 My name is Renees. Let me just kick off things by giving a very warm shout out to the Gadigal people of the Oran Nation on whose land we are on today. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land and we are always looking for ways to stand in unity with First Nations people who call this place home. But thank you for having us. I have got an all-star panel with us today and this is a bit of a treat for us because we don't often get to be on panels together. We're just in a lot of panels separately. So forgive us if there's a bit of banter as we go along but hopefully it'll help wake you up in between everything else in the caffeine. But we are joined by Karen Katz aka Mama Katz who is the founder of KK Consulting about to celebrate its sixth birthday next week. Thank you very much. All things HR this woman knows inside out and back to front. We also have the incredible Jess who is an account executive at Salesforce. Fun fact about Jess. She just recently renewed her vows in Vegas. Was it with Elvis? Excellent. I was really hoping for that. We like to do fun facts. I realize I forgot. Karen's fun facts. Would you believe she has abseiled not once but twice down the Renaissance hotel, Renaissance hotel or building. As it was at the time, yes. As it was a while ago. For charity. Pretty impressive. And last but certainly not least we have the incredible Michelle Lee who is senior manager at PWC and like all of us in COVID got a few itchy feet unlike me in COVID. She decided to take four months off work and become a ski instructor in between her day job which is pretty freaking incredible if you ask me. Girls in tech for those who don't know it's actually a global organization that was founded back in 2007 in the US. A lady by the name of Adriana kicked it off. She found herself being the only female at the table in her tech role and I think all of us have been in a position like that. She did something about it like start a whole global movement. Won't do that again. We make up the Australian chapter. We're one of 60 around the world. We've got 16,000 in our community here locally and we put on events all through the year all across Australia with the single purpose to really build a community and empower females in tech. So when we were offered the opportunity to come and talk to you guys today we one jumped at it but to really hope that we can leave you guys thinking perhaps in a different way and I think you know some of the things that are happening now and it's 2024 deserve our attention and deserve us to start thinking about it and being aware of it back in our workplaces. So bringing me back to our topic of demystifying diversity and inclusion I just thought I'd share a few stats with you that are here in Australia so forgive me but certainly I think shared globally in similar types of trends. So here in Australia the workforce the tech workforce is made up of 26 percent females so despite being you know tech is everywhere and females representing 50 percent of the population only 26 percent of them are actually I guess participants in that kind of tech workforce. That number continues to decrease the more senior we go and this is what we really want to start tackling. One of the parts of that that kind of breaks our hearts is that across the board senior mid junior women in Australia today 2024 are paid 20 percent less than their male counterparts which is not cool we're doing the same job. The inclusion part though really comes into the fold when we realize 50 percent of women who are starting tech careers in Australia are leaving. There is something wrong with our workplaces there is not enough of a community here where women are feeling like they can actually stay and thrive and build a tech career and there are plenty of tech roles going right so we know that this ain't for the lack of job opportunity there is something wrong with how we're actually feeling included at the workplace. So to kick us off I actually thought I'd ask my amazing panel just an experience potentially they've had where they haven't felt inclusion in the workplace because it takes on so many different forms and none of its I shouldn't say none of it very rarely is a conscious none of us mean to do this but it happens. Karen can I maybe kick start with you can you share an experience where maybe you didn't feel included in the workplace. I can actually share two and my first one was back in the day of work experience. I don't know did they do that anymore the work experience. Anyway mine was some time before this century but I turned up at a very very large tech company and there was myself and there was a young man two of us 16 years old and hi welcome and young man was invited to shadow a developer for his week of work experience and I was given some reading material and left to my to my own devices so that was my very very first foray into tech. My second one was my very very first job I was hired as a business analyst and I arrived and we were about to move building premises and the guy said oh look there's a whole lot of stuff on tables that need to be collected like all the old stationery what have you we need to collect that so that you know we can take it with us to the the next venue and I went this is my very first job this is my very first week everyone else is busy working and doing their thing and that is how it is that I was welcomed into my very first job so there are team meetings there are all sorts of things going on I was not included and I cannot tell you how difficult that was to overcome. Jess? Yeah mine's probably what you would consider a bit basic or 101 but only recently a few years ago I was on the executive leadership team for a previous business I worked with and International Women's Day rolled around I had organized a event for all of the women across the organization where I had