Inspiring Women In CX

Discrimination against women in the workplace is a very real problem in the UK, & according to the most recent statistics, it’s getting worse!

 

🤰 54,000 pregnant women have been made redundant, a figure doubled since 2005

 

👶🏾 The gender pay gap is widening for women returning to work after children at 33% less than men in the 12 years following birth

 

Whilst there are laws protecting women’s employment rights, The Women and Equalities Commitee says “Urgent action” is needed to give pregnant women and new mothers more protection!

 

In this snippet of my interview with Jo van Riemsdijk she shared her experience of experiencing stigma from recruiters about being of ‘child bearing age’, becoming pregnant one week into a new job and going into labour whilst at work!

 

This isn’t the first woman I’ve heard share such a story, or felt the pressure to go back to work immediately or before she is ready, so as not to miss the opportunities of her peers.

 

Jo and I talked about her experience of becoming a working mother, how she started her own recruitment business CX Talent Ltd with her BFF & her top tips for getting hired during these crazy Covid times.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts!

 

(Links in comments below 👇)

 

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According to Huffington Post, it’s a sad reality that women have been harder hit by the coronavirus pandemic, whether that’s dealing with higher unemployment and job insecurity as a result or bearing the majority of the burden for childcare, homeschooling and other unpaid care work at home.

However, female entrepreneurs and women determined to be their own bosses and change the world around them with their businesses are a silver lining to emerge from the clouds of Covid-19.

That’s one of the reasons I was thrilled to have serial entrepreneur Lara Felix-Omonubi on the show, inspiring us with her latest new venture, starting a new product-led business during a pandemic.

I just loved the way she describes the side hustle… as a way for us to explore creative passions we might not otherwise had chance to, had we not experienced COVID-19.

Tune in to hear more about Lara’s story of becoming an independent black woman, side hustling, patriarchy and the resilience handed down through generations of Nigerian women and find out more about Women in CX by following the links below.

 

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‘Just because you have 50k followers, it doesn’t make you right about everything’

 

With influence comes responsibility, so why do some people choose to abuse it?

 

In the age of social media, ‘influencers’ seemingly have the power to dictate what is right and wrong in their sphere of influence and sometimes even ‘cancel’ people who disagree with their point of view.

 

Debate, intellectual challenge and solid argument are the cornerstones of freedom of expression and without it, we can’t make progress, especially in fields like Customer Experience.

 

The game-changers are those whose original thinking goes against the grain of established concepts to yield a fresh perspective and disrupt the status quo with positive effect. This is where true potential lies.

 

That’s why I was excited to haveI Claire Durrant on the show to talk about her unconventional career journey and lifestyle as a freelance digital nomad, including her story of being cancelled by one such influencer after she was bold enough to call out the misuse of personas in experience design. 

 

Tune into this week’s episode of the Women in CX Podcast to listen-in to Claire’s story, hear about her experience of going freelance, her world travels, our thoughts on the relationship between CX, UX and Service Design and importantly, how she learned to stand up for herself.

 

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Who you work for makes all the difference.

 

Strike it lucky with a true leader who endorses, champions and supports you gives you all the confidence in the world to go out there and reach for new heights.

 

But if you have the misfortune to work for someone who micromanages you to the point of distraction, it can leave you doubting your own abilities and if anything, curb your ambition.

 

For every tale of awesome female leadership, we all have one story of a fellow female who made our lives HELL and in some cases, even bullied.

 

Thankfully these examples are few and far between. But bouncing back after such an experience isn’t necessarily easy once the damage to our self-confidence is done.

 

What we need is a community of women who network, support and inspire each other to succeed and as my guest on the show today, Cultivate CX founder Katie Stabler demonstrates, support one another to rise up.

 

I was thrilled to have Katie on the show to hear her career story, find out how she introduced CX to some very unexpected places in a highly male dominated environment and share our experiences of women supporting women.

 

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Society demands women to be perfect.

 

Our bodies, our careers, our relationships, our homes and even our mothering skills are all scrutinised and held to impossible standards.

 

The more we take on, the more the more pressure we feel to be perfect at everything. Which ultimately means we feel we are failing at some (or all) of what is expected of us.

 

The reality is we are all human and therefore flawed and fallible.  And that’s ok!

 

I was delighted to have founder of Yak CX, Hannah Foley on the show for some real talk about the pressure we feel as women in business to ‘have it all’ and the reality that we probably can’t. (Unless we get Kardashian-rich and outsource all the hard stuff).

 

Tune in to hear Hannah’s story of building her career in the notoriously male dominated industry that is construction, her adventures in Nepal that led to the birth of her company, Yak CX, and her very honest perspective on the juggling act of motherhood with solopreneurship during lockdown. 

She is one inspiring Woman in CX!

