[00:00:00] Clare Carpenter: Welcome to Unlocking Leadership, a podcast about leading in a changing world, brought to you by Corndel, your strategic skills partner. I'm your host, Clare Carpenter.
I'm joined today by Nimmi Patel. Nimmi's the Head of Skills, Talent and Diversity at Tech UK. Thank you so much for joining me. Hello.
[00:00:29] Nimmi Patel: Hi Clare, thank you so much for having me on this podcast.
[00:00:31] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Before we get into the main conversation today, I'd love you to share a little bit with us about How you were arriving and what your career has entailed so far, Nimmi. Who are you? How are you landing?
[00:00:47] Nimmi Patel: So straight out of university, I managed to land an internship with the New Zealand Labour Party working in the 2017 general election there. It was such a great experience working and living in another country. I was working there during their winter. So essentially that whole year, I only had two winters and no summer and let me tell you, that was a little tough. But I had the privilege of meeting great people, their prime minister, Jason Darden. You know, it kind of inspired me to work for the Labour Party on a contract basis in the UK when I came back in a similar role as a mobilization assistant, and then I ventured into something a little bit different, which was policy at TechUK.
Now, TechUK is an apolitical organisation. We're a tech trade association with over 950 members, almost a thousand, and we really look to. Influence policy in the best way, not only for our members, but for societal good, and that includes kind of tech for people, planet, society, and the environment.
[00:01:48] Clare Carpenter: Just sounds absolutely fascinating. What an incredible journey, if you'll pardon the expression, all the way from that early start in politics in New Zealand and then through to where you find yourself now. What feels important about the place that you are in now for you?
[00:02:06] Nimmi Patel: I like to remind myself how privileged I am because I was able to fly to New Zealand and spend time and, you know, not have to worry about paying rent in London while I was away in New Zealand. The work that I did in New Zealand was for sort of room and board, and I got a really great experience out of it, but not many people can have those experiences and, you know, if I'm honest, I'm not really a big fan of unpaid internships, even though that technically was what I was doing in New Zealand.
[00:02:33] Clare Carpenter: Yes.
[00:02:34] Nimmi Patel: I recognize that, and so I'm a big advocate of making sure that everyone has work experiences, life experiences in some kind of future role that they can understand what they want to do later in life, whether that's inspiring them never to work in a workplace like that, or whether it's inspired them to follow a different path.
[00:02:56] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The choices that we... sometimes find ourself making when we're very young that lead us to a place when we're older that makes us look around and go how did I find myself here?
[00:03:08] Nimmi Patel: Exactly. Yeah, I remember doing my interview to join the New Zealand Labour Party work internship and I was just so surprised. I didn't think I was going to get it.
[00:03:19] Clare Carpenter: When you were in New Zealand, in that very early part of your career then, what were the things that you learned then that are really helpful for you in the place you are now?
[00:03:29] Nimmi Patel: I learned all about the stamina of work. I mean, obviously I had worked in retail a long time before this, but this was my first experience, I guess, in an adult workplace that was very different. I mean, retail is always very strenuous and people sort of know that, but the stamina to continue and to not feel burnt out and it was an election, so campaigning as well.
The campaign lost in the local area that I was in, in Whanganui, but the Labour Party won the overall campaign for the general election, so it was a bittersweet. But we laid the foundation so that three years on, as general elections are every three years in New Zealand, the candidate that stood that I was working for won, and she still remains an MP, and she now has two kids, and it's been fantastic to see her not only grow as a parliamentarian, but as a person from across the world.
[00:04:27] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, so you're still following her from across the world.
[00:04:30] Nimmi Patel: Yeah.
[00:04:31] Clare Carpenter: Thinking about your role then with TechUK, you described that as a trade organisation, I think, with 950 plus members working on influencing policy for the benefit of the members of the organisation. How does that work? What does that mean?
[00:04:51] Nimmi Patel: So it's not just for the benefit of the organisation, I should probably clarify, it's also about making sure that the landscape for the work that we do is the best regulatory tech landscape that can possibly be. We want to make sure that the UK is the best place to grow a tech business, and it's so important that for the UK to be a world leading digital economy, that everyone has the skills needed for work and life. That's the part that I primarily work on.
[00:05:18] Clare Carpenter: I'm thinking about this notion of digital literacy. Am I in the right space thinking about that in relation to what you're working on?
