Earlier in February, I spoke at Contentsquare’s Manchester Client Club about winning their ‘Woman of the Year’ award at the 2022 CX Awards. On International Women’s Day, I thought I’d share some of the things I spoke about - why I’d been nominated by the team and the ripple effects of winning.
Why I was nominated: Mental Health Ambassador
One of the reasons the team included in their submission was my involvement in our workplace Mental Health Ambassador (MHA) programme, how I’ve helped them individually when they’ve been struggling and how I implement the learnings from our MH training and recent Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) accreditation, into how I approach other aspects of being a leader.
This is a meaningful subject to me; the intersection of mindfulness, leadership and creativity are topics that I intend to explore more in 'The UX Yogi' blog. For me, MH support is about seeing and understanding the individual and, more importantly, it’s about that person feeling seen and being heard - unsurprisingly, these are also useful traits in the field of user experience in understanding problems and needs.
“Bringing your full self to work” might be overused and feel somewhat cliche but it’s no secret that mental health impacts physical health and vice versa - the two are one and the same. I practice yoga and meditate and I feel the impact that has on my own physical and mental well-being - I certainly can feel when I haven’t spent time on my mat; either my head is busy, I can’t focus or my body is physically tense - or my likely, it’s both these things. So, I’m interested in anything I do to help others understand this and find their own coping strategies.
How it’s changed my conversations as a manager, I believe it’s essential to establish psychological safety with your team both in terms of 1:1 interactions as well as how the group functions as a team. Using similar frameworks learned in the MHFA course, I have a more structured approach to asking questions, holding space and withholding judgement for why actions have been taken or decisions made. This allows for an open conversation where we all learn and any plans or adjustments can be worked through together.
The theory is that doing these things, from being seen and understood as individuals and how those individuals come together as a team through self-awareness practices, support and psychological safety of trust (in me and of each other), creates the environment for a high-performing team. And in my view, essential for a creative team to be bold enough to experiment and push the boundaries.
Why I was nominated: Northern User Experience (NUX)
NUX is a grassroots community meet-up event for people in the UX Design field. I’ve been involved in organising NUX events for more years than I care to mention - I’m at that stage in life where I am stopping counting these things!
NUX grew from humble beginnings at Lancaster Uni for students studying Human-Computer Interaction, I believe, before finding roots in Manchester and then booming across the North - where we ran monthly meet-ups in Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and York. We also held a whopping 8 UX conferences in Manchester and I established our day-long workshop event - NUX Camp - which ran for 4 years as part of the Leeds Digital Festival.
I became involved in organising the Leeds events to connect more with my peers in UX Design. Also, I got a real buzz out of event organising and facilitating conversations, creating space for people to meet and learn.
This was achieved as a volunteer side hustle on top of busy day jobs; the NUX crew made these events happen for the pure love of being surrounded by lovely people and giving back to their community. Of course, the restrictions of 2020/2021 made this harder - we went online, but the Zoom fatigue was real! And for the last couple of years, NUX has been in suspended animation - but now, we’re slowly finding our way back.
This was achieved as a volunteer side hustle on top of busy day jobs; the NUX crew made these events happen for the pure love of being surrounded by lovely people and giving back to their community. Of course, the restrictions of 2020/2021 made this harder - we went online, but the Zoom fatigue was real! And for the last couple of years, NUX has been in suspended animation - but now, we’re slowly finding our way back.
Newcastle NUX events have already started, and we’ve some new people breathing life into the Manchester NUX events, too - with our first event in 2 years selling out in record time. Stay tuned for more events coming soon.
Why I was nominated: DigitalHer
Another initiative the team cited in their nomination submission was my involvement and support of DigitalHer, run by the awesome team at Manchester Digital, to highlight to school-age girls the opportunities in tech and the women who already occupy those roles.
I coached and encouraged team members to step into the limelight and showcase their backgrounds and talents in several workplace events, to show the diversity of people, roles and routes into the industry. Given that out of 12 members of our team, only 2 were men, we had a good range of positive female role models to choose from!
As I wasn’t traditionally academic at school, I flourished in the arts and languages, not maths and science - which are often sold as ‘the’ subjects for jobs in digital and tech. So I am extremely passionate about highlighting the varied paths available to get into the industry. Being a creative practitioner involved in initiatives like DigitalHer shows young people the power and importance of design, imagination and creativity in the workplace. Important, because I believe that creativity and explorative play are so often undervalued and drummed out of us by society and the education system - but that’s probably a subject for another day!
Why I was nominated: Collaboration
Another area the team touched on in my nomination submission was my approach to collaboration. I bloody love it. In my view, there’s nothing better than getting a group of people, especially those who might not work together day to day, to explore a problem together and come up with solutions - it’s a real bonding experience - especially when those solutions progress through to delivery and have real-world impact.
To help showcase what we do in design, I established regular collaboration sessions with teams we shared synergies with as a Design and Research team but didn’t necessarily work regularly with them. These included colleagues from our Contact Centre Teams (given their connection with our customers), the Content writing team in Marketing (as words are an integral part of the product and brand experience) and the Data Science and Analytics Teams (as this helps to tell more of the customer stories we might uncover through our research). We’ve shared the design process and shown ideation techniques, as well as carried out data synthesis and problem scoping. Ultimately, it's super helpful to have forged these relationships.
The impact of winning Woman of the Year
Being nominated - never mind winning - was a total shock. I cried countless times about the team doing this; it’s probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done. I will treasure it forever.
I knew I’d won when, at the award ceremony, Debbie Ellison said: “the winner is the only nominee to not appear in the submission video…” I turned to the team members who were with me, they all had their phones out filming me - I realised I had to get up on that stage - solo! This was the only award of the night where only one person had to get up those dodgy stairs to the stage on their own - without the support of other team members. But those few steps were memories made forever - I’m unlikely to be a celeb, but I certainly felt like one that night.
And, as the title of my talk suggested, Mum, Dad and Grandma (in the photo) are all beyond proud - my Dad and Grandma have cried more about this than I have!
So, in summary, if you ever get the opportunity to nominate someone for this type of award or any award, please do - to feel this recognition, gratitude, and love - I don’t have words to quantify the impact. And while we await this year’s award submissions, remember there are always those 'small acts of kindness' that go a long way, too.
I knew I’d won when, at the award ceremony, Debbie Ellison said: “the winner is the only nominee to not appear in the submission video…” I turned to the team members who were with me, they all had their phones out filming me - I realised I had to get up on that stage - solo! This was the only award of the night where only one person had to get up those dodgy stairs to the stage on their own - without the support of other team members. But those few steps were memories made forever - I’m unlikely to be a celeb, but I certainly felt like one that night.
And, as the title of my talk suggested, Mum, Dad and Grandma (in the photo) are all beyond proud - my Dad and Grandma have cried more about this than I have!
So, in summary, if you ever get the opportunity to nominate someone for this type of award or any award, please do - to feel this recognition, gratitude, and love - I don’t have words to quantify the impact. And while we await this year’s award submissions, remember there are always those 'small acts of kindness' that go a long way, too.