Having a diverse workforce has been proven to increase business revenue, promotes innovation, provides better role models and improves workplace culture – amongst many other things.
In this episode of Spilling The T, we take a look at the importance of having a diverse workforce, how the current tech landscape is impacting women, and what more can be done to create equality.
To find out more, we catch up with Kari Mayfield, Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Ping Identity.
Ping Identity is one of the world’s leading access identity management companies and has a big diversity ethos.
In fact, it runs its own STEM programme called Ping4Good, which opens up doors for women and girls to enter into the world of technology.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in I am Katie batesman the content director at chican code and today we’re
discussing women in the technology landscape I’ve got the wonderful Carrie Mayfield head of diversity inclusion and
equality at Ping Identity with me today to take a look at the importance of it of having a diverse Workforce how the
current Tech landscape is impacting women and what more can be done to create equality welcome Carrie hi Carrie
Mayfield thanks so much for having me Kaylee today uh I work for Ping Identity as you said I’m the head of diversity
equity and inclusion um at Ping Identity we Champion identity to enable secure extraordinary digital
experiences for our customers and our employees I’ve been in the diversity talent and Learning and Development
space for 25 years in a variety of Industries
um in insurance and health benefits and financial services and now in the tech
industry Tech and identity identity industry um I I what I enjoy working what I enjoy
most about my role is helping create data-driven strategies uh for the
company to help really Drive diverse Talent bringing in Talent moving Talent
up and retaining talent and engaging them so it’s really exciting for me and
my role to meet with leaders on every level bringing an engaging and our diverse
talent to their fullest amazing it’s lovely to hear as well that you came from a background where you you
had one of those as I say squiggly careers where you go into different Industries and then made it to Tech was
it something about tech that that Drew you in was it the role or the sea industry
so that’s a great question um I got my start originally in Learning and Development developing training what
I really enjoyed about my role at the time was I got to work on different projects developing training around
different topics within the companies and so as my role grew over the years it evolved into diversity training
um and then also diversity strategy Learning and Development um and that’s really what’s kept me
excited about my work in corporate Corporate America I’ll say is it
translates no matter what the industry is it translates cross industry as it relates to inclusion and making sure
that we have inclusive workplaces for every for every employee
um so that’s really kind of what brought me to Tech uh I hadn’t had the opportunity to work here and a couple of
years ago a wonderful opportunity opened up here at Ping Identity in Denver our headquarters uh so I’ve been here for
the past couple years I said yes we we do love to hear um the roots in because I think a lot of ladies
they thought if I didn’t graduate with a computer science degree then I can’t go into technology so the more stories that
we hear about how ladies make it in it’s just so encouraging to hear that you don’t have to take that one that one
route exactly exactly and I’ve been fortunate as well as many of our I would say in
our company of King identity are fortunate to be able to kind of learn on the job yes you have some basic skill
sets that you bring to the table when you when you start a new role but there’s always lots of opportunities to
explore kind of different um projects or programs or working on different teams
um especially within our company and I think that’s one of the really neat things um about working at ping is uh having
that flexible opportunity to work on different you know different projects and programs as I said yeah yeah and
today we’re going to be discussing and the women in Tech landscape so I want to jump straight in and ask you you know
why do you think it’s so important to have a diverse range of employees
so it’s important to have a range of employees we have to have you know it’s really about business and Innovation
that’s one of the things that drives diversity and inclusion within companies is making it’s you know it’s there’s
been many um research studies done that shows more diversity that you bring to the table
are going to increase your business and Innovation and um
so that includes and I will say you know here in the states we talk a lot about women and people of color
um racial and ethnic diversity um I’m sure it’s very similar in the UK as well but when I think about it I
think about it from a kind of a broad range so I think about women people of color I think about
um lgbtq plus status I think about backgrounds thinking Styles
um social socioeconomic status um yeah age generation Etc so it’s really a
range that you’re that you’re trying to bring to the table um within the company
and as well I I think sometimes people think
um you know businesses think that’s good for us it’s good having diverse employees but I think it brings so much
to the team as well you know it just when I worked at companies I worked at
