: I bet. And you made reference to the fact that back then, there was a north of Scotland, east of Scotland, and west of Scotland. There wasn't a south of Scotland Scottish Water.
[00:01:35] Piers Clark: And you've been with the organization all that time. Now let's talk about Scottish Water. How many people do you serve? It's obviously the national water and wastewater provider for Scotland, but tell us a bit about Scottish Water.
[00:01:46] Joanne Kay: Scottish Water serve the customers of Scotland. We're still a public authority. Scotland has around 6 million people. We serve both industrial and domestic customers, both water and wastewater services, and that includes all of the islands of Scotland. So, quite a range of geographies and urban and rural communities.
[00:02:08] Piers Clark: And the operational challenges that must come with supplying water and wastewater services to islands, especially islands that have, I assume, populations doubling in the holiday period. Must be quite a challenge.
[00:02:19] Joanne Kay: Transient populations are a real challenge across Scotland. The advent of the North Coast 500 means that all of the north coast is incredibly challenging. Also, the Highlands areas and the islands as well. And sometimes even the cruise ships coming in can significantly charge populations overnight.
[00:02:39] Joanne Kay: So that's difficult to manage, but we've got a team of amazing operators who manage to do that.
[00:02:44] Piers Clark: Excellent. Thank you. Good to know about Scottish Water. So, the topic today is all about gender diversity in the water sector and why it's important. Give me some stats.
What's the gender diversity in the water sector, in particular in Scottish Water?
[00:03:00] Joanne Kay: Gender diversity in the water sector is generally pretty low. Many of our roles are STEM roles, so Science, technology, Engineering, and Maths, which generally don't attract a large proportion of women into it.
[00:03:14] Joanne Kay: So in terms of across Scottish Water, our female population's around 30% across industry. But specifically in operations and my team, it sits lower around about 10%. And that's probably pretty reflective of the industry as a whole.
[00:03:32] Joanne Kay: In terms of the challenge that brings, it means we've got a whole untapped potential of people who could work in our industry who currently don't.
[00:03:42] Joanne Kay: And with 23% retirements approaching us in the next five years, we have a significant challenge in the sustainability of operations, and I believe that Diversity , Equity, and Inclusion, DEI, is an opportunity for us as a strategy to address some of those gaps.
[00:04:03] Piers Clark: All right. Well, before we come to the benefits of, of course, bringing more diverse thinking, more gender equality into the industry, and why that's beneficial, I just wanna go back a bit.
[00:04:14] Piers Clark: It sounded like you were attributing the imbalance to the fact that a lot of the roles that we have in the water sector are STEM-based, and many girls don't choose STEM-based subjects.
[00:04:25] Piers Clark: Do you think that's the overriding reason why we have the gender imbalance?
[00:04:30] Joanne Kay: I think there's other factors as well, and I think there's other factors which we have the opportunity to address.
[00:04:36] Joanne Kay: For example, I lead an operational team, and historically, shift patterns, hours of working, being on call, the expectations of an operational environment generally don't suit most females. Because generally, females are the primary caregivers for both children, but also potentially elderly parents.
[00:04:58] Joanne Kay: And in Scotland, it sits around 80% of caring roles are delivered by women. I think globally it's around 60%. So, I think those factors are also a bit of a barrier for women coming to work in the water industry, and I think that's something that we could very much address.
[00:05:16] Piers Clark: Yeah. And you're holding a senior general manager role in operations. Can you articulate some of the sacrifices that you've had, some of the choices you've had to make that have led to you being in that role, whereas other females might not have been able to make?
[00:05:31] Joanne Kay: I think the workplace is certainly changing a lot since when I started.
[00:05:36] Joanne Kay: For example, when I was coming up through my career, there was only, I think, one or two women who were in senior positions at Scottish Water and only, I think I knew of, one of them had children.
[00:05:51] Joanne Kay: And it felt to me at that time that was a bit of a barrier in the industry. Subsequently, I know that's not true, but it was definitely something that I held as a belief that if I wanted to push through my career in operations that it would be a choice that would have to be made.
I was in the fortunate position that my husband and I work as a team, and we made choices around how we would approach that. But I think the challenge for women can be is that you can't be necessarily what you can't see, and it's really hard to imagine when your role models and examples are displaying one thing, and actually your aspirations for your life, 'cause it's not all about work, are something different.
[00:06:35] Joanne Kay: And I think that's an important distinction. And through my career, often I was the first in some of those roles, so there was nobody to look to.
[00:06:46] Piers Clark: And did you experience any prejudice as you undertook your role?
[00:06:52] Joanne Kay: I think there's been, on occasion, sort of unconscious or a casual sexism, but nothing personally that I felt really held me back. But that's not to say that's not how other people have experienced it or have felt. I always felt like I was made to feel as part of the team.
[00:07:13] Joanne Kay: I think in science engineering type roles I was doing, there was always the need to prove yourself, just because of the types of roles that they were. But I don't think that was gender specific.
[00:07:24] Piers Clark: Excellent. Right. Joanne, inclusion often becomes really only meaningful when it touches our own lives. Has there been an experience that's changed the way you think about support and belonging at work?
[00:07:40] Joanne Kay: Yeah, there's probably one standout experience that shaped my thinking on diversity and inclusion, and it happened quite early in my leadership journey.
[00:07:48] Joanne Kay: I was accepted onto a future leader program, and there was gonna be a launch event by which point I would've been four months pregnant.
[00:07:56] Joanne Kay: And I remember at the time, because I had nobody that I could see who had traveled the path that I wanted to travel, who had been pregnant, and who'd had a family, I wasn't sure how it would be accepted. So in prep for the event, I bought a dress that would hide that I was pregnant and then went along to the event. And when I got there, there was another two women on the program who were also pregnant, and people were openly congratulating them, as you would.
