FOCUS / WOMEN IN GAMING
p and promote women progressing into senior
management roles, with the likes of head of
enterprise and platform delivery Amanda
Burrows and head of investor relations
Lyndsay Wright assuming senior positions
within the firm.
In addition, the operator is currently the
only gaming business to have signed up to
the UK government’s voluntary initiative
Think, Act, Report, which is aimed at
improving gender equality in the workplace
through the sharing of ideas across a wide
variety of industries.
“Ralph led a very strong drive to see
women climb the ladder into more senior
roles,” Miller says. “He recognised, and the
HR team recognised, that there wasn’t a
very supportive environment around the
development of women.
“Ralph was very clear that he liked the
distinct differences between male and
female opinions and that if you sat in a room
mixed with men and women you would get
a better balance of opinions than just getting
one view,” she adds.
One of William Hill’s many initiatives is a
programme called Springboard, which sees
as many as 40 women from right across the
business enrol in a four-month long course
aimed at encouraging women to grow their
careers, with a focus on how best to adopt
the right work/life balance.
“It is quite hard to step up into a maledominated environment,” Miller says. “I know
when I started I sometimes found it difficult
to be in a meeting with eight other people
where I am the only female, and Springboard
helps with the development of women in
junior management roles,” she adds.
LADBROKES’ SURVEY
It’s not just William Hill banging the drum for
gender equality, Ladbrokes has also begun
a programme aimed at addressing the issue
and understanding the reasons why women
are seemingly under represented in the more
senior roles in the business.
“I think having a gender balance brings
great benefits because you are bringing
in differing personalities and attributes,”
Sarah Mills-Woods, head of learning,
development and talent at Ladbrokes, says.
“From our perspective, we are developing
our talent pool as we want all the different
representations in our talent pool to
represent our business,” she adds.
The gender split of staff at Ladbrokes
at the last count was 55% female and 45%
male – although these percentages include
its retail division. However, when taking only
management roles into account, females
were outnumbered with just 30% of women
holding managerial positions.
Mills-Woods says it was this statistic that
encouraged the firm to set up a working
74
“ALTHO UGH WE HAD A REALLY GOOD SPLIT LOWER DOWN THE
MA NA GE ME NT GR AD
E, HI GH ER UP TH E MA
NA GE ME NT GR AD E
S,
LE DO MI NA TE D” SAR AH MILL S-W OOD
IT BE CA ME A LO T MO RE MA
LAD BRO KES
p group called Females in Leadership (FIL). FIL recently carried
N U M B ER S
13%
THE PERCENTAGE
OF WOMEN
ON BOARDS
OF LONDONLISTED EGAMING
OPERATORS
17%
THE PERCENTAGE
OF WOMEN ON
FTSE250 BOARDS IN
2014, ACCORDING
TO BOARDWATCH
out an in-depth survey among all staff to find out why,
despite having a workforce with a majority of women, less
than a third of management roles were filled by females.
“Although we had a really good split lower down the
management grade, the higher up the management grade
it became a lot more male dominated,” Mills-Woods says.
“What we wanted to do with the survey was to identify
the themes and to find out why those stats were as they
were,” she adds.
Ladbrokes teamed up with The Prince’s Trust charity
Opportunity Now, which itself conducted a major survey
around the subject of female equality in the workplace, to
help the operator devise its own set of questions. The results
of the survey have since been passed on to a steering group
which will decide what actions should be taken to address
the issue.
“We had the results presented to the steering group last
month so the action we take will be determined by them,”
Mills-Woods says. “What we are trying to do with FIL is to
find out if there are any barriers. The biggest thing for us is
to find out what is stopping women from going into these
more senior roles and that’s really what FIL is all about and
how we can then help them progress,” she adds.
Mills-Woods says the initiative has been backed by senior
management who agree that “making some changes in this
area would benefit the business”. Meanwhile, company
chairman Peter Erskine recently gave a talk to the group on
leadership culture.
T O U G H TA S K
Although the aim for some firms will always be to continue
the push towards a more equal gender split, finding true
parity across online gaming businesses may well prove to be
a step too far, particularly in the boardrooms. Sports betting,
as a product, in particular appeals more to males, at least
at the present time, and while that’s the case the available
talent pool will always be larger among males.
“The reality is that this industry in many ways will always
remain more appealing to men than to women and I think
that’s quite a hard thing to overcome and is something we
need to be clear about,” William Hill’s Miller says.
“But generally there is a huge drive to break the glass
ceiling in the UK and move more women up to senior
management and we are trying to adopt that as much as
possible.
“Our recently appointed CEO [James Henderson] is male
but I believe we are driving to a place quite rapidly where
you may well find that we have a CEO who is female, and
that is a tremendous step in the right direction,” she adds.
W W W. E G R M A G A Z I N E . C O M