um an American company funny enough and we had a really large International very diverse team and it was so much fun to
be a part of because there were so many different cultures and languages and and you know it just it just made everything
more fun and exciting and fast-paced and you know it’s I think a lot of people jump in and they think businesses
obviously you know they they they are as you mentioned there’s lots of research that is you know moving things forward
that it can increase your bottom line to have a diverse team obviously and but I think from the employee side as well
it’s just you know being on a much well-rounded team is is far more fulfilling for you as well and if I
could just add on to that um I’ve actually had several people over over the years have said to me you know
I learned the most about different cultures and different experiences
through the teams that I work with at work because I’m immersed into kind of
this variety of of individuals that I that you know of wonderful talent that I
work with whereas I go home you know I live in the same place I only come across the same you know the same few
individuals it’s harder for me to kind of Branch out and
um seek out people who may be different whereas in the workplace it actually gives me a real opportunity to meet
others who are different and learn and actually you know create relationships
and and build friendships so um I completely agree with you yes is incredibly important what what
company you pick excuse me and why why you choose them and what it adds to your
day and so how then can companies you know what can they do to attract more
diverse talent to their teams so we’ve actually been working on that since I joined our company and I’m at my
prior company um we focused on kind of how we’re bringing in and diversifying the talent coming in the door
um one of one of the ways is obviously diversifying the sources that you go to so instead of going to the same you know
the same schools uh the same external organizations let’s look at the list of
places that we go within you know within your country and you know kind of look
at what is the makeup of that you know particular audience of that organization or um or that University
is it that diverse is it the diversity that you want to bring in the door if not kind of tap into and I’m going to
say we actually have what we call employee resource groups we are tapping into our employee resource groups we
have a a people of color group um and they’re helping us diversify the
places that we go to so we have now have a new list of um universities in tech and and
obviously um in Tech and identity um and are starting to recruit from
those universities same thing with aligning yourself with an external organization we partner with Sarah Mount
diversity best practices which is a kind of a Best in Class organization that has lots of um they’ve got
um you know opportunities to um you know you know apply for roles uh
in addition we also have tapped into an organization called inroads who they are
um kind of a premier we’re going to is relates to Black and African-American
University students and they actually tap into several different universities and so we’re we’re starting to recruit
from their kind of their internship program you know feeding into our internship program so definitely making
sure you’re looking at the places you’re you’re seeking out your employees to you’re speaking out Talent today and
then um diversifying it um and and just make sure you’re looking at it from the lens of who is it that
you want to start bringing more into the door as it relates to kind of a population and audience
yeah that is so true I I love what you just said there because um it’s just taking a look and realizing
you know what we we might have a problem it’s almost having that reflection of if we’re not getting what we want then go
somewhere else and I know uh on social media sometimes when you have a conference and all the panel uh all of
the speakers or you might have an all-male panel you will always get somebody jump in and say you know but
where were your female speakers and and you tend to have the confidence organizer come back and say you know we couldn’t find any women in Tech and all
the women in Tech come back with lists with speakers you know you weren’t looking hard enough they are there
you’re just looking in the wrong direction so it’s just yeah exactly the same you just need to do some
self-reflection and go and and find some other places and to to um
and that’s what I find in this work every action that you take has to be with intention
so whether it’s attracting talent coming in the door whether it’s um you know advancement within the
company whenever you’re looking at and working with your talent and your leaders and your
managers it’s about being intentional so making sure you’re intentionally looking for those other sources is critical yes
yeah I agree and do you think the technology industry is doing enough to promote female representation in Tech
that they’d be doing better I think we can always be doing more I guess I
would say we can’t just stick with the status quo we know that there is there’s an issue there just are not enough women
and young girls kind of coming up and moving into the Tech Career Tech space
so there so we do know that there is you know there is a shortage but there’s so
much more that we should be doing and can be doing to make making sure that we’re you know seeking out those
individuals and helping support and develop them um that’s one of the things
um that you know working at paying identity we’re really excited about we work with external organizations to get