[00:05:28] Nimmi Patel: For sure, I mean, digital literacy and digital poverty is a huge part of the work we do. Especially during the pandemic, we saw so many people being displaced, not only from sort of their workplace, but their online lives. But people also can access services online, for instance, being able to, you know, do banking, and it was really important and we've seen stark disparities about how people across the country are treated in different regions and the skills and the knowledge base they have to use services online.
[00:06:01] Clare Carpenter: So you've talked about differences from a geographical point of view. I wonder what you've noticed about differences from the point of view of different generations accessing digital ways of communicating and doing work and business.
[00:06:15] Nimmi Patel: Throughout the pandemic, we did see new waves of people being displaced, and so those are people. Who may have the digital skills for work, but might not have the digital skills for life. So people who couldn't access their online banking for a number of reasons because they always go into the bank. Couldn't access their local government services because they always go into the council and we saw people who have the skills to get by but not necessarily thrive, and that's what we want to do. We want to make sure that everyone has the skills that they need to progress and not only just to progress, but to make their lives easier.
[00:06:55] Clare Carpenter: So thinking about the work that TechUK does in that space then, what impact have you seen that having so far?
[00:07:02] Nimmi Patel: There's been a lot of sort of talk about the way in which we need to drive digital skills and the way we need to govern digital skills, and there's been some real great collective action from a number of different companies coming together to do so in different localised areas. What's great is that there's a lot of talk and a lot of need for this post pandemic, what we need to do is make sure we galvanise that momentum and keep on it.
[00:07:27] Clare Carpenter: And the question that immediately comes to mind as you describe it is how do you do that?
[00:07:32] Nimmi Patel: It's tough, right, because there's never enough money, there's never enough support staff, it's just not enough, but I think we need to keep going with the great initiatives, you know, such as the Good Things Foundation have done a number of different great runs to gather laptops for people.
Future.now have put out some really great reports and analysis in terms of what kinds of skills people need for work and life. And we at TechUK really bring those people together. Act as a kind of convener to make sure that people have the backing power, and we make sure that political parties listen.
[00:08:12] Clare Carpenter: Do you have some examples that you could use to bring that to life a little bit for us?
[00:08:17] Nimmi Patel: In 2020, the government launched the Skills Toolkit, which is a website that signposts to different courses online. And I thought that was brilliant because throughout the pandemic, while people were furloughed or while they were working from home, many found that website really easy to use to find courses that they could do in their spare time.
We find that kind of Learning on the go really important to people's mental wellbeing, especially during that difficult time, but also to help them progress, right? We want lifelong learning to be at the heart of work and people's future. What we need to see now is a second iteration of that. You know, the courses on there that were signposted weren't necessarily government backed or, you know, there wasn't a seal of approval, but they were scalable, they were free, and people, they were easy to access. Now we need to make sure we latch on to those learners and support them to go further and make sure that signposting tool is widened.
[00:09:20] Clare Carpenter: It's fascinating, isn't it? Because I'm thinking about a few years ago when I lived in Australia and some of the very rural and very distant parts of Australia have been using digital learning for many years to deliver schooling. University education, et cetera, all across the country, even in areas that are really remote from the bigger cities.
I wonder what we could do to harness some of the work that's being done in other countries as well.
[00:09:50] Nimmi Patel: Oh, a hundred percent. We need to leverage what other countries are doing. I mean, there's no point reinventing the wheel. There's a lot that we can take from other nations and apply it, especially because we might not necessarily have the same challenges. As those nations, we've outlined a lot of this in TechUK's plan for UK tech, which is our manifesto on how the next government can use technology to build a better Britain. We put out a manifesto before every general election and we also tend to have budget submissions every year, and we also put out a framework for any new upcoming prime minister, which we did three times.
[00:10:29] Clare Carpenter: I remember. How interesting. Thinking about people's response to changes in technology, particularly recently the PR around AI and chat GPT and those kinds of areas. What's your response to those in the way that's represented in the media and in the government's response to that?
[00:10:53] Nimmi Patel: It's completely understandable why people are afraid. I mean, a few years ago, it was all talk about the fact that robots were going to take over our jobs, and we're really keen at TechUK to highlight the fact that parts of jobs, you know, we think parts of jobs will be displaced, but it's up to all of us to make sure that we are upskilling and retraining people so that they can leverage the best use of technology.
