Creating a more inclusive environment for LGBT cyber talent

For peo­ple from many tra­di­tion­al­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed back­grounds, dis­crim­i­na­tion and lack of inclu­sion can make work­ing in the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty indus­try chal­leng­ing, and this is reflect­ed in the rel­a­tive­ly low per­cent­age of women and eth­nic minor­i­ty work­ers in the sec­tor. Yet, a report pub­lished by KPMG and the Nation­al Cyber Secu­ri­ty Cen­tre revealed that 10% of cyber pro­fes­sion­als iden­ti­fied as les­bian, gay or bisex­u­al (LGB), far high­er than the nation­al aver­age of 2.2% report­ed in 2018. 

There is no sim­ple expla­na­tion for this, but Berke­ley Wilde, exec­u­tive direc­tor of diver­si­ty and inclu­sion con­sul­tan­cy The Diver­si­ty Trust, believes that LGBT peo­ple are drawn to the cyber indus­try “because they know oth­er mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ty work in the sec­tor. The dis­con­nect is in know­ing that the sec­tor attracts oth­er LGBT peo­ple, yet dis­crim­i­na­tion still occurs.” Diver­si­ty and inclu­sion, it seems, don’t go hand in hand.

The KPMG report bears this out, with 15% of gay and les­bian and 29% of trans­gen­der respon­dents say­ing they have expe­ri­enced dis­crim­i­na­tion at work; this can include anti-LGBT lan­guage and being mis­gen­dered or exclud­ed from social events. So what prac­ti­cal steps can organ­i­sa­tions take to make their work­places a safe space to be open­ly LGBT?

Wilde believes the first step is to assess organ­i­sa­tion­al pol­i­cy. “For exam­ple, it’s impor­tant to make sure mater­ni­ty and pater­ni­ty leave are inclu­sive of LGBT peo­ple. All poli­cies need to be very explic­it­ly inclu­sive of trans peo­ple and cov­er same-sex rela­tion­ships,” he adds. 

Reassess­ing recruit­ment and reten­tion process­es is also impor­tant. This can mean using rep­re­sen­ta­tive inter­view pan­els, includ­ing LGBT staff mem­bers wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. Con­duct­ing exit sur­veys with LGBT employ­ees can also pro­vide valu­able insights.

Acknowl­edg­ing and cel­e­brat­ing events like Pride Month and the Inter­na­tion­al Day Against Homo­pho­bia, Bipho­bia and Trans­pho­bia can also make LGBT work­ers feel more com­fort­able and sup­port­ed. How­ev­er, it’s cru­cial that these ini­tia­tives are not rel­e­gat­ed to a sin­gle month, but instead cel­e­brat­ed through­out the year and accom­pa­nied by staff train­ing.

Cyber skills gap 

Retain­ing a high­ly skilled and diverse work­force is essen­tial in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, espe­cial­ly as the indus­try con­tin­ues to face an unprece­dent­ed skills gap of around 3 mil­lion qual­i­fied work­ers, with 64% of pro­fes­sion­als say­ing their organ­i­sa­tion has been affect­ed by this short­age. 

The 2020 (ISC)² Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Work­force Study high­lights the busi­ness need to ensure LGBT staff feel com­fort­able and secure in their jobs. Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty busi­ness­es that fail to address the chal­lenges faced by LGBT employ­ees stand to lose out in the com­pe­ti­tion for tal­ent, as offen­sive com­ments and dis­crim­i­na­tion dri­ve high-qual­i­ty tal­ent to oth­er indus­tries where the envi­ron­ment is more inclu­sive.

Rebec­ca Fox, founder of dig­i­tal and tech­nol­o­gy con­sul­tan­cy Gray Blue, has expe­ri­enced both homo­pho­bia and sex­ism dur­ing her time in the tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor, and under­stands the dif­fer­ence a sup­port­ive cul­ture can make.

“I came out in my late 20s, in an organ­i­sa­tion where it was rel­a­tive­ly safe to be open about your sex­u­al­i­ty,” she says. Cre­at­ing ‘safe spaces’ at work for LGBT peo­ple requires busi­ness­es to improve their inter­nal process­es and poli­cies, but it doesn’t need to be com­pli­cat­ed. For mem­bers of the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty, a ‘safe space’ can sim­ply mean being treat­ed with respect and feel­ing accept­ed and com­fort­able dis­cussing their per­son­al lives with­out judg­ment.

Role models and representation 

The abil­i­ty of pos­i­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion to empow­er LGBT staff and attract prospec­tive employ­ees should not be under­val­ued. “When you’re in an organ­i­sa­tion where you see a role mod­el like you, you’re inclined to stay. You’re not the token LGBT per­son or token woman, you’re just includ­ed,” says Fox. “Many com­pa­nies have a ‘cook­ie-cut­ter’ view of what a per­son in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty is – and it isn’t inclu­sive. It goes with­out say­ing that hav­ing a diverse work­force can bet­ter reflect your cus­tomer base.”

Encouraging employee confidence 

A 2020 report from McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny titled LGBTQ+ Voic­es: Learn­ing from Lived Expe­ri­ences revealed that while 80% of senior lead­ers were ‘out’ at work, only 32% of junior employ­ees felt com­fort­able being open about their sex­u­al­i­ty.

“What this tells me is the more you progress in your career, the more com­fort­able and con­fi­dent you become about being open about your sex­u­al­i­ty,” explains Bel­ton Flournoy, direc­tor at tech­nol­o­gy con­sult­ing prac­tice Pro­tiv­i­ti and co-founder of its UK LGBT+ group. “A con­sis­tent thing you find across many LGBT peo­ple, includ­ing myself before I came out, is a lack of con­fi­dence.”

Con­stant­ly polic­ing your actions to avoid ‘out­ing’ your­self is com­mon among younger cyber staff and often results in them avoid­ing draw­ing atten­tion to them­selves. “You spend so much ener­gy mak­ing sure you say the right things, you tend to hurt the jour­ney to build ‘authen­tic rela­tion­ships’ and be less real with peo­ple,” explains Flournoy. “When I stopped hav­ing to lie, all of a sud­den I formed new rela­tion­ships with most of the peo­ple I worked with because I could be myself,” he explains. And, cru­cial­ly, from a busi­ness per­spec­tive, if employ­ees are using their ener­gy to hide ele­ments of their iden­ti­ty, employ­ers aren’t get­ting their best. “When I ful­ly came out of the clos­et, my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty shot through the roof, all my brain­pow­er was focused on help­ing my clients get the best solu­tion, and I wished I could tell oth­ers to try to get there soon­er.

Tracking diversity data 

Accord­ing to Flournoy, every firm would ben­e­fit from record­ing issues around con­fi­dence lev­els at work. “If we’re look­ing to dri­ve mean­ing­ful change with­in our organ­i­sa­tions, we need to ensure we’re track­ing the right infor­ma­tion and data.” Pro­tiv­i­ti typ­i­cal­ly reports on diver­si­ty across the organ­i­sa­tion, includ­ing lead­er­ship posi­tions, and shares results at its ‘all-employ­ee’ meet­ings. “This con­tin­ued trans­paren­cy is what allows the firm to see where we can come togeth­er to improve gen­der and racial diver­si­ty at all lev­els,” adds Flournoy.

By using diver­si­ty data, organ­i­sa­tions can spot where they are suc­ceed­ing or fail­ing when it comes to mak­ing LGBT employ­ees feel a val­ued part of the com­pa­ny. This is the best pos­si­ble first step towards build­ing a more inclu­sive cul­ture that both attracts and retains vital tal­ent.