Latest / Project Podcast / Social mobility and projects with the Rt Hon Justine Greening

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Social mobility and projects with the Rt Hon Justine Greening · Project Podcast

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Hello. Welcome to the APM podcast,
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brought to you by the chartered body for the project profession
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in 2022. OPM is celebrating its 50th
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Anniversary. So, throughout the year, the APM
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podcast has been meeting some of the movers and shakers who have
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shaped the project profession across the past few decades.
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This episode C's Professor, atom bomb, Addison a p.m. chief
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executive and conversation with the right honourable.
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Justine Greening Justine served as an MP from 2005 to 2019
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during her time in politics, she held positions, including
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Secretary of State, for Education, Minister for women
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and inequalities and Secretary of State for International
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Development. And this podcast Adam and
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Justine discuss, the definition of social Mobility status of
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apprenticeships and we're project management fits into the
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leveling up agenda. Justin also shares her
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experiences as a co-founder of the social Mobility pledge
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Campaign, which encourages organizations to be a force for
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Good by putting social Mobility at the heart of their purpose.
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Okay, welcome to the APM podcast.
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I'm delighted to have dressed in green ink with me here today.
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So good morning. Justine morning.
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How are you Adam? I'm very well.
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Thank you. Thank you for joining us today
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and to talk about the very important themes of social
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mobility and project success. Two of my favorite topics.
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I'm really delighted that we were able to talk to you about
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these important areas today and areas which I think are both
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share something in common which is I think they're often
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misunderstood or misrepresented out there in the The world.
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So I'm hoping that one of the things we can do today is to is
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to help people better understand both these things.
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So let's start by talking about social mobility and I'd really
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be interested. If you can tell us a bit about
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what social Mobility actually is and why it's important, it's
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about breaking the link between where you start in life and your
2:13
background and circumstances shaping where you end up.
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So it's about freeing up Talent, really an hour.
2:21
Allowing people to kind of follow their path.
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Whatever their potential is, irrespective of their background
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and stuff. I'm really passionate about
2:30
social Mobility myself. I see myself as as a beneficiary
2:34
of social Mobility, as a young person, I came from a fairly
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disadvantaged background in the northwest of England.
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And I like to think I've done okay for myself.
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And I had lots of opportunities, if you like not necessarily
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handouts, but hand up, as I went through life, and various people
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are different They just help me and when I talk to people about
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that, sometimes they criticized the kind of social Mobility
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element of how I've done and they said, well, Adam, you were
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lucky. You were lucky that, you had
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those opportunities. Those people who helped you at
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that time, and they say, the problem with social Mobility is
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it doesn't help. Everybody, only helps those who
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happen to have those opportunities.
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Would you say that's a fair criticism?
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No. And I think in a way it just
3:16
underlines, that probably, for too long, we've got a bit hung
3:20
up on the semantics of social mobility.
3:24
And I used to have these debates a little bit in Parliament with
3:26
people on whether it was just about gifted and talented
3:29
people, getting to the very top and the reality is, it's much
3:33
more about saying this country needs to free up its Talent
3:38
base. And yes, getting doing well in
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life. Shouldn't be about getting a
3:43
look. He break.
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So now I'm talking about something that is much more, not
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just a social thing, but an economic challenge that we've
3:52
got to address. I mean, often my experience,
3:57
having been on the other side of this and and being responsible
4:00
for recruiting people, is a really diverse workforces is
4:04
really important and actually gives you insights that you
4:06
wouldn't ordinarily have so given it an advantage to have a
4:10
diverse Workforce. Why wouldn't employers just do
4:12
this? Anyway, why do they need to be
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convinced? Why do we need social Mobility
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campaigns? Is it some kind of
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misconception, existing, employers mines?
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I don't know why. It doesn't happen anyway.
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Well, it's a really good point and it's it's something that
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I've thought a lot about. I mean, why do we have this as
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the status quo because it does damage our economy?
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And I think the answer is probably for the people who are
4:37
getting opportunities. It's fine.
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And I also think it's Ali she can't see week, so Mobility.
4:44
So if you go into a boardroom and maybe there's any one woman
4:47
there, it's really obvious that there's an issue on gender.
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Same on ethnicity. I think it's just been very
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hidden. I also think it's sort of how
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things have always been. So does that power of inertia?
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But I do think now and I also think maybe in the past you can
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say economically, it didn't matter as much as it does today.
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But if you're in the century today where it's all about a
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knowledge economy, it's all about Talent.
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The technology world is very much about creativity and
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lateral thinking and all of that, then it does become really
5:24
really important. So this issue of not getting the
5:29
most out of your human capital. Infrastructure becomes really
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really important now and I think we need to see it alongside
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physical infrastructure as being crucial to get right?