two female board members that I was interviewing on the panel and I'd also organized an onsite event for all of the women in the division that I worked in so it was quite a task that I'd undertaken and after we'd finished the event the operations manager sat down with me and said you didn't organize enough cupcakes for my team he hadn't been involved in any of the organization for the day and felt that that was the piece of feedback that he needed to give. Constructive. Very constructive. Yeah very hopeful. Yeah. Michelle? So I've been in tech consulting for about eight years now and eight years ago when I started as a graduate we probably had about 10 graduates two of us for females and I'm just going to share a story that basically the definition of inclusion I feel like is very different across everyone and maybe just think about what it actually means to be inclusive so for example I when I started as a grad I basically every single event to feel included I was told to organize the events I was told to basically organize the food and everything and that's how they made me feel included but really that was not how we felt included right I wanted to be the one that actually thinks about solutions that actually does the work but that's just like a natural way of saying okay how do we make her feel more included that's just something to think about. I think that's so fair and if I reflect on myself even personally I was sort of thinking how I would answer this and I'm just fortunate I've just finished up I had my own company for 15 years it just it just sold two weeks ago I'm a lady of leisure officially now which is a very weird state of play but early on I was I had two toddlers and they were in childcare and this is my workplace I was setting the rules I was working 80 hours a week did for 15 years and yet in those early days it's sort of like I felt still like I had to hide the fact that I had kids that needed to be picked up at 6 p.m. and I would often put all of my bags and my stuff in the car at some point during lunch or the afternoon so that the end of the day when I had to leave on time I could just sneak to the car pretending like I was just headed to a meeting and no one would be any other wiser that I was actually making off to go get my kids that exist and then you know once they're in bed log back on and keep working it's it's weird how it sometimes plays out in just the way we feel as well as kind of the workplace environment that we have so I guess on that Michelle perhaps if I could stick with you and let's sort of start to move a bit more positively in what ways can leaders create safe spaces for sort of some of this open dialogue and constructive feedback with diversity and inclusion issues at the workplace since they do take on so many different forms and look so different for all of us I honestly love this topic about like safe spaces I'm all about that so I love this question I think the first and foremost most important thing is understanding people's barriers like we're all different we're all human so really just knowing and acknowledging how people and individuals have a different type of barrier is so important because then they'll feel a lot more belonged so an example of this I've personally experienced is I mean I'm an Asian female obviously and it's we have this stereotype where basically we're quiet or passive you know when listeners and to be honest I fit that mold perfectly because that's how I grew up that's my culture and we're told to be like that right that has been told to me so many times since I was in school that it's a negative thing like it's bad you got to speak up more you gotta be you know you gotta be more opinionated etc etc but there are times where I just feel like I don't want to speak right now like I don't have anything valuable to say right now so there's no reason for me to say anything and this is who I am and we're all so we're human so we work in a funny way because instead of thinking about that's feedback so I need to then do that more I start to hide in my shell more I start to be like well this is negative and I don't know how to address it so I'm just gonna hide and hide and hide and what I found instead is I was so so lucky and thankful that about three years ago I met leaders who really actually just told me those are strength and it's okay to be introverted it's okay to be more passive and gentle so use that as a strength and basically it just flipped the way I thought about things and now it kind of allowed me to grow and now I'm in this position senior manager and I just feel like now it's my turn to start creating these safe spaces so what I realized from that was in order to talk about these things is to give people power in seeing that their differences are strengths and their barriers might actually be strength for others so I think that's the most important thing in my opinion I love that um Jess perhaps I can go to you now how do you believe diversity and inclusion contribute to the overall success and innovation for for a company and there's heaps of data that actually backs this up so for all the data people in the room I'm just going to guess there's a couple of you it's there but in your experience I'm definitely not covering the data sorry about that um look I think um the the benefit of diversity and inclusion the workplace is the multitude of different perspectives that it can bring to an organization um everybody has a different lived experience they have a different background um they have different things that have brought them to where they are in their career um and that can only be a benefit to an organization because it allows you to swarm around business problems with different perspectives um and tackle things in a different way we all know that there's a multitude of ways to solve any one problem um and diversity