We’ve all seen and read the depressing statistics about gender equality and diversity in the tech sector.
While more clearly needs to be done to make tech more inclusive, we’re taking a look at some of the positives the industry has already achieved and how we can use this groundwork to get more women into tech.
Joining us today is Jinny Mitchell-Kent, Chief Operating Officer at Great State. We’ll be chatting with Jinny about how the tech industry has changed during her career, what positives effort she’s seen and how companies can continue tackling the lack of women in tech.
Jinny has more than 15 years of experience in her career working with some of the world’s biggest brands across a range of sectors and specialisms, including Dyson and Rolls-Royce. Having started her career at Great State in a junior role, she returned to the company in 2019 as COO.
hello everyone and thank you for tuning in as always I am Kaylee batesman the content director at chican code today on
our podcast we’re going to discuss some of the positives regarding diversity in the tech sector we’ve all seen and read
the depressing statistics about gender equality and diversity in Tech um while more clearly needs to be done
to make it more inclusive today we’ll be looking at what the industry has already achieved and how we can use this
groundwork to get more women into Tech roles now joining me today I have the fabulous Ginny Mitchell Kent Chief
Operating Officer at great state welcome to your new lovely to have you with us thank you thanks for having me thank you
yes thank you for taking the time this morning to come in and have a chat um can we kick off with a little bit
about uh your career Journey so far please yeah sure
um so I guess uh going back to to the beginning in terms of like education and
stuff um I did a media arts and English degree and once I graduated started to look for a job
um and really sort of fell into digital if I’m honest um I’d done video editing
um as part of my degree and assumed I did get a job in TV so started looking at BBC and then tomorrow and places like
that very quickly realize that might not be feasible um pretty hugely competitive not many
roles coming up um and at the time I wasn’t interested really in moving to London so a production coordinator job popped up
um at what was then E3 media agency that’s what great state used to be called before we rebranded I went for it
I don’t think I even really knew digital jobs existed before that university did
particularly prepare me for what roles were possible I don’t think um but I started E3 or great state in
2005. uh at which point the agency was about 30 people and it was a really nice balance to mix
gender-wise from my point of view and we had a small development team with a really strong impressive female
developer at the time and several women in in senior level positions so I just assumed that was normal uh and it was
only as time went on really that I realized her mail dominated the industry was um I progressed fairly quickly within E3
from production coordinator to account manager which was a hybrid project and account management role after about
three and a half years there I decided to to move to London and I joined akqa as a project manager and that was really
an exceptional place to work I learned an incredible amount um and it was a really big shift in
terms of scale from E3 but in terms of pace of work and the challenge and things like that E3 had given me a
really good grounding um I progressed from project manager to senior and then into a sort of program
management roles managing increasingly large and complex programs of work and
bigger teams and by the time I left akqa I was head of delivery and operations for London
and I’d been commuting back and forth to London from Bristol for a few years by that point and after having my my second
child I really wanted to work closer to home although now how the pandemic has changed things and it’s a very different
you know set up at the time it wasn’t you know it wasn’t like that um so I decided to freelance for a bit
once I worked back in Bristol and see what options you know existed there so I
joined a great state as an operations consultant to help with efficiency and profitability challenges that it you
know existed at the time and after a nine month stint I Was Made CEO on a permanent basis
Isaac that’s a great journey to hear and what was interesting and right at the start you said that you studied media
and arts and and then you ended up in digital did you I mean you must be creative at heart did you think that the
digital industry was going to be creative or did you sort of have that stereotype and sounds a bit boring but
perhaps when you went for the roles or started talking to people it was very different I think that you know
throughout my degree and things I I realized I quite liked I quite liked the
practical application of media so you know different video or
um photography and I got to do all of those things I don’t particularly think of myself as a very creative person
um but I like to facilitate creativity so actually you know some of my projects at University were very organizational
based so I realized I could organize stuff I was able to sort of manage
things projects and things like that and it was only really when I read the jobs um spec for the production coordinator
that was like oh yeah I can do those things I’ve just done those things I didn’t even know that that was a job you
know that could be could be done um but actually you know in my in my degree I did enjoy we did a little bit
