Empowering women in tech: Lessons from a DWP Digital leader

I’m Head of User Support Services within DWP Digital. In simple terms, if your IT isn’t working, my team is your first protocol to fix it. I have about 450 colleagues in my function, and we support over 90,000 colleagues. I’m also Head of our IT service management profession. We have 1,200 colleagues within DWP Digital who have service management as their profession, I’m responsible for helping build their capability and recruiting the right people, so we work effectively on better outcomes for customers from the IT services we provide.  

How employers and organizations can help build skills and places for women in technology 

I believe you need to focus relentlessly on building skills and places for women in technology. It doesn’t happen by accident. If it’s something you genuinely care about, you must put policies and practices in place to show that you actively care. In other words, don’t pay lip service to gender equality without taking action. 

It’s important to actively make sure you have diverse representation when recruiting, you can’t have a group of people from similar backgrounds doing all the recruitment. We encourage diverse volunteers for interview panels and sifting.  

I admit that, in the past, I wouldn’t take part in a course — or anything — geared just for women. I always felt I was perfectly capable myself. But as I’ve matured, I’ve realized those things are necessary. Now I strongly believe we need to put in place specific support mechanisms and create some safe spaces where women can talk and develop in a different environment than the standard, mixed environment we’ve all become used to. 

How DWP Digital supports women 

The wide range of work we do at DWP Digital requires a diverse mix of cultures, perspectives, experience, skills and ideas. DWP aims to be a wholly inclusive organization, representative of the customers and communities we serve and a place where our people can thrive, no matter their background or circumstance.  

DWP is the UK’s largest government department. We have good policies around equality, such as a benefits package built around a work-life balance, including family-friendly policies such as flexible working. It’s about supporting people with these flexible policies too. We did quite a bit of work around how we can support people returning to the workplace, particularly women who may have had a few years out with childcare responsibilities.  

We have several different initiatives within DWP Digital. We’ve previously ran a program called Digital Voices a few years ago. It’s what it says on the tin, how do they find their voice? We helped the cohorts with coaching and mentoring, organise speakers and providing opportunities to present with a focus on building confidence in their ability. 

I lead our internal Women in Digital network which helps women achieve their ambitions in DWP Digital, it’s a really supportive community. We hold monthly meetings, including fireside chats for colleagues to share their stories and career journeys. We discuss key questions like what are some of the barriers they faced? How have they tackled them? We also run a lot of sessions in the Women in Digital network in coaching and mentoring for example when they’re applying for a job or promotion, we can help them with the way they should articulate themselves.   

We’ve put in place certain leadership programs in the Civil Service, for example the Crossing Thresholds Programme which is a 12-month career mentoring program designed to help women develop their career in a structured and supportive environment.  

We apply for industry awards on the basis that we have achievements we want to celebrate, and we encourage women in DWP Digital to apply for individual recognition or nominate their colleagues. Relevant to this, DWP Digital won the Diversity of Thought in Leadership award at the Digital Leaders 8^th Impact Awards. They were impressed by how strong our commitment is to increase diversity at a senior level. That stems directly from our CDIO, Helen Wylie. She’s the DWP gender champion and ensures we have objectives to create that equal space. It’s the passion right from the top that then flows throughout the organization. Displaying that it matters right at the top and more importantly, we’re doing something about it. In 2024 we also won Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards and Company of the Year at the Women in Change awards.  

In my role as Head of Profession for Service Management, I look at what I can do to help the community develop. We focus on how they can engage with their professional networks, meet each other within DWP Digital, cross-government and encourage colleagues to explore courses and join external membership organizations such as BCS to build these networks.  

We are getting there in DWP Digital. Our senior leadership team now has circa 40% women, and our Executive Team has 50%. Less than 10 years ago, it was significantly lower than that. It’s important to measure whether you’re making a difference. We can do all these great initiatives, we can help and support people, but if you’re not shifting the dial within the organization, it can be very frustrating. We are shifting the dial, but that takes quite a relentless focus. 

And of course, women are just one aspect to focus on to shift the dial of representation. We need to look at multiple characteristics including ethnicity, disability, education, religion, and sexual orientation. It’s so important to get involved, be actively doing something and look at what you can do to make a difference.  

Practical tips for leading large, dispersed teams 

For me, to lead an organization, you must love what you do. I’m passionate and enthusiastic, you have to be authentic as that shines through. 

My team is dispersed across over 100 sites, coupled with hybrid working means I’m not sitting with my team every day. You can’t go around and physically see everyone. It’s about showing passion for what you do and setting a clear mission about why we’re here. That’s important to me. I’ve been a civil servant all my career because I really care about what DWP does to make a positive difference to some of the most vulnerable people in society. Getting my team behind the mission of what we do as that’s what matters. I say in the nicest possible way to people, “If that’s not your mission and that doesn’t switch you on, that’s okay but you’d be best doing something else.” 

As I mentioned, we have big, dispersed teams. It’s important to celebrate achievements and share what colleagues are up to across your community. “This team did that brilliantly, let’s do that.” Let’s work together closely even if we’re not in the same office, learn from each other and celebrate the amazing work we do.  

Teams have different ways of communicating and preferences, so make sure you listen to what your team needs and adapt. I make sure I have Leadership Team meetings at our different Hub locations around the country and invite the local teams to meet and ask us anything. 

One of the other things I’ve focused on is the importance of having leadership at all levels. Relying on only me to personally lead 450 people daily is not going to work. Make sure your teams are empowered to do the right thing, while at the same time feeling safe that if they do something wrong, I’ve got their back, and I trust them to get on with that mission.  

Those are my tips from a leader of a dispersed and quite big team: enthusiasm, passion, authenticity, leadership at all levels and having a really clear mission. 

Sue Griffin, OBE, is an experienced leader across four professions, with more than 30 years in the civil service at the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in the UK. She has led operational, project delivery, commercial and digital teams to achieve key business outcomes. Sue currently leads a team of circa 500 people to deliver and transform the support 100,000 of her colleagues in DWP receive when they need help with their IT.