for me really brings the perspective to be able to do that um I probably give you an example of a situation that I was in um my first senior leadership role I was promoted into the role with a female who had a very similar career to me we were in parallel roles just managing a different region um and we were put in a position where we're expected to compete with each other it wasn't that there was only one role at the end of the day um we were just put in that position by the leadership team what we did instead was we actually connected together and collaborated together um we would have a weekly meeting where we strategized we innovated together we supported each other um and we actually both came out really successful our regions kicked I don't know if I'm allowed to swear but kicked butt that year we exceeded all of our targets what that meant for the organization was rather than one region succeeding and one leader succeeding the whole business did um so I think that is valuable as well to understand rather than competing how can we actually bring collaboration together and get benefits across an entire organization not just one divisional sector love that Karen in your experience what are some common misconceptions or barriers that prevent workplaces from true achieving true diversity and inclusion and how can these be overcome I haven't included in this but you know we've all got diversity quotas and things like that which is one part of it but what's your take on it my take is that as somebody who has been involved in the recruitment space for a very long time if I had a dollar for every hiring manager that said here are all the requirements and it would be really good if you could find me a female I could have retired years ago it's not about hiring a female there is not one woman on this earth who wants a job because she's got a vagina let's just put that out there right now that's not what it's about what happened yeah she was waiting what it's about is knowing that I have just as much opportunity to be hired into that role as the person sitting next to me whether they are male whether they are gender non-binary whether they are older whether they are of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander background whether they are LGBTIQ plus and so on and so forth it's about knowing that the opportunity is there regardless of who I am and what I'm about so that's the first part let's get the job because we earned it and we're the best person for that job and there is no unconscious bias that is stopping me getting there the second thing is what we're doing once someone actually achieves getting that role I have a client of mine who were going through a diversity inclusion review and I sat down with one of the women there and I said tell me about your experience having come along here and she said everyone's awesome Karen people are really you know they're inclusive I'm invited to all the meetings I feel like I have a place she goes but when I started here I had a problem I said tell me about it she goes Karen the welcome pack they gave me a baseball cap that was too big for my head they gave me a t-shirt that I could swim in that was sized for a male and not for a female and they gave me a beer cozy which is great but I don't drink beer and it's these tiny little things that we can turn the dial on so easily that will make someone feel welcome from the beginning there's nothing wrong with stocking t-shirts in both male and female sizes if we're going to go for hats maybe a bucket hat instead of a baseball cap it's the little things that we can do that make a difference and inclusion along the way the best way to understand how to make someone feel included ask them what is it that we can do to make you feel like you are more at home here ask the question and it makes a hell of a difference I had the privilege of speaking at the women in emerging tech conference a couple weeks ago and they had an incredible speaker a lady by the name of Daisy Wong you should actually google her bright pink hair bright pink wheelchair and her stories of her in lack of ability to even be in the room because there was a doorway not wide enough in this day and age it's actually just not good enough inclusion means equal opportunity for everybody to be able to be in the room and be at the table and it's really part of what girls in techs about it's about being able to be at the table and to have a voice Karen if you don't mind I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with you because I just want to ask you what what are some of the specific actions that leaders can take to ensure that diverse voices are heard and you know you said ask them seems pretty obvious to talk to them but if they're not asking how can they actually listen for some of these cues to know that they should even ask in the first place I think it's creating that culture it's empowering your leaders to ask the questions and it's creating safe spaces as Michelle was alluding to earlier that people feel that they are empowered to speak up in the first place and it's having a look at your participation even when you get to things like social events who's coming along if we're doing you know beers and drinks after work how many people are we excluding from that because they have to go pick up their kids or there are other obligations that they have if we're doing a breakfast event what does that mean does that mean that people can't get there in time again dropping off kids or whatever else that prevents them if we look at lunchtime events is that more inclusive as you know and that's just one example in the way that we run meetings is it that we're waiting for people to just speak up or we're inviting to people to speak up so I mean one of the things that I was taught is that you advocate for other people in the room you got 