[00:08:27] Joanne Kay: And I remember it was such a pivotal moment because I remember realizing that all my perception of how that would be received was not the reality of the organization. But it was very much my reality because I couldn't see anybody who looked like me on the career path that I wanted to take in operations.
[00:08:50] Joanne Kay: And sadly, between being accepted onto the program and actually going to the launch event, I had a miscarriage. So, I came back to work, it happened between Christmas, and I acted like normal. I only ever at that point told my close colleague that I worked with, 'cause he knew something had happened. He just could tell. But most people who I worked with, and certainly in that room, had no idea what I was going through.
[00:09:17] Joanne Kay: And I think from a DEI perspective, it's such a pivotal moment because it taught me that people draw conclusions from what they can see and what's possible for them. Secondly, inclusion matters because we rarely know what the challenges and the experiences that other people are going through, and that they're carrying with them.
[00:09:39] Joanne Kay: So I think that DEI is ultimately about how do you help people to see themselves? How do you help them belong? And how do you help them succeed in whatever is happening in their lives?
[00:09:54] Piers Clark: Joanne, thank you for sharing that. That's a really important personal story and a really important message.
[00:09:59] Piers Clark: Now, I'd like to move this to a topic that I have absolutely no right to talk about, which is menopause. And the reason I want to bring that up is that I'm married, I love my wife dearly, and she has gone through the menopause.
[00:10:13] Piers Clark: And I've watched her struggle to be taken as seriously as males of a similar age. And it strikes me as an incredible mess that we've got ourselves into of undervaluing women as they enter into their 50s, when they've got 20, 30 years plus of experience.
[00:10:32] Piers Clark: Can I hear your perspective on that?
[00:10:35] Joanne Kay: Interesting. I was having a conversation with one of my friends about this topic just at the weekend, and how frustrating it is at the peak of your career, you then hit the menopause or perimenopause and all the wonderful things that brings brain fog, the night sweats, anxiety, and just what a challenge it is trying to deal with that.
[00:11:00] Joanne Kay: There's a really interesting TED Talk by a New York neuroscientist around the very real impact that menopause has on women's brains. And the research gap that there is into it, because of the scares over breast cancer and HRT and the pause on women getting access to that for quite a long time, but also correspondingly, a pause in research into it.
[00:11:29] Joanne Kay: And so for many women, they suffered for a long time, and it's only now I think that the conversation is starting to resurface significantly. Access to treatment, I think you have to push for. You have to push for tests to understand your hormone levels so you get something that's specific and right for you as well. And I think a lot of women battle with that, which is really challenging when you're also perimenopausal.
[00:11:57] Piers Clark: These are situations that could be better managed by employers adapting their office and working environment to ensure they get the best from these individuals who are at the peak of their career in terms of experience and knowledge. It feels like an end goal that we need to address, and hopefully the more we can talk about it, the more people in power will address it.
[00:12:20] Joanne Kay: Absolutely. And can recognize that overnight, suddenly, I might forget the odd word or two, but I didn't become less capable.
[00:12:29] Piers Clark: This is just part of the beautiful process of getting older and wiser.
[00:12:33] Joanne Kay: Getting older, yes.
[00:12:34] Piers Clark: Excellent. Right.
At the very beginning of this, you were talking about the importance of diversity to address some of the challenges we have in the workforce. Let's bring it back to that.
[00:12:44] Piers Clark: Walk me through that vision you've got of why gender diversity, DEI, is so important to address that workforce challenge.
[00:12:53] Joanne Kay: So for me, there's a huge amount of untapped potential that we have in our societies and our communities. That, one, better represent the communities that we serve, but also have the potential to help us address what is fundamentally a bit of a cliff edge that the water industry's facing.
[00:13:11] Joanne Kay: So we've got large numbers and groups of very talented and knowledgeable people about to retire from our industry. We have an untapped group of women out there that if we started to look at how we approach operations more flexibly, offering more flexible shift patterns that better suited society today, that could come and work in our industry and to build that sustainability.
We also have the changing face of expectations from generational differences and expectations of the workforce. For example, Millennials and Gen Zs expect more flexibility from the jobs that they do. They expect it to address their personal purpose much more so. And these are all well-trailed studies by companies like Deloitte.
[00:14:03] Joanne Kay: But that's important, because we have a legacy organization that we want to sustain. I only hold this role for but a moment before I hand it on to that next generation. And if the next generation isn't there to pick up the baton, or we've not recognized their expectations, then it's not gonna be sustainable.
[00:14:24] Joanne Kay: And we have to start thinking about it now, because there's plenty of signs to see this is where things are going. And I think diversity of that workforce and the offerings that we offer is one of the potential solutions to that.
[00:14:40] Joanne Kay: So it's not just about DEI, it's actually about a strategy for addressing the sustainability of the water industry.
[00:14:50] Piers Clark: Love it. Well said. I couldn't agree more.
[00:14:53] Piers Clark: Unfortunately, we're running out of time, and we always finish with a bit of a personal question. When did you last cry and why?
[00:15:00] Joanne Kay: I last cried at an Alanis Morissette gig which was just on Tuesday past. And interestingly, this topic that we're talking about forms part of her stage set around gender equality, around women. And she was singing a song which I love, and it just made me well up, and I had to pretend that I wasn't crying.
[00:15:26] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, Piers Clark, and my guest today has been Joanne Kay, the General Manager for wastewater operations at Scottish Water, and we have been talking about DEI in the water sector.
[00:15:40] Piers Clark: Thank you to our sponsors, and until next time, keep asking questions, keep sharing, and keep safe.