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Welcome to the AsOS tech podcast, where we're going to be sharing what it's like to work in an online destination for fashion loving 20 somethings around the world.

You may have bought some clothes from us, but have you ever wondered what happens behind a screen? Hi, I'm Si jobling he him, and I'm an engineering manager at asos with two neurodivergent children.

I'm Lisa Wilson. She her. I'm an engineering manager at asos and currently going through a diagnosis for ASD and ADHD.

So, Lucy, can you tell me what neurodiversity means to you?

To someone like me, neurodiversity is a spectrum. So it could be autism, ADHD, epilepsy, Tourette's, ticks, dyslexia, and that doesn't cover all of them. It can also be called neurospicy neurodivergence, and it acknowledges a whole spectrum from neurodivergent individuals to neurotypical individuals. So within asos, it's been great to see what's been happening since I've been part of the community in the last year and a bit. But do you want to tell us a bit more about what's been happened before then?

Sure. So, back in early 2021, we created a community called Neurodiversity in tech. Say exactly what it is on the tin. It's just pulling together for people from around a tech community with neurodivergent needs and just bringing our minds together and try to evangelize what we can be doing or what we want to be doing, but also get the conversation going a bit more. And so, over the last couple of years, we've had some real awesome moments of inspiration, almost, and humanity, because the people talking about their own selves, which is one of our core beliefs as well, being your true self, even to the point where March this year, during Neurodiversity celebration Week, we had a series of conversations and just spotlights on different personalities and circumstances. But it was wonderful just to see the real human nature of what's coming out of what we're doing around tech.

And that was a real kind of movement, because we started off with one or two things, and then it kind of rolled down that hill and people started to join. So that was a great week to be part of.

So with all know what's been going on over the past year or two, what's the future hold for us? Lucy?

So we're going to talk to Sena next, and she's going to be telling us about the initiatives and vision that's coming forwards, which is going to bring our communities together. So, as you said, we've talked about neurodiversity and tech, but there's lots of silos across the business and we want to bring them together to have a real community effort to push this forwards.

So my name is Sena. My pronouns are she, her. I am the director of diversity, equity and inclusion here at asos. It's been 150,000,000 miles an hour, but pretty awesome.

What have you been doing to get yourself up to speed with asos and de?

And I thought it was really important to invest in asos because the strategy has to be something that everyone can see themselves in and can feel that they own a piece of. This is not my strategy to own. The first hundred days has been heavily focused on listening, on learning, and that includes starting off with 15 minutes to ones with asos who voluntarily signed up to have time with me. They were guided with a brief, of course, come with a challenge, come with an issue, but come with a solution. And that usually led to them having homework, which, Lisa, you yourself have done a great job of responding to. The homework would have been around planning for an intervention or a solution that they could see. And after, I think it was about 55, 60, nearly one to one, I met with the management committee as well. So I've got each of their perspectives in a one to one reverse. Mentoring is a great program that was launched all in finding out what worked, what really worked well, and obviously where there's areas to do better, and there's always areas to do better.

So within those listening conversations, what's the good, bad and the ugly? What have you pulled out so far?

The great is that everybody I've spoken to is so high energy around this, regardless of their experience of whether they've been part of a network or are an individual looking to seek a network. The appetite for de I is incredible here. It really is. I was briefed on it before I joined, but I was very taken aback, almost overwhelmed with such a warm welcome. Everyone's ready to get behind it. They're actually collaborating quite well across teams or functions in the spirit of de I, and I see some great things happening, so I'm very, very encouraged by the energy that's ready to get behind this.

There's a lot of talk around Dei being very focused on diversity and ethnicity and gender and that side of things. How do you see neurodiversity fitting into the DEI strategy at the moment?

Yeah. So first of all, gender and ethnicity, they are quite highly focused and spotlighted demographics because, first of all, we have to gather data around those two points by law, so it's mandatory. Therefore, we have that information to hand. We can do something with it. The data around other demographics isn't as readily available, which doesn't mean work doesn't get done. But that's a starting point, right? We all know how important data is, so the first effort on that side will be to run a profile completion campaign that's hopefully coming in the coming weeks. And what we want to do there is storytell. Your data is there so that we can build for you. If I don't know that you're there representing whichever affinity group or community coming from whichever background, then it's very difficult to build for you. Once we understand who's there, that's really going to help us. Aside from that, from people I've met, there is an abundance, a very rich community when it comes to disability inclusion and neuro difference. And I have met so many people from same but different, but also from women in tech, and I think people have almost missed that opportunity for intersectionality. But once we're aligned and once we have a really good operating model for these networks, we'll be able to celebrate more of the different dimensions. Even parents and carers, we don't hear much about that network, but they are doing great work, and they have safety within. They have created such a good community for each other. So I think the headlines tend to go towards gender and ethnicity, but really, there is so much more going on.

So you've talked about the communities there. Same but different parents and carers. What do each of those communities mean? Who's involved and how many do we have?