10 people in a room and nine of them are speaking and one of them is not and it might be as you alluded to that they've got nothing to say but if you sometimes you need to invite them and you need to say did you have anything to add and there's nothing wrong with actually no I don't that's fine but you're giving them a safe space in which to open up if you're inviting them to do so so the best way I think we can advocate is keep an eye out and be observant have a look around the room know what's going on see the people that are not participating see the people that are not leaning forward and temper those that try to take over the room as well there's always one of them and it's usually me and it's like that's great thank you very much Karen however what have you got to say Jess things like that and I think that that helps you maintain that safe space and allows people to speak who ordinarily might not love that Jess if I can jump back to you and you touched on a few things that you you've done previously with the the female and the in the parallel role but what else are some small but meaningful actions that employees or team members can actually take to promote inclusivity in their day-to-day interactions yeah I think mission Karen have sort of already touched on some of this but it seems really simple but communication getting to know the people that are around you in the workplace we actually implemented a I think it was called chat roulette or something it was a website that allocated you a person to meet with once a fortnight and we did it during coven during lockdown but it actually was quite valuable we continued to do it after we came out of lockdown it was an opt-in so again in terms of people's barriers they didn't have to all sign up if they didn't feel comfortable but what it gave us was half an hour a week with somebody in the organization that we probably wouldn't normally talk to and we had sort of one rule there was no business talk so it wasn't about sales figures or campaigns that are going out or projects that were in play it was getting to know each other so getting to know again what that what that person's doing outside of work do they need to be doing 6pm pickups and things like that so you could get to know the people around you and you could understand them and I think by doing that that allows you to then advocate for them in those meetings because you understand where they're coming from love that getting to know people and communication quite simple right we can do this Michelle turning our attention to something maybe a bit more positive but can you share a story of a time where you've witnessed the positive impact of diversity inclusion initiatives in action either maybe at your own workplace or somewhere else that you've seen it yeah so I honestly think that it's a result of many initiatives that make things work it can't just be one thing that has a positive impact so things like the policy reforms the like the values the creation of values and also like flexible workplaces all of that combined is what makes a actual truly positive impact but something that hit home to me quite hard and it's actually got to do with the recruitment process so I mean I felt like you made a huge impact but Karen she's the queen of recruitment so she can tell me like that's not true but basically I so our team started with very little diversity in general and we made an initiative where for the recruitment process we always have two interviewers in the room and one interviewer had to be just had to be one of the females in the team right or at least a diverse representation in the team and that was forced and honestly it was hard because so we had 10 interviews lined up everyone else had only one interview to go to so they took their time out of their days to go to this interview whereas the females because they're only two then we had to go to every single interview so it was a bit more trickier but because we had a passion for this we went for it right we've still put our time into it and honestly that made a huge difference because when we're interviewing candidates they can see that there is actually people in management with a diverse background that can resonate with them come to stand them and connect with them just simple things like just talking to them so it made honestly a massive difference and that applies to me even in my career I found that I left workplaces that didn't have a diverse representation in leadership and so I went in the workplace I'm in right now huge diversity in leadership so I'm here and I've been here for four and a half years at PWC other places honestly I've left after a year so that's a testament yeah that speaks volumes I think for sure perhaps a question I'll kind of throw to all of you and you touched on a few experiences you've had previously in the past but addressing unconscious biases and stereotypes in the workplace what have been some ways that you've seen these actually be tackled head on to to address apparently me I'm still thinking it through it's actually really interesting one of the stories I love to tell is when I had a hiring company who said we want to try this concept of a blind CV so we don't want to know the name of the person we don't want to know the agenda or anything like that but we just like to just get the CV so we sent it through and all the hiring managers spent their entire time trying to figure out who this person was like this kind of defeats the purpose don't you think I think Michelle's actually raised something brilliant in that if you can see it then you are more inclined to want to work at an organization where there is similarity as humans we're looking for a connection that's just that's a natural instinct and that connection can be on any number of levels but one of the most obvious ones is on gender so if there is