young girls excited about stem um we know that we can’t start in
college even high school is too late you got to start at much more of a junior age to get them excited so there’s a lot
more that we should be doing um but that’s just a you know just one way that we can you know kind of help
start to change the um landscape if you will um and bring you know bringing more
girls and women you know up into our stem programs yes I completely ago I
think there’s still so much work as well that needs to be done with the ladies that are already here and how we retain
them and you know there’s been so much research around women in Tech that leave
in their 30s you know they might have studied Tech they’ve gone into the career and then they kind of start
reaching middle management and they decide to leave the industry and you know what are those companies doing to
make those women feel like they they have to leave how how do we keep them yeah
um I would say definitely one of one of the one of the actions that we need to take is make sure that our company is
flexible providing flexible working options for your employees now that’s
women it’s men as well but since we’re talking about women it is critical that
we provide flexibility in the work that we do you know as you know it’s not nine
to five or eight to five anymore it’s 24 7 but by getting helping our women
you know in our companies feel empowered to own their workloads to to own their
plans and their schedules um we’ve got a lot of smart talented women in the workplace and we need to
keep them so we have to provide those kinds of opportunities um that’s one of the things I’m super
excited about working with my company we’re you know we’ve we’ve rece received excuse me Awards internally and
externally you know that we are a flexible organization um we’ve got many
um it’s a smaller and growing Tech firm many younger females you know just starting out of college have moved their
way up and many that are in their 30s now you know having families and so you
know by you know letting them know that hey you have a place here and we have
um uh we can make this work for you and for us
um it’s just a kind of all in the planning so I would say that’s that’s probably one of the most important
um ways of making our our women feel like they can you know stay and want to
stay and be excited about staying yeah and I think that really that trickles
down from the top doesn’t it that culture that flexible culture if you see your boss whether they’re male or female
being flexible that they need to go home they need to do the school run you know
they block out their calendar at certain times if that’s from the top everybody else below feels like I’m allowed to be
that flexible and I’m going to be loyal because my company allows me to be that
flexible yeah yep absolutely the world modeling from the top is critical and
I’ve seen it over and over again you know many many men are taking time off at the end of the day to go to their
soccer you know or um you know baseball practices so it
definitely works it’s definitely um kind of the philosophy you need to embed in the company that it’s about that role
modeling from the top yeah yeah and you mentioned a little bit about um younger girls and um the work
that um Ping Identity do um in that area as well and and obviously we all know that getting more
girls into Tech is an important aspect um of increased female representation
but how do you think we can get more girls interested in Tech is that is that
something to do with school parents lots of things what do you think it is
right all of the above yeah okay I would say yeah
um I had just mentioned and I’d just like to talk a little bit about this um organization that we partner with um
it’s called girls in science it is a and it’s a nice example because I’m sure
there’s other examples in other in other cities but it’s a nice example here in Denver for 11 years now we’ve been
partnering with cbs4 which is our local television station um and then the past couple of years
um are one of our Denver museums and we um we’ve been a premier um partner and presenter uh within this particular um
um program so just this past Friday uh we invited girls and their families
their entire families to come to the museum to learn about all types of jobs
as it relates to stem Fields so we were there there was um like an energy company was there
technology identity um so they’re probably I don’t know 15 different companies and you know we all
had booths and we had little activities for the girls and for their parents and families to play and so ours was around
how do you um coding how do you code and so when you think about playing an online game
you have to create your own personal profile and so we had a little activity where we use Legos in different colors
and kind of built out the process of building out your own personal profile when getting
ready to play an online game and it was coding that that was kind of the activity that we were teaching so the
girls actually went through through it themselves and and moved the Legos around um the parents were super actually got
quite engaged themselves because they didn’t know kind of how the behind the scenes what happens as you’re you know
creating your profile and and how that works so it’s a nice example of how we
need to bring in both you know the children and the girls and the brothers were there and the you know the parents
were there as well and um obviously it’s on a small scale but this is um I I