of um web development you know it was a Dreamweaver back then
we could do any coding whatsoever but um I find it really fascinating I didn’t
consider that to be um a boring job to do it was just opening
up a world but I didn’t really know existed you know I think I started to use the internet you know
when I was in secondary school towards the end of secondary school and I just did it the world didn’t exist in my head
if you know what I mean that that was jobs and an industry and you know you could make money from doing that so it’s
lovely and even the the jobs that didn’t really exist as well at that time like you said even yourself you’re not aware
of the jobs that come up because they change so often as well and you didn’t quite realize until you read the jobs
back actually there is a job there for me that I I do all of this um which obviously is very challenging
about the tech sector um because it does change very fast and people don’t always understand
um how suited they are to certain roles yeah definitely and there’s just a lack of information I think
um well certainly there was when I was at school and and University and things you know if if it wasn’t the more
traditional careers around I don’t know being a doctor or a teacher
or a lawyer or whatever um there just wasn’t any real information
um and that was for me in a school and education system where I was pretty
privileged I can only imagine the kind of information that people get if they’re in maybe an area of disadvantage
and and just the complete lack of it maybe you know it’s better than it was when I was at school but I don’t get the
impression it’s progressed as much as it could yes yeah yeah and it’s just seeing those
roles as well isn’t it somebody coming in and talking about it for instance having started your career at great
state in a junior role uh you returned as CEO um do you have any advice for rejoining
a company you’ve worked at previously um I’m all for it to be honest I think I
think it can be challenging at times to be seen as more senior by some people
when you’ve essentially grown up in a company and it can help to step away and get a bit more experience and exposure
and then come back and that maybe helps to shift the mindset of people around you I would say it’s not always an issue
I’ve also experienced kind of fast track promotions where the shift is just accepted and that’s that’s wonderful and
I I guess I do my best to behave in that way with my teams and reward based on
you know Merit and performance rather than just how many years experience you have or age or whatever
um I think coming back into a company you’ve worked at before can feel quite
strange in my experience so when I rejoined great state it felt both very
familiar but also quite alien you know although I knew several people who who had been here when I was first here they
were still here that was great um there was this whole raft of new people and the agency was actually a very different place you know it worked
in a different way um my advice I guess is to not overthink it take it as it comes kind of roll with
it draw on your experience and be yourself you know you don’t need to reinvent the wheel or yourself when you come back you just have to have
confidence in the new skills and expertise that you you gained while you were away
yeah because I think we’ve all had that thought haven’t we would I would I go back to a company that I really liked
what if it’s changed and the people have changed that I think the main thing there is just if it had a great culture
I think that probably isn’t going to change too much and as you said from from that point maybe just don’t
overthink it you know I I worked at an American company that had a really lovely culture about it
um and then sometimes I think to myself well would I go back the people are very different but then you just sort of think well the core of it is still there
it’s still very successful and the team um you know have a great way about them
um so yeah it must have seem very strange stepping back in and thinking well you know how how am I going to go
about this so did you know some of the people still or was it all all computer yeah no definitely I knew so we’ve got
some really long-standing employees you know 20 plus years so there was a nice like core group that I still knew the
managing director and the founder the technical director The Client Services director so there are some very
um you know familiar lovely faces around me which was which was wonderful all I think
I was you know I was a very different person and I’d had a huge amount of experience in the meantime so I felt
really kind of confident coming back in um and I I wasn’t coming in to do a very
similar role that I’d done before which helps I think you know if you are is
immediately you’re positioning yourself in a different way and you know but you’re right in terms of the culture and
the sort of ethos of a company I think you have to look at the reasons why you left a company in the first place and
whether those things still exist or whether you know things have changed or
it’s just you wanted to develop different skills that you didn’t think you could get there whatever those reasons are
um and then decide if that if you know going back is the right place I think if I’d have done it you know five
to 10 years earlier I it would have been the wrong thing to do I would have felt
like I was going backwards but it just didn’t feel like that after you know everything else I’d done yeah and if
people are there for the Long Haul as well that was bodes well with a company doesn’t it that people want to stay and