For instance, you know, many people have signed up to generative AI tools. How can we support those people to use generative AI to make the more mundane administrative tasks in their life easier so they can focus on the innovative thinking in their job?
[00:11:33] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it, to actually thinking back though, even 20 years ago, some of the changes that we've seen in the last 20 years, we imagine them accelerating in the next 20 years. It's exciting, it's an exploration, isn't it, of a landscape we don't even know exists yet.
[00:11:49] Nimmi Patel: Yeah, but we do need concerted policy efforts to make sure that we get through it. I mean, email changed the way we work, right? what was life like before you've got mail? And now it's time to make sure that people can leverage the AI tools, because if we don't, we just end up widening the disparities that already exist in society, meaning there will be those that use AI and there will be those that don't.
[00:12:13] Clare Carpenter: Fascinating, isn't it? So we've been talking predominantly about the skills part of the role that you're responsible for at TechUK. I wonder then how we move into the area of diversity and inclusion within tech and really interested to hear your views on the current landscape of that and what you see happening moving forwards.
[00:12:35] Nimmi Patel: Sure. So, of course, kind of skills, talent, and diversity are intertwined, and reason we think it's intertwined is because diversity and inclusion really sits at the heart of digital growth, and for us at TechUK and the wider tech sector, we understand that innovation thrives from diversity of thought and the sector itself is constantly looking to attract, retain and recruit a diverse workforce and we're really proud to support a number of initiatives that support this, that range from sort of doing outreach work to ensure that people, regardless of their background, are inspired into tech and initiatives. That helped build more inclusive workplaces for those with different accessibility needs.
For me, what's really key going forward is really looking at social mobility, and that's been a priority in the UK for a while, but, you know, as we've been talking a lot this podcast about widening disparities, social mobility is another one that we need to tackle collectively so that, you know, in 10 years time, we're not having the same conversations about how we inspire more people from different socioeconomic backgrounds to get ahead. I mean, it's more apparent in other areas, for instance, such as the art than it is the tech sector, there is still more that needs to be done and can be done.
[00:13:53] Clare Carpenter: So what's been done so far then to narrow that gap?
[00:13:57] Nimmi Patel: There's been loads of really great initiatives in supporting, for instance, young women entering into the sector. We are really proud to support a number of International Women's Day campaigns that really looked at making sure women are elevated into senior. Positions within tech businesses.
Something that's had a lot of focus recently is around supporting women entrepreneurs and how we can find the root causes of female under participation entrepreneurship. For example, a report was commissioned by the Scottish government recently, and they found that formally defined pathways into entrepreneurship are unclear and informal pathways and networks underserved women.
So there's more that we can do. The report has 31 recommendations to help close the gender gap, and that of course supports Scotland's digital goals and also their economic goals as well, and a number of different things that have been recommended range from kind of providing startup training and support, to tailored funding and even quotas to ensure that women get a fair share of investment. So, there are things happening, and that's just a very small slice of what's happening out there for women. UK Black Tech, Colour In Tech do a lot of work and run great programs to support. Those from ethnic minority backgrounds, you've got tech talent charters who do really great work in exploring social mobility. The UK social mobility commission have been doing a really good job at gathering data because obviously data is the way we undercut our assumptions about what's happening across sectors and the tech sector is always reviewing constantly how it can support the people in its organisation and beyond.
[00:15:39] Clare Carpenter: It's so interesting, isn't it, to hear some of those initiatives around encouraging different minority groups to have more of a voice and have more of a share of the funding in the tech space. Who's getting it right? If you were to think about some examples of organizations who are doing really good work in this space, can you share some of those?
[00:16:02] Nimmi Patel: I believe Atos are doing really good work in this space. So you may know that companies with over 250 employees are mandated to report on their gender pay gap. this is collected on a government website. Atos go one step further. They not only produce their gender pay report, which has a number of different actions that they're going to take for the following year, alongside timelines in terms of, you know, how long such a plan would take, but they also report on their ethnicity pay and that's been really revolutionary, I think, because they're going one step further than what the government requires of them and they do that so that when they are hiring, retaining and recruiting staff, they can check through their data and see, you know, what's going on.
[00:16:48] Clare Carpenter: Why aren't people of certain backgrounds necessarily being promoted or are there more training that need to be provided?