 

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“There’s a point when you finally decide it’s great to love other people but sometimes you have to love yourself just a little bit more and you have to choose yourself”

Some people may say putting yourself first is selfish. But when it comes to living a happy fulfilled life and career, it is essential.

We have probably all been in this position at some time or another, where we have had to choose between ourselves and a relationship that whilst being important to us, is no longer serving our happiness and prosperity.

It could be a romantic, a friend, business partner or even a boss. But staying stuck somewhere we don’t want to be for the sake of another never works out for anyone in the end.

Choosing to leave is often the most difficult decision we ever have to make, so how can we find the strength and courage to do so?

It was an absolute pleasure to have UX Matriarch Gavin James on the show to share her wisdom about how she has developed her values and intuition to support her in making better, more courageous decisions. Whether it be in her personal life, business or customer experience, developing a true north enabled Gavin to achieve remarkable things on her journey so far.

Tune in to find out more about Gavin’s story, growing up as a woman alongside the tech that shaped the world as we know it, her mantra, her views on what makes great CX and the challenges of living in Trump’s America, today.

 

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What if the bottom line in Customer Experience isn’t the customer... it’s still the bottom line?

It may seem counterintuitive, but what if the best way to get a business on board with focussing on customers, isn’t by focussing on them at all?

In the penultimate episode of the series I got to talk to a CX commercial queen Jo Boswell about her approach to getting investment in CX that had CFO’s raving about her— And she didn’t start with talking about fixing customer pain points.

Listen-in to her British Airways career stories from riding Concorde on the ‘Bob Job’ serving as a graduate assistant to legend Bob Ayling, to reclaiming an unintentionally sexist slight in the 90’s and being known as one of the four horsewomen of the apocalypse to her eventual senior roles leading the way to better customer value management through data, insight and technology.

You are in for a treat, my CX friends!

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Women rise by lifting others up. But do you always receive the helping hand you need?

As a woman working to create a safe space for women to network, inspire, and support each other, I’m a firm believer in the power of sisterhood. But when it comes to female leadership, not everyone is on board with that philosophy.

For those of us with the privilege of success, we can do so much good if we ‘send the lift back down’ and help others to achieve greatness. Yet for every tale of sisterhood, we all have at least one story of a fellow female-- being at best unsupportive, or at worst doing all she could to tear us down. 

As you will be able to tell when you listen to this episode, I was so excited to have Ingrid Lindberg on the show, as she is the embodiment of what the podcast is all about. Strong, confident, authentic, unapologetic women who aren’t afraid to take up space and support / inspire others to do the same. A brilliant role model of a female CX leader!

Tune in to hear Ingrid’s story, from the moments that shaped her in childhood, to her experiences of being the only woman at the table, her methods of overcoming fraternity culture and the amazing work she is doing to aggregate supportive female executives at board level through her passion project ‘Tatas at the Table’ 

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Contrary to popular belief, Customer Experience is not the answer to everything.

Most people in business have worked it out already, but some CX professionals seem blind to the truth.

Is it because many of the traditional frameworks ‘taught’ are out of date and serve to perpetuate the myth? Or, that CX dogma coupled with lack of challenge is leading our profession in ever-decreasing circles of inaction?

Either way, the outcome of failing to treat the right problem can only be more failed projects, frustrated practitioners, and disappointed executives who risk losing faith in CX efficacy, full-stop.

Undoubtedly we have to be far more focussed on the problem space in order to engineer value for customers, employees, and the business. But to date, true CX Design is the least understood and practiced CX competency.

I was interested to talk to fellow  ‘Design Thinking Evangelist’ Michelle Badenhorst because of our shared view on postmodern CX thinking but also because she unusually came from a business analysis background and transitioned into CX. I was curious to understand the level of pragmatism she brought with her from her career in the no-nonsense world of IT.

Listen in to this week’s episode to hear more about Michelle’s career journey through troubled times in South Africa and her thoughts on blending the CX and BA approach to drive action and results.

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“And the feedback that I got was that I was a bully”

 

Despite our intentions, the way we communicate has a profound effect on others and their perception of our character.

Depending upon our level of self- awareness, negative feedback can come as a shock. It can rock us to the core. But how we react and bounce back from it is a far more powerful statement about who we are.

In this week's episode, Janelle Mansfield shares her experience of being an ‘Alpha Female’ and how this has served her during her career. From her directness being an asset in male-dominated environments to having to re-learn how to work with women, Janelle’s is a story of courage, truth, and authenticity.

You’ll also hear about making her way up the ladder from humble beginnings at Burger King, how this experience fuelled her passion for a future career in CX, how you can harness commercial acumen to transform your CX influence and how she is using digital tools to make remote CX workshops transcend the current barriers we are experiencing with face to face ways of working.

 

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