that company is really good at retaining them if it’s somebody with a revolving door um then you think that’s I’m definitely
not going back to that company yeah absolutely um I think that’s that’s really yeah valid so um obviously you know you’ve
been through um quite a career and quite a journey so far how is the tech industry changed during your career do
you think so I feel like generally it’s just grown up a bit so digital is now a maturing
industry you know when we started out it nearly everyone involved I think was young single without kids and there was
a real Work Hard Play Hard mentality I think it’s just a bit more balanced
now as our personal situations have changed and we know that there needs to be much more understanding and facilitating of that
you could maybe argue that as as more men have started to be involved in
things like child care and family commitments and things have ended up being more balanced there this issue
maybe has been pushed a bit higher up the agenda as it’s directly impacting men would that have been the case if it was
an issue that just impacted women I don’t know to be honest but either way I think it really highlights why it’s so
important to have you know male allies for women in the industry and help shift the status quo of you know what’s gone
before um I think there’s also a level of maturity
in how technology is used so more of a focus now on you know betterment rather than using
Tech you know or innovation for sort of gimmicky reasons um
I think organizations consider Tech more strategically and creatively now which
like you you kind of alluded to before it brings the need for a wider range of technical skills and expertise and and
so therefore more role opportunities which might be more appealing to women
um I imagine there’s still not enough awareness of the depth and the scope of
roles that that you need within a digital agency and as you said it’s always evolving um so we could do more there I think to
kind of get that out there um you know technology itself has just
changed massively there’s a load more programming languages platforms than existed before or at least you know that
I was aware of when I first started out you know there’s far less bespoke CMS builds these days thank God you know
there’s there’s technology that exists that you can just implement it allows us to create you know amazing Solutions
with really complex Tech and but they’re really seamless and simple for the user in a far far better way than we were
ever able to do before so that’s you know that’s amazing I think um there are also
new ways of working um agile methodology has been far more prevalent than when I first started out
as an example and those sorts of things help facilitate more collaborative ways of
working and the ability to show value to clients more quickly so it’s definitely progressed you know massively in the
right direction from my point of view yeah and you touched upon the pandemic a little bit earlier and just how that
accelerated all of those things that were kind of they were kind of there already weren’t they things like the
working from home but I don’t think any of us felt very comfortable as well depending on the workplace I I was
working at a company at the time and every time we finally just be at home for instance taking a delivery
um and I say can I work from home I always felt like the team might be thinking oh you know Kaylee’s working
from home today she’s not doing anything because we were so used to everybody in the office but when everybody went home
you know that kind of that pressure disappeared and and all of those everything just become so much easier as
you mentioned for parents um and and just for the way that you work as well you touched upon agile
working there um everything just just became so much easier and so much more flexible for
everybody because of the pandemic yeah I would definitely agree with that I think you know as an industry we should
probably have been further progressed than we were um before the pandemic hit and I think
that it you know it just it says something about the culture of an organization as well about whether there’s enough trust there
um in your staff and in you know their ways of working about
whether they’re you know people are comfortable with having having you work from home I think it would probably feeds into that maturity actually that
you said earlier it’s just trusting you to do your job yeah exactly and you know it’s it’s helped push forward
some real kind of archaic Industries which is great to kind of get
things on slightly more even playing field um I think
it was a learning curve for lots of people and we when we were going into lockdowns and
stuff and everybody was working from home everybody was learning together which was great we had some women come back
from maternity leave they literally went off in like the February of 2020 and then they came back a year later and
we’d had a year of you know essentially working from home and that was a real challenge for them as challenging as it
is anyway coming back from from maternity lead to work to to figure out we’d all figured it out together how to
work like this and be fully remote and how you’d use teams for example because we weren’t using that huge amount before
um and give them a bit more training and encouragement and you know take them
through the process that we’ve gone through a little bit um but it definitely proved how much you
could do without being face to face I do think there are some negatives to it I certainly from a personal