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And and if we did get it right and you know, we had the
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education system working perfectly and employers, we're
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doing the right things with the job ever be done.
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Would we ever kind of get to a point where social Mobility is
5:55
not needed anymore? Because actually employers are
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doing the right things, everybody is getting the the
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breaks in life that they deserve.
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You know, those who work hard succeed and so on you get a lot
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closer towards that. There's never probably going to
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be perfect equality of opportunity.
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Everyone. I have a different view about
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What that really looks like in a sense in practice.
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But I think you can get a lot further towards improving the
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education system. So gaps, don't open up quite so
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consistently during young a young person's life and I think
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you can also get employees to think differently about where
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they get their talent from and to, and to start measuring,
6:35
socioeconomic background as well.
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So, I think you can actually get a very long way and, you know,
6:42
whether it's that, Or whether it's creating different routes
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into opportunities, for example, technical education, and
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apprenticeships. I just think there's actually
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quite a lot of stuff we can get on with relatively quickly and
6:56
easily, that will probably make quite a big difference over the
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longer term in your time is education.
7:02
Secretary obviously had an influence over their kind of
7:05
national system and insight into the system that other people,
7:09
you know, would never have. But did you feel that school
7:12
leavers? What, Often guided towards say
7:15
University at the expense of apprenticeships and particularly
7:20
now thinking about project management apprenticeships, but
7:22
also the kind of bigger picture. I think we were in a situation
7:26
where actually, there hasn't really been a good choice for
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young people. So, I went to University and was
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the first person in my family to do that, but I really wanted to
7:37
go to university, but I think if I'd had a slightly different way
7:41
of learning or interest, I I don't believe that the
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vocational education routes open to people with good enough for
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one of the things that we really focused on when I was at the DFE
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was improving, those technical education route.
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So I think you've almost got two challenges.
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One is making sure there's a choice for young people that's
8:06
genuine and they're not having to somehow compromise on the
8:09
quality of their education. If they want to go down and more
8:11
vocational route, rather than a A more academic route.
8:15
I think the second thing though is then making sure they've got
8:20
the right information to make a good decision because actually
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if you look across different socioeconomic backgrounds, there
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are some say siglemic, backgrounds, where virtually all
8:33
the young people are going to add into, you know, University
8:36
education. So, I think if you're probably
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one of the most privileged backgrounds in in the UK,
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literally three quarters of Of those young people would head to
8:45
University and, you know, whether it's that challenge of
8:48
sequel, it can't possibly suit all of those young people or
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conversely for people growing up in communities more like mine,
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where, you know, not many people really went to University, those
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people not thinking about it carefully enough and not
9:05
thinking about going on to higher education, and further
9:07
education, whether that's Technical vocational, I think
9:11
there's a lot to be done on just helping young people.
9:13
Work through those work through those choices.
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So they don't just end up almost doing the social Norm of what
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people like them normally do sure.
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And and, and so you talk there about whether vocational roots
9:27
are good enough, I suppose and equipment and a genuine
9:30
alternative. Do you think we're there now, or
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do you think apprenticeships are a genuine alternative?
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Now, there's no doubt that apprenticeships are a genuine
9:38
alternative in. And, and for some young people,
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there are really small alternative to getting a degree.
9:43
Agree. Because they'll mean, if you
9:45
already have a pretty good idea of what you want to do, where
9:49
you want to work, then actually, you can obviously learn and earn
9:55
at the same time and avoid having all of that student debt.
9:58
I think for someone like me, I hadn't really worked out.
10:01
What I wanted to do. I was really Keen to study
10:03
economics. Oh, I'd probably still do that
10:06
all over again. I think the key challenge is
10:10
we're not there yet on vocational education, by any
10:12
means. So that Pathway of, for example,
10:15
doing T levels needs, obviously huge amounts of work.
10:19
I think making sure the quality and the consistency of that
10:23
quality across apprenticeships is really important and it's
10:27
probably worth pointing out that billions of pounds of
10:30
apprenticeship. Levi gets handed back at the
10:32
moment treasury. So I think on the the broader
10:35
level of getting the most out of that investment, that could be
10:39
there to support more apprenticeships, we've got a
10:43
fair way. A to go on all of that but at
10:45
least we're now in a version of Britain where I think there's a
10:48
general acceptance that vocational and Technical
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education has to really improve and I don't expect that
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political debate to go away but I think it's a bit like The
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Wider social Mobility debate. It's much more about how you do
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it rather than whether you do it.
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And I think that in itself has been a big step forward for us
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all. Okay.