Yeah, so same but different, are there to bring community advocacy and support to individuals who have seen or unseen disabilities and who may have neurodiverse. They are so smart, honestly, so smart in their approach to what good looks like, what better can be. So I really lean into their technical knowledge about how to make the workplace better for people from their community and how allies need to show up. I think it's a very welcoming community, even if you don't have neurodivergence, even if you don't have a disability, they are very eager to share what they know for the greater good, and I really appreciate what they're doing. They sauces are our LGBTQ plus network, and people who aren't of these communities really want to help, want to support, but don't know how to because they may not have the right language, they may not completely understand some of the dynamics. So I think the safety that these communities are able to offer is not quite spotlighted, and that needs to come to the forefront so that we do have more allyship and advocacy around these groups. Parents and carers, as the name suggests, are parents and carers, and they're doing great work to look at what support looks like through the maternity leave journey. So not just going on leave, but even the processes that lead up to going on leave, the handovers, managing your time, whether you're taking annual leave on top of your maternity leave, how you're spacing out that exit plan. But then when you come back as well, what does returnship look like? You're keeping in touch days, what do new parents need? There's even dads there, which is great because they also have a voice through that community, but it's really important for us. I'm not a parent, so I really lean into their expertise to tell me and show me what good or better can look like. The parents, dads especially, are also helping with that. We've got a couple of experts there who've had experience with trained counseling, so that's really good because that brings another layer to the community as well. And we've also got reach out reps who've been doing a great job of mental health awareness and support, but they definitely also are seeking support for themselves, which will factor in as well, and get them trained up as mental health first aiders, which currently they are not. And of course, we've got our heads and hearts, that's our race equity and race equality group, and they're actually a very special bunch of folks. I enjoy learning about what they've done and getting to know them. So the networks, one thing I've definitely seen is they're well established to a degree, so they've all built a great sense of community. For those folks that find an affinity to each of these networks respectively, the opportunity for intersectionality hasn't been tapped into yet because they lack structure. So once each of these networks is established in the new operating model, they'll have structure, they'll each define their own mission statement, they'll have KPIs and they'll have budget, and they'll understand better what they're showing up for. Because to ask members to come together for an hour a month is a lot when you don't have direction for what are you showing up for? So I think there's a lot of members of all of the communities, those who are there now are really focused and trying to make things happen. But there's also a population that's sort of fallen away a little bit, but still seek that community. But they need to understand better what am I showing up for, and what is it that we can truly change and make impact for other asos across the business. So once they have that structure, I think everyone will come together very nicely. Intersectionality can be more celebrated. Our inclusion calendar can be more aligned, because, for example, black History Month in October, I think we've missed the opportunities for heads and hearts to work with women in tech, to work with same, but different, to work with parents and carers, because there is such a story to tell with everyone coming together and celebrating black History month from five different perspectives.

You talked a lot about the great communities that we've got across Azos intersectionality. Across certain areas. You touched on the same but different community that we have, which is all about neurodiversity and other needs. Lucy and I are part of a community, a very small community in Azos Tech, where it's very focused on neurodiversity in tech. So I'm wondering what we struggle with is the direction, I think. So how would you like to see that grow? How do you think you could maybe collaborate with the other communities that are going across the organization at the moment?

So the fact that you've established intersectionality, you already have defined a bit of a mission for yourselves, right? So with structure, you need your why? Because you need to know why you're showing up. You've sort of established that the intersectionality now establish your why? Why is it important that these two communities are merging and then understand what is your goal there? Because the fact that you've got intersectionality, are you celebrating that? Are you wanting to attract more allies and advocacy? Are you wanting to increase awareness? Are you wanting to achieve other sorts of goals? So this is where you need to have your sort of guiding stars defined and understand what you're showing up for. And also a really, really important thing is this is nobody's day job, right? Showing up for a network is the passion project, and it's the above and beyond. And that's why you need a mission statement, because you need to defend why you play in certain areas and why you don't play in others, and also how to prioritize. So if something is not in service of your mission, then you don't do it. If something is, then what is the timeline behind that? What is the budget requirement? If we're entering into busy season and you're looking at something that requires ten champions to come together and give up a couple of evenings a week. That's not going to happen. So you really need to be smart about this. And I think I've had twelve years experience globally serving De and I and well being agendas and this is the most important thing ever, is that we have to understand the awesome people, even both of you behind this work. It is not your day job. So you need to manage your energies, you need to focus on the right things to make the right impact, but sustainable impact. Another example might be disability inclusion observances. We can't just be here for a spot moment in time or disability pride month. We have to sustain change all year round. So what is the most impactful thing that's going to help people rather than showing up for an iconic moment?

So looking forward, what the strategy? You've talked about it a little bit, but what are we going to do in asos to make this all the best it can be?

Okay, that's a really big question right now, but to make it all the best that it can be, I wouldn't say it's so much the strategy that I can speak to right now, but the approach to the strategy. Right? So to make it all that it can be, just posting about it on Yammer, just sending out an email is not enough, right? So it will require a lot of handholding. It will require going into teams and having 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes onboarding sessions. It will require sitting down with leaders and their peer groups like slts, senior leadership teams to onboard them and then give them messages, guides so that they can cascade down to their teams, let everyone know what the expectation is of them. There's an expectation of me, there's an expectation of each of you, there's an expectation of the management committee, but it all looks very different in de I. One size does not fit all. And that is neither the strategy nor the approach. So the strategy has to be intersectional, it has to approach things as inclusively as possible, but it definitely needs to be rolled out in a way that everyone feels, first of all, that I can see my voice, my fingerprints on that strategy because I bought this to a one to one, or I have raised this, or I am working on this. So that's the first thing. And then how this strategy is communicated has to be very, very intentional, very, very targeted and very meaningful. Otherwise it won't land.