perspective find it hard to separate home and work when I work from home too much so I do like to come into the
office a little bit just to give myself the sort of mental separation otherwise I finish work in my home office and go
downstairs and deal with my kids and then like go back to work for a bit maybe and I just think you know sometimes you need that that break
um but it’s also allowed us to you know hire staff or have staff that
are fully remote certain roles that’s absolutely fine we don’t need people to be in the office
all the time and that that’s opened up you know much wider talent pool as well which is you know amazing for us yeah
and it’s so interesting to hear you talk about those that went on mat leave
um in in February uh and in March Time 2020 because I’m here we’ve spoke a little
bit about students graduating and coming into the workplace um and and you know suddenly being
thrown into this and and everything being remote and uh flexible and or hybrid
um and how difficult that can be to make connections for new graduates for instance and and trying to you know um
make sure that you integrate into your team and and those sorts of things actually you’re absolutely right those
that that were already in an environment before and coming back to a completely different environment must have been
completely alien to them yeah it really was and you know thankfully they’ve been
here a long time they knew enough people it was easier I suppose to to
um support them through that and um they could pick things up fairly quickly
because they knew the core of the company already we’ve certainly had um a lot of new people join during times
when we were locked down working from home fully and we had to really rethink how we onboarded new people and the
support that we would give them and how to create those relationships and we did a lot of stuff virtually which
worked for a while and then everybody just got a bit fatigued by by talking to people for the vehicle but
um you know you do what you can at the time I would say you know going back to your point about students or you know
graduates coming into the workplace um and having to you know work more
remotely I’d say it’s a real challenge for learning so you know I think about myself coming
in and how much you pick up through just osmosis you’re just watching and absorbing what other people are doing
and the way that they carry themselves in a meeting with a client or you know
the way that they might um put together a document or something like that which is really very difficult
to do without physically being with that person you know you try as much as
possible to do that um in Virtual ways and spend more time on you know one-on-one through the
through the screen um but I do think there’s probably much more thinking we need to do
as an industry about how we manage that for people coming in because
um just in terms of development and progression I think that’s going to hamper you know the junior people coming in
and even um uh with the coming in on boarding and then also when that changes I remember
having a conversation of a lady about um she worked in sales and she she needed
her graduates to then travel into the office and she said that become a bit of a problem because when they joined you
know it was all remote and then suddenly because they’re younger and they might not have that disposable income you know
they’re really thinking about every single train ticket um whereas some of us that used to commute into the city five days a week
you know you kind of get used to that season ticket loan disappearing every year you know you just don’t see it
um but yeah for younger people it became quite a reality that actually you know they’re gonna have to think about getting a monthly ticket or whatever it
may be and your pay suddenly changed as well so um there were lots of lots of issues
there obviously yeah and it is very expensive I mean it always has been very expensive but
obviously things are getting more expensive I suspect as well you know the stereotypical divide between the way
Millennials work and maybe some of the younger generations and setting different boundaries
um I don’t think we’ve been very good at that in the past about you know what you’re willing to do for work versus
your personal life yes exactly yeah and it’s setting those boundaries isn’t it
and just making sure that both parties are very clear um what do you think the industry and
organizations have done right so far um so I guess as I’ve alluded to a
little bit I think the introduction of more kind of flexible working has been a
positive so part-time working remote Core hours all of those things and a better understanding and acceptance of
the family and personal commitments um is a big Improvement I think accommodating your employees needs
outside of just the working hours makes for a much happier staff base from my point of view and that can help with
productivity and retention um which obviously benefits the company as well
um I think I’m seeing more and more women in senior roles which is a massive positive I
think it’s well established that having a balance of men and women in management creates a far better working environment
you know the balancing of those different skill sets and ways of working empathy listening communication
collaboration all of those things intentional increased visibility of women in in the tech space
I think it’s important to raise the profile of our women not just as the token woman in a team or organization
but but to really help illustrate what the opportunities are for other women and we’ve had really great feedback