a female set is sitting in front of you you automatically have something in common and so therefore there's a level of comfort and then you're more relaxed in an interview and I think that that actually works very well and it's organizations that make sure that you've got a buddy when you arrive who again you form a connection with and that becomes a go-to person and that's a level of safety and we raise safety a lot in this space because that's what people need to feel they need to feel safe they need to feel a connection and then they will blossom and they will grow in the organization so I think that it's doing it's it's the little things that you do along the way it's not a we will hire 50% female I'm not even sure you can commit to that anymore purely because of the numbers coming out of universities in the first place and all the stats that Renee said mentioned earlier when I actually studied a Bachelor of Information Technology back when I'm not prepared to admit when that was and that was a scholarship course and there were 50 of us and 20 of us were female so it was like 40 percent going through that were female in the first instance and the number of courses since then have grown exponentially UX and CX didn't exist back then or if they did they certainly didn't have labels but the number of females who are even contemplating a university degree that even touches on technology and the number of them are so broad it's not what it used to be so we don't have the pool so if you've got one and you can make them feel like they belong you win bottom line love that I want to open up to questions at any point so please just feel free to erase your hand because we'll be very happy to talk about this until we're blue in the face but some small but meaningful actions employees can take to promote I've already asked that question it was duplicated my apologies how do you think individuals can foster a sense of belonging and support for marginalized colleagues even if they are not in leadership positions I'll ask all of you that and see who wants to answer it yeah I think it's not too dissimilar from a leadership standpoint it is about advocating for those around you and creating that space for them so as an example if you've had an offline chat with somebody and they had some incredible ideas about a project that the business is working on or a problem that you're trying to solve as a business and when you walk into the project meeting or a meeting with a leadership team and that person doesn't feel like they've got the space to be able to speak up create the space for them and not calling them out because you want to be conscious of how that might make them feel but calling out look we had a chat about that earlier Karen you had an awesome idea any chance you want to share it so creating that space and advocating for that person in the room I think is really important do you think rewards or quarters should come part into a diversity and inclusion kind of metric within an organization what might some of them look like potentially or have we seen any in the workplace that work there are plenty out there I think that it shouldn't necessarily be about we want to hire 50 percent women what we've got to do is actually aim for we want to make it an equal playing ground so that everyone has the opportunity to come on board to get that job to feel that they're part of the organization the quota in the first instance when you saw that come I don't know 10 15 years ago it was really interesting just to see them throw the numbers out there but it at least raised some consciousness I'm not sure that the numbers were necessarily what it was about but the consciousness of we've got to get better at this I think is is probably the positive that comes out of that because there's nothing worse than setting yourself a target not being able to hit it right so rather than we're going to hit this target how about we're going to do what we can to make everyone feel like they want to work for this organization and then give them every opportunity to be able to do that regardless of who they are where they come from and what they're about if you've got the skills and you've got the ability you should have the opportunity I think that point around I actually want to work for this organization is critical because there's no point for me setting a quota hitting that quota and then in six months time you're not at that quota anymore because all of the females that you've hired to hit the quota have made a decision to leave the business because they didn't feel included so I think that yes the quota is important from an awareness point of view and starting to you know show that change is needed but it's about once you've hit that quota what are you doing to make sure that people feel included that they want to stay there and they want to grow the organization rather than leave I mean that statistic at the top about the number of women that are leaving the technology industry is an indicator that it's sort of not good enough to hit the quota once it's how do you actually maintain that by creating an exclusive working environment absolutely I might just add to that as well and I feel like you don't really need official rewards and recognition thank you goes a thousand ways like honestly it's like basically if you're in a group and someone has done something something tiny a bucket hat right something tiny just to show that we're being inclusive and then you saying as a leader saying thank you for showing that and thank you for caring as well and thinking about everyone in this room it goes a long way and it makes everyone else in that room think about it as well I had a in my organization we had a team of a hundred and it was a fairly kind of young team and I was talking to one of our more mature team members she was she was in her 