11:10
Thank you. Now, peep PWC did a bit of
11:12
research for as a couple Years ago, Justine and it was looking
11:15
at, kind of the size of the project profession, and the
11:19
value that it adds the economy and it came up with a figure of
11:22
150 billion, gross value added. So it's obviously an enormous
11:26
contributor to the economy. And therefore, in my mind, it
11:29
must have an important role to play around social mobility.
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And you know what? We hear from government all the
11:35
time about leveling up so I suppose I'm interested to hear
11:38
from you. What part should project and the
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project profession play in both of those areas.
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And And also, what is that connection between social
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mobility and leveling up? Are they the same thing that are
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they different things. So, on the first thing, I think
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it's a really interesting question because what's coming
11:54
out of all of the work I've been doing both while stores at the
11:57
DFE and since more overtly working with businesses on
12:02
driving leveling up is that fundamentally literally
12:06
managing? That project is probably one of
12:09
the biggest challenges because it's complex.
12:12
And so actually, In many respects, delivering it is all
12:17
about project management. And being able to stay on track,
12:23
mobilize people in the same direction have things done, when
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they need to be done. There's a lot of it, that is,
12:29
there's a lot of it is about policy.
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And if you like that philosophy, but there's a massive part of
12:35
this that is just very, very practical delivery on the
12:38
ground. And we've got what seems to be
12:42
were talking on the morning that we're about to see who's going
12:46
to win the leadership of the conservative party, because It's
12:49
prime minister but you know let's trust is talked about
12:52
delivery delivery delivery and for me that's where project
12:57
management comes into this. And certainly during my time in
13:00
government, I felt that often the Civil Service put a huge
13:05
store on policy development, but actually delivery and project
13:10
management was not seen quite in the same light and I think it
13:15
needs to be if we're going to deliver social mobility, and
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then your question about, About social mobility and leveling up.
13:22
Well, I mean, that's what I was talking about on semantics
13:25
really, when we were using, leveling up at the DFE in a
13:31
sense. I'd come up with that phrase for
13:35
us because I felt people at the time didn't really know what a
13:37
social Mobility meant and it felt a bit think tanky.
13:42
And so although I was very, very familiar with it.
13:45
And within academic circles that was a familiarity, I wanted to
13:50
use a phrase that people could instinctively have a sense of
13:53
what it would mean for them. And I think they did under
13:55
themes. We seen that, they have got an
13:58
instinctive sense, probably of what leveling up means, but
14:02
whether you Social Mobility leveling up equality of
14:05
opportunity, it is all the same thing.
14:09
It's about having a Level Playing Field when it comes to
14:11
opportunity and what you need to do to make sure that happens.
14:15
Okay? So it was really interesting
14:17
that because you've delved into the area of project delivery
14:20
within the kind of government machine.
14:22
If you like, do you think politicians and civil servants
14:25
know enough about the project profession and the value it can
14:27
add to their careers, not even remotely enough?
14:31
No, it's Social, because you've got to bear in mind for our
14:35
democratic system. You know, it worked by having
14:40
people elected and they are, as it were lay people, they
14:43
probably got a special ISM in some kind of very they worked in
14:46
before Parliament, but then they're put into running
14:49
departments and so, you know, you can end up with a teacher
14:54
running the face, you can end up with an accountant running the
14:59
DFE, that's me but actually You know, often the challenges, you
15:06
are literally running those departments.
15:08
And yet I was lucky in the sense that I had worked in some bigger
15:11
larger organizations as a finance person.
15:15
I guess if you're in finance or project management you've
15:17
probably relatively numerator and you know what you're looking
15:21
for in terms of how to check if things are on track and what
15:25
management information you'd need.
15:26
And I think there's a bit of a gap there.
15:29
Definitely, for politicians on the not.
15:33
Some bolts of their own skill set in order to be successful.
15:37
And then, I think what I was saying earlier was I guess
15:40
within the Civil Service, the the sort of sexy part of civil
15:45
service has been all the policy development when actually
15:48
increasingly it really needs to shift to be much more who's
15:52
great at delivering projects on the ground successfully because
15:56
there's no point having the best policy in the world.
15:58
If you can't deliver it, then it won't come to anything.
16:02
Well, quite and And I think it's really good now that, you know,
16:05
we have the infrastructure and projects Authority, they're
16:07
obviously I think a real Catalyst actually, I think
16:10
they've been very successful in Shifting the, the dial on some
16:13
of the area's you've just talked about, but as always with any
16:15
kind of big system, there will be leaders and followers.