actually from our new female employees that when they’ve seen our female team members on our social channels or on our
website that that’s been a real draw a real positive in terms of um then making the decision to work for us
um there are obviously organizations like yourself um and women in Tech and other
organizations like that where um you know they’re making a great impact on on the industry and I
think it’s important for men to also engage with those spaces as much as possible you know we’re not trying to
create a segregation of gender within Tech at all but you want that Community to Encompass you know men women or
gender expressions and and um all be kind of supporting each other um
and then I think working groups within um within companies has from my point of
view anyway it’s been really positive so I had a women’s Network within akqa and we have the the great women community at
great state now um so we meet regularly and discuss you know any issues that we’re facing or
things we want to focus on we might bring in external speakers or trainers that can support us and we try and
involve the men in the company as much as possible um to sort of help encourage that that
male allyship and not create that that segregation yes because I think it’s
quite easy to When you mention it to somebody a male colleague for instance
oh you know we’re having a network meet up and it’s women in Tech I’ve occasionally had that eye roll where
they go and you think but it’s not as you say it’s not a separate thing you know you are invited come along and hear
you know it’s not a room full of ladies complaining it’s how do we move forward the whole industry
um in terms of improving diversity for all and I think once a lot of male
colleagues hear that they think oh actually you know there’s something I can do to help here and it’s far better
for the entire team uh to have um better diversity representation than
you know just a few ladies all coming together and thinking that they’re you know just having a an hour on their own
talking about something that is in their slating men all day like that’s it yeah you get that look yeah yeah no you’re
absolutely right I think um you know when we first started the the group um
we actually started it off the back of uh International women’s day
2021 I think it was where I was just like I just don’t want to do
anything gimmicky that is a one-off like social post about International women’s day and it’s just a token gesture
whatever um I want to do something that lives forever so we can every month we’re
doing something and we’re you know progressing the way that we are uh thinking about things or you know the
experience or training or support or whatever it is that we’re doing so we’ve done multiple things over the year you
know memberships for our staff in women in Tech and going to conferences and bringing speakers and stuff but even
just having this community to to talk to other people who have gone through similar things that they have or the
things that they’re worried about that with the best will in the world men can’t understand or really comment that much
on because they haven’t gone through the same things or been treated in the same way yeah um but that’s certainly not to
say that we don’t want to involve them in any way and we’ve done things like um
have external speakers from from women in tech for example to talk about what they do and how
um you know what information they can provide and how men can get involved in that we’ve had
um unconscious bias training for the whole company so you know that’s just not a men thing like you shouldn’t just give
that to us and everyone think yeah we um but you know we’re coming up with
things that we can we can um focus on but it’s definitely something that we we want men involved into yeah and there’s
obviously Lots going on as you mentioned there’s lots of training available and if you’re lucky enough to be a company
that’s that’s really pushing forward as you said not with the one thing that you do once a year is gimmick but actually
you know the intention to make change within the company all year round um but why do you think the women in
Tech statistics are still so low um I think there are probably a few
reasons um one that when we’re starting out in our
careers we’re not aware of what the opportunities are um and probably not presented with the
The Wider roles and careers that maybe men are um I know of course more is being done
to bring young girls into stem areas and that’s brilliant and we need more of that um you know I love the fact that my
daughter says there aren’t boy jobs and girl jobs they’re not boy toys or girl toys like you know it’s all
but everybody can do anything you know and that you know absolutely love that we need to be introducing that way of
thinking to young children so it just becomes the norm um and I think you know you need to be
reaching out to schools and colleges and universities to show students the opportunities as soon as possible as I
said you know a lot of that I felt was missing from my education if you didn’t want that traditional
um career path of doctor lawyer teacher office worker whatever there just was no
information provided and you know as I said I I was lucky I had more privilege
than some in in terms of you know those were career possibilities um to be a doctor but if you’re in a an
area of you know socio-economic disadvantage you may not even be presented those as options so what what
information are they getting um I think as organizations we could do far
more to highlight how to get into those careers the steps you can take you know what progression there might be how much