would say this particular program has grown from you know 11 years ago you know three or four hundred people and
there there were probably I don’t know probably 2500 people there on Friday
night so that’s just one example of of um I think it’s important for us and the
identity and Tech space to be able to start to contribute and give back and encourage and Foster
um you know Foster that kind of excitement and and plant seeds along the
way yes I love that that expression plant seeds because that’s right bringing it bringing the family along
means that you know Mom and Dad um and all the siblings get to hear about actually coding isn’t as
frightening as it sounds if you don’t have any family that has previously worked in Tech you’ve got nobody that’s
exactly promoting that career to you um right you know if you have a and
talks in schools you know incredibly important if you just have one speaker go in and speak to the class the rest of
the family doesn’t get to hear about their career and um as we we mentioned at the start of
this question there are so many factors that that go into it is parents it’s teachers it’s what you see on TV and you
know they all kind of um work together it’s not one answer so I mean that’s great to have you know the
whole family come along why not exactly exactly yeah also know like we
also partner with um one of our local universities um was a very very strong engineering
and technology company so when you you know I mentioned teaching you know it’s kind of those advisors and the whole the
whole program is very strong and um well obviously and supports young men who are
moving into the space it’s really supporting you know they’ve got special programming that’s supporting women in
Tech and you know helping them kind of learn the skills that they need to really succeed and get started off on
the right foot yeah yeah and how all of that I suppose translates into a real
job in the workplace I think sometimes when when we get to all things when we’re young it’s really hot especially
if you go on say work experience for a day and they send you off to the photocopier and you don’t really do much
you have to sit at the paper shredder you don’t really get to translate you know what actually the skills that you
learn on those days you how it’s meant to translate into your first job and what that looks like but it’s so much
better to immerse you know a child into it and and talk them through what they’re you know what their job what
their career in Tech would look like so I definitely feel like we need to
start much earlier yes definitely I mean in recent years um obviously we’ve had
pandemic we’ve had Mass recommendations with a quiet quitting
um which is a surprise that I like um and uh and obviously now we’ve had a huge number of tech layoffs um most
recently do you think these are having a negative impact on diversity in Tech
I think it’s I think it’s where we are now you know I I think there’s a lot of
people concerned about it that oh my gosh you know that there’s so many layoffs here’s the next big company the
next big tech company that’s laid off and there’s been one after another over the past few months
but there’s there’s so many more technology and identity companies out there that might
be smaller organizations and so many of these people who did get layoffs who did
get layoffs um ended up finding a new job within the next you know couple months and another
maybe a smaller organization many of them ended up getting paid more than what they were getting paid at the the
prior organization so you know it’s it is we’re definitely in the state of uncertainty and this
challenging economic environment but I I do think it’s temporary I think
we’re gonna kind of just like any industry we’re gonna ride the wave and then you know down the road it’s going
to kind of level off but I think there’s so many there’s still so many opportunities in other
um companies especially smaller and mid-sized firms that people perhaps just
didn’t even Explore and now are exploring and find out hey there’s a whole nother kind of um industry that I
could be working in um so I don’t I I don’t know I I’m I
like to be positive about it and I just feel like you know time will tell but I I feel like there’s there’s just so many
opportunities that people just need to kind of step back and reflect on what they really want to do and and be open
to to exploring New Opportunities and go for them so the um the tech industry is uh quite open as
well it’s a transferable skills I mean at the start if you know we spoke about your career route in and that you do
hear about um you know people that have come from all different types of career Bachelor into text so you would hope that you
know a lot of those layoffs have sent people in other directions and they’ve used skills and moved into you know
different areas of Technology um and and hopefully that that is quite welcomed but I think I hope that
companies as well are taking this moment to just reflect on what their company
looks like and how do they build that around you know we’ve had these layoffs
so we’re going to build back how how do we do that and what is our team going to look like you can only pray that
companies are doing that but um we’ll see after some research after this period so
well I do I do I do believe very strongly that um tech companies are
still committed and will continue to be committed to diversity and Tech they’re you know our world is just becoming more
diverse based on who we are and where we live and who we’ve met um so you know I don’t think that’s ever