60s and she was just sharing I don't know what they're talking about and they're all gen zed's who are just talking in another language and she's like I feel like the old woman in the corner and we actually just had a bit of fun with it and ended up having a bit of a a bit of a language course in in gen zed language gen x and baby boomers and everything in between but it's something that I hadn't even thought about but she was so right so even just thinking about the different ages and the different ways we communicate within a workplace I think was was something I wasn't even aware of but when she actually raised it it was you know something fun that we could address and almost navigate you know what emoji we all chose in the slack channel to to comment on something almost became a sign of what what age group we we found ourselves in it's actually really funny before we started here where we popped up I popped a photo up of us about to speak and my my oldest child who will be 21 next month and that freaks the crap out of me just in case you were wondering says can I post sleigh on your post and I'm like damn straight you can put that out there like that won't just bring my age down 20 years right there I use a gift emoji as a gift and my kids just reel me for that side note sorry did anyone have any questions it does it does I don't know that this will be super helpful but this is what I told a group that I was mentoring recently of young women who asked a similar question you know how do I create space for myself how do I be present in a room where it might not be as diverse and what I said to them was to show up like you were no different to not bring your like not think any differently about yourself than any other person in that room I was on an executive leadership team I think there was about 20 of us I was the only female in the room I didn't walk into that room thinking oh my gosh I'm the only female here I walked into that room thinking I'm in this role for a reason I have got myself here my opinion my ideas are valid and so I held my own space in the room as well so I would encourage your daughter to develop a way to hold her own space and to not think about herself as anything different in that room can I add to that just as a mother of two daughters I think that what's really important is from the minute they come onto this earth that you empower them that you listen to them and you make sure that they feel heard because if they know that you're listening then they will believe the world is listening and if the world is listening then they will not they will feel empowered to speak and to put their ideas forward and to go I'm here and I got things to say and dammit if you're all not going to listen to me so that starts at home I'll add also just for fun these I don't like thinking that there's a lot of male and female traits but something I have certainly noticed I've I've believed throughout my career and hiring and working with hundreds and hundreds of people I find that females tend to negotiate with themselves before they negotiate in the room and it can be over anything small it could be your pay but it could also be what role you're willing to go for and I always ask the question of my 17 year old daughter but what do you really want and you'll always find it's something different than what they're asking for and I've taken the same tactic when even just salary negotiating as the employer with my team when they ask what pay they want I always ask did you actually want a different pay before you walked in the room because I have noticed and I hate to stereotype here but the boys will go in and ask for a higher amount than often the girls will and I think it's because they've gone through a process in their head of like oh I can't ask for that that would be too much so they sat down here done it again and by the time they finish up they're even lower so just even asking the question but what do you really want I think can often really go a long way do anyone else have any questions yes you mentioned the and the question I had is would it be wise to as long as the person is open and they they give a shit then they're a great buddy if they are because I mean we are not anti-mail please don't think that for one second and I certainly hope we didn't put that impression forward our eyes are very very important in our world anyone who is going to take the time who is going to make the time to make sure that somebody is welcome has a point of reference and has someone that they can lean on until they're standing up on their own two feet is going to make a great buddy I feel like in the workplace it's that the vision of what the company is there to do and the values and how it's going to do it that should be the universal trait with everyone that's there no matter of gender age race whatever it is that's the unifying force and when that actually occurs it really doesn't matter who you partner them with because you're all on the same boat yeah I might just add to that one really quickly um so I think like a lot of my mentors and a lot of my leaders that have guided me a lot of them are male so honestly it comes down to allies it comes down to really caring so even if it's another male budding another male that's okay that buddy might be a massive advocate so that's all that matters it's such a lived experience to and perhaps if I can share I was working for a tech startup I joined when there was just four individuals um over the three years I was there it grew to over 50 I was such a senior part of that team I had a I caught up with the CEO every day I felt like it was my business I was so committed to that business I I loved it I thought about it every waking second and when I became pregnant so excited I shared the news with my CEO and I felt like instantly I became invisible it's like he checked