it might cost to be trained or is there any opportunity to get funding for any of
that um and I think we need to do far more than offer unpaid internships which you know
can only really work for those that are already more affluent and privileged so you’re only ever going to get the same
type of people um I think or I suspect and this is only my
opinion of course um that that women can be put off certain careers or maybe from
progressing to a more senior level because of wanting to start a family and not feeling like maybe they can do both
things um and that could either be their own personal concerns or it could be an
actual blocking of progression or opportunities within the
company they’re working for down to discrimination um
I think though Tech is probably one of the more accommodating careers for flexible working given that more can be
done remotely it can be very efficient and productive to work in that way um that being said The more senior you
are and the more responsibility you have the more challenging that work life parenting balance becomes
it shouldn’t mean that it’s not an option though it just means organizations need to find
better ways of accommodating it and and more ways to support women to progress okay it’s interesting that you said
about you know the the company being supportive there because I only spoke to a lady um on here recently who said when
she wanted to become a parent she was petrified of what it was going to do to her career and uh she said you know she
left it and left it and and then she got pregnant and then she left it until the legal amount of time she had to say and
she said when I told my company nobody nobody minded she said I think it was all in my mind
um but she she was petrified because she really thought it was going to have a knock on but luck would have it you know
she was at a very supportive company and I think it’s just you know making sure that the company that you’re at works
for you at that point in your life as well because your life changes as you
mentioned um right at the beginning you know it used to be everybody was young and
single and you know and I always felt like I worked at a company where a very
big sales team and that was the sales team everybody was young and single and wanted to stay out late and wanted to
smooth with clients um and obviously people’s lives change and and that sales team grew up and that
is no longer their their um their lifestyle uh but yes you’re absolutely right it’s um just making sure you’re in
with the right company at the right time that can really support you and Tech um is is a really great great way a
great industry um to be in that can really help you be flexible and you would hope it would be
flexible is technology but I’m sure there are those companies that are not well yeah that’s the thing isn’t it I
think um it should you know it definitely should be one of those Industries where flexibility is like built in from from
the beginning I think yeah certainly I think we’re probably more Progressive
than some of those traditional um industries that like maybe in financial
services insurance law those sorts of things and because we are sort of naturally reviewing and responding to to
Trends from a strategic and Tech perspective that sort of trickles down into our working processes and things
like that um and I I think certainly anecdotally within like my friendship group some of
those that work in those more traditional areas have seen more struggles in terms of flexible working
or remote working and and that’s even with the changes you know the pandemic brought about
um that being said I don’t think you can generalize too much because I’ve also had friends who work in digital whose
management are adamant that everyone needs to be in the office five days a week because there is that lack of trust we’ve talked about or just because they
personally don’t like working from home um and so that just says more about the attitude of sort of individuals rather
than necessarily highlighting industry sort of specific Trends so that’s why like you said it’s so important to find
a company who who sort of ethos and values align with yours
um and can you know facilitate that environment that works that works for you and so what more needs to be done in
the future to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech industry do you think
um so as I’ve alluded to I think I think we need to start young start early and
engage um kids at school so so partnership programs between businesses and
education providers for example that they would I know there are some things that already happen um there’s like being a digital day for
example but I think there’s always more that can be done um with things like that and I know you
know most cities will have some sort of Youth engagement program um which can be contacted and kind of
make sure doors are opening for local local children we actually work with an organization called babasa in Bristol
who support underrepresented young people and they’ll help with developing their skills and help with Recruitment
and sort of Help contact or connect businesses with with young people provide training and things they also
provide training for organizations so they’re the ones that gave us the unconscious bias training
um and which has you know been really interesting really useful and you can you see how you can actually Implement some changes or um you know different
different ways of working um I think they’re looking at maybe
programs for women coming back to work after maternity leave for example so to