16:18
And my senses. There are some government
16:20
departments who are Miles Ahead of the curve here and really
16:22
flying the flag for project delivery and policy delivery I
16:27
suppose. Yeah.
16:28
I think that's, I think that's right.
16:30
It's interesting because it's always tough innocence.
16:33
Getting that project evaluation and it's plugging up risks and
16:37
challenges because obviously, that means more work needs to be
16:41
done in a very practical way but at the same time it's absolutely
16:45
valuable. If you're if you're a sexy state
16:48
for flagging up to you where you need to focus your time, I mean
16:51
if you're going to be successful you don't want to be focusing on
16:53
things that are all going brilliantly.
16:55
You need a system that focuses you in on things promptly when
17:00
they're going off-track arguably.
17:02
Before they've gone. Wrong.
17:03
And that's what that project delivery were really focused on.
17:08
I think one area where it could do much, much more is probably
17:13
education. So, I think the risk of all of
17:16
that is also that it's done, but it's kind of done separate in a
17:21
way to the politics, may be, it has to be, but if you could get
17:26
that feedback loop working a bit more from an education and
17:30
development perspective, I think for ministers, you know, that
17:32
would probably be A really smart thing to do that would make it
17:36
even more. Valuable sure.
17:38
We've got some, a p.m. members, of course, who will be in some
17:41
of those departments, which are a bit behind the curve, if you
17:44
like, but they're really passionate and they want to do a
17:47
good job, but they're perhaps it in a fighting against the tide
17:51
in the system. What advice would you give to
17:53
them in terms of how they could help to shift the dial within
17:56
their own Department? I think, I think it's having the
18:00
consistent approach across departments on On project
18:04
development and delivery and, and speaking with one voice.
18:08
So, for example, I think the government Finance organization
18:13
across government, had increasingly, learn to work,
18:17
collectively and did work. Collectively on what good look
18:20
like, what? Good process look like, how to
18:22
develop business cases. And, you know, it might all
18:25
sound a bit Bonkers. You know, of course, you'd
18:28
expect government and civil service departments, to develop
18:32
strong business cases. That isn't always the case.
18:35
And as you said, Adams, some departments are better than
18:38
others. I would actually say the best is
18:40
best business cases I had were, when I was at the department for
18:45
International Development, maybe because there was so much
18:47
scrutiny on every single penny of spend actually, that had led
18:51
to the department. Really kicking the tires on
18:55
absolutely everything before it was ever signed off by contrast
19:00
when I went into education. You know, much less business
19:05
case development per se. But a real need for it.
19:08
Because if you're going to compete, for example, with the
19:11
department for transport on investment saying, pupil
19:16
referral units and you want that investment and you're making the
19:19
case, it should go into that rather than fixing more
19:22
potholes. Then you do need a business case
19:26
approach, that's really bolted down and it's what I always
19:28
expected to see as a finance person.
19:30
I mean if you don't have that business case and this is what
19:33
Really didn't in differed, you haven't really ever got that
19:37
parameter that that kind of game plan against which to then
19:41
compare progress and you know it's absolutely crucial.
19:45
If you're going to have strong project management that the
19:48
project itself is obviously suspect up.
19:51
Well at the very, very beginning.
19:53
Absolutely. And of course, people and
19:55
personalities. You can't take them away from
19:57
projects. In fact, I think there's a lot
19:58
of value but I can also insert some challenges as well.
20:02
One of the things. Zai.
20:03
See a lot and probably the general public.
20:05
See a lot is what we might think of as pet projects, particularly
20:08
from ministers, where they come in and they've got particular
20:10
things that they want to achieve it.
20:13
I mean, is there a challenge in government of trying to secure
20:15
backing for the for the right projects rather than the pet
20:18
projects if you like yes. And and that comes down to just
20:22
good evidence and consistent processes.
20:27
So the challenge is probably also, the because that
20:32
investment process is so driven by treasury, you end up with,
20:38
you know, some moments in the year when our Chancellor might
20:41
want, you know, an extra announcement on maths or
20:44
something because that's what they want to do.
20:48
And they might have a particular amount of money to be able to
20:51
invest in maths. And so your work, the danger is
20:54
you end up with a strategy where you work Looking back from that
20:57
rather than in that case saying, well what are we trying to
21:00
accomplish on closing gaps and maths.
21:02
How big is that Gap? What does that investment need?
21:05
And then that's the strategy. So you end up with sometimes
21:10
back to front processes in a way that that really isn't helpful
21:17
and then of course as you say Adam, you know people do get
21:20
very wedded to their pet project, sometimes they can be
21:23
extremely large pet project and And the risk is that means you
21:28
don't look at it, clear-sighted lie.