What sort of tech platforms do you find most effective when you're trying to address and work within neurodiversity, because I think everyone's got their own needs, right?

I would say even beyond neurodiversity, because everyone has their own preference, their own comfort, their own convenience of communication. I love Whatsapp, but that's bad habits. Get a group of ten people together, they'd all be telling me they want to be communicated in different ways. So again, one size does not fit all. And that is the absolute sentiment that has to encompass anything that I do. It's multichannel, right? But it's also about how you communicate. I'm a storyteller, if you hadn't already picked that up. And so I think how you communicate with people is really, really important. My granddad always taught me it's not what you say, it's how you say it, whether the message is positive, negative, or otherwise. So how you say it, and I hope I've demonstrated that through the small win or quite sizable win we're having with Yama. I was invited by comms at the end of my first week. Selena, would you post? So I just said, reflections of my first week. We ended up getting 3043. I know that off by heart because I've recited it so much viewings on that post, right? And that's just to say, hey, I'm here. Please check in. Check out this link. Sign up for a one to one. Let me know how you're doing. And that was the most popular yammer post in AsoS history. So then it started getting me thinking, well, someone's watching, someone's reading, someone's engaging on yammer. So then we started going out with messages around Juneteenth and Windrush, and there was still two and a half thousand views. And I'm thinking, okay, someone definitely is out there looking at these yammer posts. And then we started to build community. So I think it was Windrush when I first said, this is what I'm learning. This is so and so's story. Come and tell me your story, like in the comments. Post a picture, tell a story, whatever you wish to do. And there was a couple of folks people started liking more, even if they didn't comment, but you could tell we were breaking through something, eat the same. And so this went on and on. And now the average viewing on our post is about two and a half thousand. But I think if you communicate in the right way and you're storytelling and you speak in a way that people feel seen and heard, it doesn't matter.

Which platform you're using great to hear that story. And I think for me it's just, I know tech moan about everything, right? They don't really engage with all the tech that we should be using. But to say that two and a half to 3000 are using it, not every post. Someone is. Exactly.

Someone's out there.

You've demonstrated it works as well because I feel like we just need to demonstrate. There are opportunities for tools like Yammer to engage, which is the key to this. It's not about broadcasting, it's actually getting a reaction and people to understand it.

And it takes a village, right? And that is so important in everything that we do going forward with the yammer posts, I might get 1800 as soon as the comms team do their roundups at the end of the week and then give me a bit of a mention in the summary. Literally that viewing doubles and then they come back around to that messaging again and it doubles again. So it takes a village, right? So if it's copy paste, copy paste, copy paste, that's how you get people on board. Because they may not know me, they don't really care that it's me posting. It's what's being said and how you're connecting with people that's important.

So I've got one last question. You mentioned before you give everyone homework. So if you were to ask everyone off the back of this, what homework would you give people around de and I?

Ok, so again, it's a very intersectional message going across different populations. I would say if I'm talking to our asos broadly across the population, I would say start doing some learning in your own space. Because if you are curious or interested about a community or a network, that is not an affinity to who you are and how you show up, but you want to support or you want to be more comfortable in engaging with you. Do the homework. If someone is from the LGBTQ plus community, it is not on them to educate us. Every single day they have to come out. And that's not fair. So I firmly, firmly stand by the fact that if you want to know, start doing the homework. Of course you can come back and then have an informed conversation. And I always do. I have my safe spaces. Even some folks in the Desos community where I'm like, this piece, I need a lived experience of this piece, but I've already got knowledge. But you can't just expect someone to teach you and put you at comfort. That isn't anybody's job. I would say that about race. I would say that about neuro difference disability. It's tough. You're nervous because you don't know, you don't understand. We will create guides for you, but read them. We will create resources for you. View them, absorb them. The safe spaces are there to have a conversation, but you need to be doing some of the groundwork yourself. I think that's really important. I would say looking now at more targeted communities, I think people managers, we definitely need to give them support that they need because already there is so much going on in their world. So this is one more layer of ask. But in supporting them to support their people, for example, all in training, that's going to look very different next year. And some of the people managers who've already supported that engagement are doing incredibly well. Some of the individuals who have become mentees on the reverse mentoring program are really taken aback by how much they are learning. Great. What are we going to do with that now? What's the next step? Because just consuming isn't enough. We need to do something. The so what is missing there? So I think people managers need more support, guidance and structure. They also have a lot of questions. So I've got work to do there. But I need their appetite to be there, to be ready to take on some de I engagement.

Amazing. That was an awesome roundup. Thank you so much for your time today, Sena. It's been great talking to Sunina.

Thank you.

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