develop new skills or change careers would be a good idea there is a program called um digital mums but I think that
focuses largely on social media management um but it’ll be awesome to see more of those types of program programs for
things like coding or other skills they may well exist and I’m just not aware so if that’s the case then more awareness
would be great of those sorts of things and how businesses can maybe support people coming back from maternity
um in those areas um I also think we need far better and
more focused recruitment strategies to to better Source candidates from from wider pools you know advertising in Tech
spaces that are specifically aimed um at women you know I think I’ve seen
real up and down over the years in terms of the volume of women in leadership for example and
um that’s not that’s just gender no that’s not even touching on any of the other um lack of diversity
um and I’ve seen you know a whole raft of senior women leaving a business for lots of different reasons not
necessarily negative reasons but then kind of organically been backfilled with
men not on purpose just in terms of like the candidates that they’ve seen and that can really shift the dynamic of a
management team and that that’s not that positive and you know of course I’m not slating them that’s not a bad thing to
do with that you need to make sure you’re recruiting the best people you know for the roles but if we don’t try
harder in our recruitment to find a good balance by recruiting in the right places and changing the way you write
your drug descriptions and making sure you’ve got a balanced interview panel and then you’re a you know real serious
risk of having a white middle class male Workforce which you know doesn’t it
doesn’t represent the wider society and it really doesn’t lend itself to to creativity or innovation or diversity of
thought or all those things that are you know really really important um and I guess uh more you know best we
should be striving for better gender representation on websites on social in language that we use in imagery that we
use not again not just gender but other areas of diversity too
um and I guess finally from my point of view I think the world of work is changing and and
younger Generations coming up now you know they don’t think about their careers in the same way that I did for
example it seems like far more likely they’ll have multiple careers and
they’ll find new ways of working flexibly that work for them I think as an industry we really need to
pay attention to that and adapt and you know we don’t have to maintain the status quo we might find better ways of
doing things and that and that will only make the working situation better for everyone so I think we need to be we
need to be paying attention yeah you’re all right because I think um when when we when we joined the
workforce years ago you’re almost sort of trying to think well I go in and I do
that job and then I work my way up and you never really move around um and you tend to go into a job where
you know you have something in in your mind’s eye and that’s what it’s going to be in 20 years I’m going to be a manager
or whatever it may be yeah and I think nowadays there really is that freedom of of that that just that mindset of a
younger person who can just jump from job to job and it’d be fine because um we had a lady on here uh a few weeks
ago and um she said when when she joined she joined for a particular role
thinking well one day she’ll have children and this would have been way down the line she was thinking you know
what I need to be in Tech and I need to be in a flexible role and I don’t want to be too senior because in 15 to 20
years I I definitely want to be a mother um and I should work myself into that position where it’s going to be easier
for me is she said by the time I actually got to that she said I’d completely changed roles several times I
had such a different mindset she said you can’t go into the industry thinking what you’re going to be doing in the
next 15 to 20 years because everything changes and as we’ve mentioned Tech change is incredibly fast
um but I think you’re right that that students coming in nowadays they change jobs you know every sort of three to
five years um and and they there’s no boundary there they just think I’ll try something
new yeah it’s incredible really I mean it’s incredible that that woman had the foresight you know 15 20 years ago
thinking about that and I was like yeah whatever you know let’s just go and try some try this job
um so yeah that’s impressive but but you’re right I think that certainly for me there’s a real
nervousness around changing careers how would it work if I did something completely different and
that might be you know my personal my personality anyway but um certainly it seems like younger people a
there’s a load of careers that didn’t exist you know back when I was first starting out and that will continue to be the
case I imagine but yeah there seems to be much more um willingness to to try new things and
to to adapt and just think that things are more transferable skills are more
transferable and you don’t have to stick down that’s sort of very closed route yeah yeah
time as you can tell we can keep talking about this uh all morning um but we are out of time so thank you
so much Jenny for coming in and and um sharing your story with us we we really appreciate it uh no worries at all thank
you for having me it was great thank you and for everybody listening as always thank you for joining us and we hope to
see you again next time