What's the message, do you think, from that example and from others that you know about to leaders of organisations, not necessarily in the tech space? But who of course are, you know, very reliant on tech and tech developments for the development of their organization in a different sector.
[00:17:14] Nimmi Patel: The great thing about Atos, the great thing about that is that they are going beyond what they need to do because they recognize that there's a need for that, and any company that is serious about their talent strategy needs to do the same, and the public aspect of it means that the company is held to account. Not by the public, but by themselves and potentially by their staff as well. I mean, I'm not saying that all companies should publish their ethnicity and gender pay gaps. I think companies of different sizes need to see how that is beneficial to them. You know, smaller companies may have quite drastic gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and it may not necessarily be needed to be published publicly, but they can make really good diversity and inclusion plans to hold themselves to account in that way.
[00:18:07] Clare Carpenter: Thinking about a recent update to the McKinsey report on diversity and inclusion, which I'm sure you're across, and they're seeing the gap widen, aren't they, between organizations who are paying attention to that space and actively doing something about narrowing their gender pay gap amongst other things and those that are doing nothing in terms of performance, in terms of public interest, in terms of customer retention. There's a big hole, isn't there, somewhere in the middle of organisations who are doing almost nothing, paying it a little bit of lip service. What would be the message to them, do you think, around getting more involved in this? Where's the starting point?
[00:18:50] Nimmi Patel: Often, you know, we think that because it's so obvious to us, it's obvious to everyone, but naturally diversity and inclusion are often relegated to nice things to have, especially as we are currently going through a cost of living crisis and inflation rising, what we need to portray accurately, and we need to do this, I think, better to businesses is to show them the economic benefits of diversity and inclusion and how that can support their strategies in the long term for us.
That's step one, right, Clare? We've known this for quite some time and there's an exhaustive amount of data out there. But that needs to be front and center for companies, I think, in order for them to make plans and make changes. What I am seeing is, you know, from the Tech Talent Charter's annual report that came out earlier this year.
We are seeing more companies within the tech sector take that on board and they're doing a lot more. So I don't want to make it seem like it's all doom and gloom, but there is definitely more capacity to do. I'm trying not to say, do we need to do more or more constantly, apparently that's a phrase that I'm using 30 times in this podcast.
[00:20:00] Clare Carpenter: It feels important doing war is something that is called to action, isn't it? I wonder what needs to be done at the very grassroots level, Nimmi, around young people still in school, young people coming into secondary education even for the first time, to encourage them to think about tech as a career moving forwards. What initiatives are you seeing in that space?
[00:20:29] Nimmi Patel: We're seeing a number of different companies such as Cisco and Fujitsu who invite students along to see what the workplace is like and to see what a career in tech might look like, because a lot of people still have misconceptions about what a career in tech could be, and so it's up to tech businesses to really say, well, no, there's a lot more than what it looks like.
We need to show young people that tech can be a tool and how to use it effectively, and that's what I think a lot of tech businesses such as Cisco and Fujitsu are looking to do. By having young people come along to their premises, play around with the tech and ultimately get excited by it. That's what we want, excitement about things like the metaverse and quantum, because if you can latch on to that excitement, that can have a real ripple effect throughout a young person's career. For instance, we're seeing loads of really great applications in gaming tech and, you know, young people who may like to game maybe interested in getting involved in that in the future, but those implications for technology also work in defense and cyber, and so there's a lot that we can do to support young people.
[00:21:42] Clare Carpenter: So I'm thinking about ongoing education and initiatives which make learning in this space more accessible and more affordable as well, thinking about our earlier conversation around social mobility. What's your view on the landscape of apprenticeships within the tech space? There's a growing investment, I think, in that area as a way of delivering learning in a working environment.
[00:22:11] Nimmi Patel: We're really proud of apprenticeships and we really want to make sure that the narrative for apprenticeships is being pushed further so that every person is aware of the opportunity that apprenticeships can bring, whether young or, you know, more established in their career, it's an important point to recognise.
That everyone of all ages can apply for an apprenticeship. What I'm particularly excited about are degree apprenticeships, where a person can go to university and get the on the job training as required. TechUK's partner organisation, TechSkills, offers a number of different digital degree apprenticeships in terms that are backed by industry.
So they had the industry standards so that, you know, once you're doing that qualification, you're going to come out of it with the skills needed for the future, and that's exciting because there are a lot of courses out there that may not necessarily give you the skills needed in the workplace. And those courses are not something that we want people to spend their money and time on.