me out that I was leaving now I would have I would have worked all the way through and I would have worked hard the second I got the opportunity to come back that's the way I'm wired but I felt instantly discounted by him to the point when I was pregnant with my second child is when I actually started my business and I was delivering pizzas and working a retail job having a startup to talk like pregnant toddler like I'm not afraid of hard work I don't want to be discounted for that reason and it happens it still happens and it's it's not cool I'm just adding to your statement really and if I could also add to that I think that when you the right thing is what you're doing there is speaking to the employers in the room and saying paying that super makes a hell of a difference making the effort to ensure that someone coming back from parental leave is using what they call their keeping in touch days so that they aren't losing touch so that they have the ability to step up and just quietly going into a lesser job if they're paying them less that's illegal but doing what you can to remember that just because someone went and had a baby we actually do donate brain cells to our children just a side issue but just that they've come back they are actually wiser because their lived experience is just so much broader and the number of things that that woman has had to juggle in order to be able to look after her household look after her child she's going to be a better employee for it don't forget that I'll add one thing and it was probably just sorry triggered me a little bit no I had an experience I don't have children but I'd been working in an organization for 10 years very similar to yourself I didn't have any ownership in the company I wasn't on the leadership team at that point but it was a small company family run so I felt very connected to it I went today to work every day to succeed for the business because I felt bored into it and after 10 years there was a leadership change and the MD sat me down in the boardroom one day and we were just having a casual conversation and he said so you're not going to have kids anytime soon are you and so for me that was an indicator even though I wasn't planning to that he was checking in on me to understand my commitment to the organization so instant fear instant fear um and instant feeling like what I had done in the past could instantly be switched off in terms of the acknowledgement of that yeah yeah conscious have we got time for a few more yeah that's okay if you can't if you can't tell we are to it's all good yeah I'm not I'd recommend calling your friendly HR consultant who works with a number of small tech companies on an ad hoc basis to support them with that kind of thing and look what you're honing in on there is absolutely correct you have brilliant founders who know exactly what it is they're going to build and how they're going to go about it who have no concept of the law of what it may and and and I get the phone call when something goes wrong and it's like shit what are we going to do about this and laying that foundation is actually really important so having someone on hand who understands that who can preempt the questions who will ask you and challenge you and say you know have you thought about this what about that will help to actually then put together the foundations that will allow you to then grow that business to the point where hopefully you can bring your own HR on board but certainly it's not something that you can pluck out of the air and no one's got the time to pour through all the different websites about all the different employment laws and all the different nuances what it is that a startup needs compared to what a very large company needs very very different and the ability to take that foundation and then scale it get get a little bit of expert advice is what I'd suggest I'd also add like no one's perfect like I had my own organization coming from my lived experience that I've now shared with you and I by no means always got it right but it's this constant learning and at the end of the day this is a human need to feel included like once we're fed we've got shelter and we've got clothes on we actually just want to feel safe in our environments like this is basic primitive stuff that people are seeking and not experiencing in the workplace and sometimes it's just even an awareness of is that happening around me and coming into work with a different filter on that can kind of help that I am conscious of time I actually just had a little sneaky look at my watch so I'll look I'll close there something I didn't mention at the start so we all volunteer for girls in tech it is a hundred percent volunteer run and you can see by the amazing like power houses that are here next to me like these aren't women with kind of just you know little casual jobs like they've got pretty full-time careers and we dedicate a lot of time to creating these events to do it we're on a mission to get 25,000 members by 2025 it's free so please go ahead and sign up get your daughter too as well in Australia there is a I'll get the statistic right but we've got a 1.2 million job target by 2030 and in the tech industry there's 650,000 jobs that need to get filled over the next six years so the fact that we have such a huge proportion not as big as it should be leaving I think is something that's going to impact all of us and I would dare to say that that number is going to get filled by a number of different sources maybe from overseas and this topic of inclusivity is only going to become bigger in all of our day-to-day lives so it does impact all of us and I encourage you all to kind of think about what part we all can play in creating more inclusive workplaces for us and in addition to diverse so thank you so much for having us enjoy the rest of the day