As part of Assent’s mission to champion the consultancy industry, Jess from Assent Risk Management has been interviewing experts from all sectors of the consulting profession. In this interview, she discusses women and parents in ISO Standards Consulting with Zoe Bowles from Agar and Bowles Limited.
How was your experience entering the consultancy industry as a woman, especially considering it is a male-dominated industry?
Consultancy with ISO’s, can be almost any industry that can get involved. But I work a lot in the manufacturing and construction industry, which in itself is also a male-dominated industry. It’s interesting, I can be the only female that my clients see from one visit to the next. So it’s very male-dominated and I think you’ve got to be a very certain type of woman to be able to keep going in that industry.
I used to work for somebody who told me that he would like me to come along to a client because “a bit of skirt would do us a favour”
I used to work for somebody who told me that he would like me to come along to a client because “a bit of skirt would do us a favour”, which was quite insulting. Even more so, I was taken along to do the filing. I’m surprised I wasn’t asked to make the tea. The stigma is still out there and this was not four years ago, so quite recent, really. The two industries together, you’ve got the manufacturing side, you’ve got the consulting side and I think there’s still this very typical image of a consultant. An older man, suit, tie, briefcase it’s still very much out there, but I’d like to say that it is improving.
I think industries are slower, potentially, with manufacturing and construction, but it is getting better, which is really encouraging. But you do still hear a lot of little quips. I’ve got a client that I go to, they’re very good, they’ve got lots of women who are working for them. But one of their sites, as I entered, I was told, sorry, this is very much a man’s world. The kitchen, the toilet facilities. I was pretty much told, this is what you’re walking into. From the outset, I think people look at you differently. You’re not a consultant, you’re a woman. In some situations, they don’t see the job role, they see you as a woman and it’s almost like sometimes that barrier can be put up before you’ve even walked through the door.
I think there’s been a massive culture change there where people don’t see your family or your children as an inconvenience, they’re just part of who you are
How has the consultancy industry changed and how has your experience changed throughout the years?
So I’ve been doing this for just over ten years, previously in a local government organisation, and then more recently, through different consultancies and my own. I’d say we’re starting to see more females. But until I started working in collaboration with people, like I said, I didn’t know very many other female auditors. In fact, the only other one that I knew is now my business partner. We banded together, safety in numbers, right? But even from a certification body perspective, we don’t work with any female certification body auditors. So from a lead auditing perspective, I can probably count on less than a hand how many female certification auditors I’ve met over the ten year period. I think, in fact, I’ve probably only done maybe two or three audits with a female lead on the audit team, so we’re still in very short supply. It would be really nice to see some more, especially that level of certification body coming through and seeing that experience as well.
In a lot of other industries, things have changed and for some reason, this one just seems to be taking a little bit longer. The industries that I’m working in, obviously, as certification auditors do come with that background experience, it’s not been that long since women have started to be accepted in manufacturing and construction on a grander scale, so perhaps that’s the reason why.
What challenges have you faced since being a mother and working as an ISO consultant?
I would say different pre-pandemic, there would be a lot of frowns. What do you mean? You’re not going to get here till 09:30 in the morning because you’ve got to do a school run. I’ve had times when my children have been unwell at school and I’ve had to go and pick them up early. And I think pre-pandemic, there was a lot more frowning going on around ‘your children come before your work’, what’s going on? And especially, I think, because being a female in that situation, I am typically speaking, the primary parent for our kids. My husband is a shift worker in the London fire brigade, so it’s difficult for him to down tools and go and pick the children up if he’s on shift. It’s not quite the same. But I think post-pandemic, things have changed. People are a lot more accepting that we have families and we have lives outside of our jobs. I think there’s been a massive culture change there where people don’t see your family or your children as an inconvenience, they’re just part of who you are.
It’s definitely a little bit more forgiving when you’re having a remote call session and maybe one of the children shouts in the background and it’s no longer frowned upon. People will actually ask questions, have you got children? And people are human and they’re allowed to be human now. I think beforehand you had to have two personas. There was the work you and then there was the family you, and they should be separate, whereas now I think there is more acceptance of that being blended.
And people are human and they’re allowed to be human now.
So how is being a mother and working as an ISO consultant a benefit?
