Why does MotherBoard matter to you? – feat. Datatonic

We caught up with Steve Thompson, Head of People & Culture at Datatonic, driving business impact through innovative cloud engineering, analytics and AI.

MotherBoard is a community, meetup series & charter that has been created to drive positive change throughout the UK Technology and Data sectors, all about creating environments that support the inclusion of working mothers.

Why did you become a signatory of the MotherBoard Charter and why does it matter to you?

As a parent myself, I can speak from first-hand experience in saying that becoming a parent is life-changing. There’s no going back! But seriously, whilst there are so many rewarding things about being a parent, the challenges it brings, even in the lead-up, can feel overwhelming at times. For some, being a full-time stay-at-home parent is the best job in the world. For others, keeping focused on their career is incredibly important, but can bring all sorts of hurdles to overcome, practically, mentally, and emotionally. For obvious reasons, this is a greater challenge for women, and it’s for that reason that at Datatonic we wanted to sign up to the Motherboard charter to help support mothers and mums-to-be in being able to focus both on parenting and career – and not have to compromise on either.

Our CEO regularly talks about the fact he was raised in a matriarchal environment and is passionate about the benefits this has brought him. From the top-down, our mentality is one of wanting to create an environment where women can not only thrive, but be in pivotal leadership positions. We’re still learning about how we can do things better to support women in this regard, but we’re moving in the right direction. The Motherboard charter helps keep us focused on our aspiration to be a champion in this area, and since signing up we’ve already improved our maternity and return to work policy – but that’s only the start for us! We’re continually working on how we can improve gender balance across the company and we’re specifically looking at how we can improve this in our leadership team. With learning and development at the core of our business, we want to make sure that all of our employees get the same opportunities to advance their careers. For us, it’s important that career paths don’t get ‘broken’ when taking time off for maternity or with the ongoing demands of being a parent. Therefore, a key focus for us is putting practices in place that go the extra mile to support our female employees. In the future, we hope to become a thought leader in this area and be in a position to educate other organisations in best practice. Watch this space!