Leadership Advocate of the Month: Jordan Mason

25 Sep 2019 01:52 PM

Blog posted by: Jordan Mason, Finance Assistant for Soctim Ltd, 15 September 2019.

My name is Jordan Mason and I currently work at Socitm as a finance assistant. I went on the Empowering Women in a Digital World (EWDW) course back in March. I was very reluctant to go on this course, as a 21 year old girl the thought of being sat in a room full of women who work in ICT was very scary to me and I was worried that I wouldn’t partake in the activities due to awkwardness. However, I knew that there was a reason that the company I worked for were sending me on the course and it made me feel appreciated to know they were putting their efforts in to boost my confidence, which would improve me as a person.

When I walked into the room I was greeted by Jen and Penny (who were running the course) and then went on to introduce myself to the other women around the room, everyone had smiles on their faces which put me at ease straight away.

What I learned about myself

The most powerful elements of the course were learning that it is okay to say NO if you don’t feel like you have the time or the resources to help someone with something. This is something I struggled with as I would always feel too guilty if I didn’t help someone, when on some occasions this would affect my own work, finding polite ways to tell people that you cannot stop what you’re doing to help them has really benefitted me. Not only did this help me in work, but out of work I learned that I didn’t have to spend all my time worrying about other people and their problems and to start concentrating on myself and what I want to achieve.

The key thing I took away with me was believing in myself, in work but also out of work. I now know my worth and I can figure out what people/activities are going to benefit me and are worth putting my time in to. The next steps for my personal development are to carry on reminding myself that I am improving day by day as a person and to always be proud of everything I have achieved.

Benefits to me, my company and my colleagues

Going on the course at such a young age has given me as a massive advantage, as I think, as a young person we are prone to feel that because someone in our company is older than us they must be better at the job, but now I know I can achieve everything they can, and sometimes more.

I would recommend this course to everyone (none of my friends work in ICT, but after me telling them about the course, they have asked me a million questions), my confidence is higher than it has ever been and I have noticed a massive improvement in my work. I was working on mainly admin tasks on a day to day basis and now I am more involved in month end accounts and I am learning a lot more about the company I work for.

Overall, I am so glad I went on EWDW and I am excited to see where the next steps of my journey will take me.

Join us the next programme starting on Tuesday 8 October in Glasgow. For more information about EWDW email Lauren Sheppard or call 01604 709 456.