Huge. It’s been really good. I can pick and choose where I go on a particular day. I can organise my longer distance clients when my husband’s around for school pick ups. It’s a really flexible position to be working in, really, because I can control my workload if I’m planning correctly, I know that I can fit everything in. If I’m writing up a report at 10:00 at night, no one cares, because I don’t need to engage with anybody else to finish up my write-up. So long as everything gets done. I can work really flexibly around my children and around the business, which is really nice. And I don’t think many people have that opportunity to say that, which I would say is a huge benefit of working in the ISO consultancy world. So long as you’re good with your planning, it can work for everybody.
Becoming a mum, you gain so many transferable skills, what are some of the transferable skills you have from being a Mum?
When I had one child, it was my negotiation skills. Do you want to wear the red coat or the blue coat? But [the] underlying point is you’re going to wear a coat. But then I had my second child and it was more about conflict management as their personalities grow and one of them has to be in charge and they can’t just play together amicably, there’s got to be a leader. And all those skills do come into the work world, especially with what I do. And for work, it’s negotiation all the time. It’s being able to sell the benefits to somebody that maybe isn’t quite on the same page as you to begin with. Or whether it’s managing that conflict within an audit situation where you’ve got a lead auditor who has an opinion that maybe it’s not quite within the scope of the audit. It’s being able to manage your lead auditors but also your client and making sure that at the end of it everybody’s happy.
So what can be done to make it easier for people with parental responsibilities in the ISO industry?
I think it’s just that having your eyes open, understanding that it wasn’t planned in time. If a hiccup happened, a hiccup happened. It might not have been the plan for the day but it’s about being able to adapt to that situation. I don’t think it’s ever on a parent’s plan that I’m going to be interrupted at half eleven because my child’s vomited on the playground. It’s just one of those things that comes up and I think not to be judged in those situations of ‘oh, you’ve got to go again because of the kids’. It doesn’t happen often and most of the time I’d like to think that our childcare goes to plan or we don’t get a call from school. But it’s just that lack of judgement that really makes you feel like it’s okay to do what you need to do and it’s not that you’re not committed, it’s just another part of you that sometimes has to take precedence.
it’s just that lack of judgement that really makes you feel like it’s okay to do what you need to do and it’s not that you’re not committed.
What advice would you give to women and parents thinking about entering the consulting world?
I think having the ability not to take things personally is really important. Sometimes I’ll get looked at like ‘that’s just your opinion’, like my opinion doesn’t matter in the situation. A lot of the clients that I work with, their top management are all men and that’s fine. But sitting there as the only female in that room and sometimes telling them they need to make [a] change because otherwise they’re just not going to meet the requirements of the standard is not always well received. And there are those that are very embracing of what you have to say, they actually value what you’re there to do but I think it’s being able to handle rejection and I think that goes for everybody. Not everyone is going to like what you say.
I think when it comes to children and being a mother. Just look at the benefits. Myself and Lauren, we’ve both built our work around the family atmosphere. It’s very much children orientated and I think so long as you can be accepting that you might work a longer day but actually you could take time out at 03:00 to go and pick the kids up. You can always be there for the school plays and it’s fantastic. And the work-life balance for us is just incredible.
Being able to find that balance between sort of not missing out [on] your kids growing up because it does go so fast, but also being able to then enjoy your career at the same time, I think it’s pretty it can be really rewarding. And I mean, especially over the last couple of years of the Pandemic, a lot of plans, especially with the schools, have been quite last minute because they didn’t know whether Sports Day could go ahead or whether the Christmas carol concert could happen or not. And I think being able to park the work for a couple of hours and just pop out and be there for the kids because there’s nothing worse than the kids looking for you in the audience and you’re not there. And I think over the years, especially when I was younger, a lot of parents missed a lot and I think because the world has changed in regards to working and the attitude, remote working, blended working, I think it does allow a lot of working parents the flexibility to just be there more for their children which can only have benefits.
Being able to find that balance between sort of not missing out [on] your kids growing up because it does go so fast, but also being able to then enjoy your career at the same time, I think it’s pretty it can be really rewarding
Thank you to Zoe for taking time out of your busy schedule to give us some insight into being a woman and mother working in the consultancy world!
We would love to hear your experiences, contact us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or comment below!