going to go away I think most tech companies are going to continue to have you know a focus and a priority
around diversity and inclusion and I think that’s um it’s critical and I do I do believe
that’s something that that companies will still value um going forward yes yeah it’s it’s
going to be really interesting to start um seeing uh what is happening around
these layoffs I did see a a headline today I didn’t read into it but it was about
um the the layoffs in Europe are affecting females um disproportionately uh in Tech so I think some companies are
starting to you know actually look at what’s happening and perhaps you know
the the roles that being cut happens to be affecting more more females and from that particular report so so we’ll see
what happens but um as we say you know technology moves so fast the industry moves so fast so you know there’s always
something new yeah right right um what do you think the future
landscape looks like for for women in Tech I mean we’ve spoken a little bit about layoffs but there are lots of
positives still about working in the industry I know
um you you talked about that transferable skills and I think you know as our
gosh is our is the working landscape in general just continues to evolve and and
um become more diverse there’s just more opportunities for women
um and that transferable skills is critical so you can like you know like we said you can work in different
Industries um be a project manager or Project Lead or a specialist in a certain topic and
you could bring those skills to the tech industry I mean that’s one of the things that when I got hired here was that they
liked that I had that diverse you know that diverse background uh because I was bringing a very different lens to this
technology company because the company is they’re the experts you know Ping
Identity is the expert in the identity space that’s not what I’m bringing to the table I’m bringing a different lens and
I think that’s the same for any kind of a role as it relates to women in Tech there’s so many different jobs in the in
that industry that you could be moving into different areas I also know as it relates to like sales and marketing like
that’s definitely a transferable skill you know from company company as well so
um I think there’s I think it’s an exciting time frankly uh to be to be working in technology and if if you can
be open to change and comfortable with being uncomfortable
um it’s a really great place to be and um and it’s it’s it’s fun and exciting and
it’s it’s great to be able to continue to learn and grow um in your role
um and then moving to another role so yeah yeah so those are just a few
things I I I I think as well you’re absolutely right about you know doing
your job what you what you’re there to do is so important and and I’ve spoken
to some ladies who have always been you know uh worried I think about
um entering into a male dominated workplace and then thinking you know is it okay to be me am I how do I fit in
and actually the value that you add is the fact that you are different you think differently and exactly what your
team is looking for they’re looking for a diversity of thoughts they don’t need you to be angry with everybody else
um so it’s it’s only a positive really that uh you you come into um a company as far as you know it’s a
supportive company and you feel like you are supported uh not just as you know
somebody that works in Tech but a female in the workplace um then you know I think it’s so
important to pick the right company me um for you and believe if you’re at the
wrong one right right and I and just to add on to
that just thinking about like core values of the company you know making sure you really understand what their
core values are um is that something that you feel like you can fit in and you can bring your
authentic self to your role within that company and that’s one of the things I’m proud of you know at Ping Identity we’ve
we have kind of you know core values that that really help people feel comfortable being who they are speaking
up um asking for what they need uh just uh for example so that that’s just
definitely something people should be looking at as they’re looking in new organizations what is what is what do their values look like and do I feel
like I can fit in yes and you really get I and you think you get a feel from that
from an interview but I think it takes a little bit a little bit more doesn’t it just to really understand
um that a lady said to me on a podcast uh many episodes ago it’s a bit more
than a slack Channel you know yes how you feel in the workplace it’s slightly
more than the company saying oh we’ve got a slack channel for women in Tech you’re part of that culture and uh every
day how you feel you know um integrating with with a team uh so
yeah you’re absolutely yeah yeah we were saying um we were saying that that um
culture is not a spectator sport you need to be if you want to live and
be part of the culture you need to be part of the culture you need to be contributing to the culture it’s not
just sitting by and watching and listening it’s actually helping create what that looks and feels like so
um we all we all can do that and um those are great companies yeah yeah that’s lovely advice to anyone because
we are already out of time so thank you so much Carrie for for joining us today it’s been an absolute pleasure well
thanks so much Kaylee for having me and uh have a good rest of your your day thank you so much to everybody listening
as always thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