[00:23:13] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, degree apprenticeship makes so much sense, doesn't it? You still have the university experience, you're working throughout that time frame, you're being paid at the same time, and at the end of it, you're not landed with an enormous amount of debt, and you're probably three or four years ahead of your peers coming straight out of university in terms of work experience. There's this sort of sense of, why wouldn't you do that if it was available to you?
[00:23:43] Nimmi Patel: Exactly, and we hope that those kinds of qualifications are available to people, but also that they're aware of them. That's the real key. You know, you can't do a qualification you're not aware of, and that's why we need to educate parents and guardians as well. about apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships.
[00:24:00] Clare Carpenter: I wonder if it's still that name, you know, the name apprenticeship, which is perhaps not necessarily that attractive. To, I don't know, I'm thinking about people in a different generation who look at the world of apprenticeships and think, oh, that's plumbers and hairdressers and, you know, mechanics, that's not tech, that's not leadership, that's not teaching, that's not HR, that's not a professional qualification, it's a vocational qualification, or a more manual qualification. It's still got that sense of the word itself, putting people off using it, which just seems crazy, doesn't it? When you think about the areas of apprenticeships that are available to people.
[00:24:41] Nimmi Patel: It really does. I mean, that's why TKK is such a huge proud supporter of National Apprenticeship Week that happens every year in February, usually the second week of February, where we talk to apprentices, you know, of all ages and shout about their achievements. There are National Apprenticeship Awards, for instance, because it's really great celebrating a qualification and increasing its awareness at the same time.
[00:25:07] Clare Carpenter: Sure, and so many organisations in England aren't really using their apprenticeship levy to its fullest level either, are they?
[00:25:15] Nimmi Patel: No, they're not. Again, government need to look into a review of the apprenticeship levy and something that we've constantly been pushing for is reform of it. It's time to make sure it works for businesses as like you said, there's loads of unspent levy funds, which means there are people out there who aren't getting the training they need.
[00:25:33] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, so we've talked about apprenticeships as one method of learning and developing the skills and talent within the tech area. What else is your focus moving forward as you think about skills and talent and diversity and inclusion across the tech space in the UK?
[00:25:51] Nimmi Patel: So we are really pushing for a review of the UK national curriculum to ensure that digital literacy and digital skills are cross curricular and integrated throughout primary and secondary education, but we know how contentious that is because teachers don't necessarily have the support currently and they don't have the time in the curriculum.
So we really believe that, you know, funding to support teachers to deliver computing education effectively should be increased. There should be a lot more mandatory digital ethics education to the curriculum to encourage the use of responsible digital services and products. It's really important because it's not only about supporting young people to get the skills they need for life, but also to keep them safe online.
[00:26:35] Clare Carpenter: And safety online is really important, isn't it? There's so many examples every single day. of new ways of scamming, which in particular, they need people to be alert to, don't they? As we reach the end of our conversation today around developments within the skills and talent sector in tech, what would you say to someone thinking about transitioning into that space as a changing career now, in terms of advice, things they should pay attention to?
[00:27:09] Nimmi Patel: I think we've spoken about so much today, Clare. I think what's important is to recognise that we have so much information at our fingertips. You know, what are you, the people around you doing to disseminate that? Cause there's so much more that we can do to support people of all ages of all backgrounds get into fulfilling jobs or make their jobs more fulfilling, but they need to have the information to be able to access that and you know, previously information was kind of a privilege. Now it's a necessity, and so that's something that I would ask listeners to really question, you know, what have you done to make sure that people around you are aware of the different opportunities out there?
[00:27:53] Clare Carpenter: Yeah, so sort of spreading the word in terms of how that's moving forwards.
[00:27:58] Nimmi Patel: Waving a flag.
[00:28:00] Clare Carpenter: Well, thank you for being a flag waver in this space Nimmi, it's been a fascinating conversation with you today. Thank you so much for being part of the podcast.
[00:28:07] Nimmi Patel: Thank you.
[00:28:09] Clare Carpenter: Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode of Unlocking Leadership, you can subscribe through all the regular podcast channels and please do leave us a rating and review there. We'd also love you to share any episodes you've found interesting so that others can join the conversation and share their experiences.
This podcast was made in association with Corndel. It was produced and edited by Story Ninety-Four.