21:32
Luckily. In the way that the regular
21:35
rotation and ministers across briefs me, there's always
21:38
somebody fresh coming in to look at projects.
21:42
They be too often but there is a you know you've got to just be
21:45
conscious of the risk and then and then try and make sure it
21:47
doesn't dominate. You thinking I always felt good
21:51
coming in with a new pet project.
21:52
Hopefully this is well I've ever done.
21:56
The Civil Civil Service have an important role to play here.
21:59
I think in driving the consistency.
22:01
But anyway, look, we've talked about social mobility and I'd
22:04
like to talk about the social Mobility pledge because this is
22:07
something. I know you've given your
22:08
personal backing to and you're really passionate about and I'll
22:12
be employers listening to this leaders of organizations and
22:15
corporates that we work with listening to this.
22:18
You won't know a lot about, maybe the social Mobility
22:20
pledge, maybe some of them involved, but I wonder if you
22:22
could tell us a bit about what it is, why you decided to get
22:25
involved? So, what you would say to those
22:28
corporates, who are thinking about getting more involved with
22:31
making the pledge, so the social Mobility pledge was was a big
22:36
push that I launched after I left government, I felt that
22:42
there wasn't enough focus on the role that businesses can play in
22:47
connecting people up with opportunity.
22:49
I think it's pretty obvious to me because that was my career,
22:53
it had been in the private sector but I Really felt that we
22:57
needed to drive more businesses to think more strategically
23:01
about the impact their many, many opportunities can make.
23:06
So that was the social Mobility pledge, and it was asking them
23:10
to get into schools to talk about careers because I think,
23:14
if you don't know about opportunities, it's very hard to
23:16
aim for them. I was asking them to open up
23:19
their doors, particularly on things like work experience,
23:22
because I think you might be interested in something, but if
23:25
you can't try it out, Out. Then again it's really hard to
23:29
make good decisions. And also the reality is Adam
23:32
that most people or many, many work experience opportunities
23:37
are organized by brilliant parents for their kids, but if
23:41
you're going to crack social Mobility, then you've got to
23:44
have a much more consistent approach and that means having
23:48
more work experience on offer. So that was the second part and
23:54
doing apprenticeships as well. And then the third part was
23:57
Recruitment and it was saying having hopefully inspired young
24:00
people on careers that they might have with your company.
24:03
Having given them the chance to walk through the door ideally
24:06
and really roll the sleeves up and experience what that looks
24:10
like. Then you want to make sure that
24:12
that step into your company doesn't have inadvertent
24:16
barriers. That means your screening out
24:18
people before they've even had the chance to shine.
24:21
So we've got on with all of that and at the core of it is this
24:25
group of Really Innovative employers that we've called the
24:29
purpose Coalition. And these are the ones that did
24:32
all of that. And then basically were on the
24:34
phone saying, right? What's next?
24:36
And there was so much Innovation that came out of all the social
24:39
Mobility pledge work, there's about 700 plus organizations
24:42
part of it. Now that we just really wanted
24:45
to find a way to share all of that.
24:47
So rather than lots of businesses, Reinventing the
24:50
wheel on how to be more open and diverse individually we thought
24:56
Thought the best thing would be to bring them together and
24:58
that's the that's the purpose Coalition, but actually it's
25:00
ended up not just being companies in the private sector.
25:05
We've Ended up with universities who are part of it NHS.
25:09
Trusts we've got councils, who are part of it.
25:12
So, actually, it's become a really fantastic ecosystem of
25:16
very different Employers in a way all talking about what
25:21
they're doing on social mobility and sharing their ideas.
25:25
That sounds fantastic. And I know that it's something.
25:28
That's a p.m. is looking harder to make sure we can make the
25:31
pledge ourselves. And I would definitely encourage
25:33
anybody listening to this to, to have a look at that.
25:36
Is there a, is there a website that people should go to
25:39
traveler? Yeah, if you go on social
25:41
Mobility pledge dot org, or if you go on purpose, Dash
25:46
Coalition.com, then you can find out all about it.
25:51
And, of course, I think, right now as a country was sort of
25:54
head This cost of living Challenge and in a sense, it's
25:57
the flip side of weak social Mobility.
25:59
The people going to be on the front line of that cost of
26:01
living challenge at the people for whom.
26:03
Almost certainly getting opportunities, has been a lot
26:07
harder for lots of different reasons.
26:10
So, I genuinely think that employers can play a massive
26:14
role on, not just helping steer their their own employees, their
26:20
customers, their communities, through the cost of living
26:23
challenge. I also think Think if they're
26:26
willing to say, right, let's look at our opportunities from a
26:30
socio-economic perspective, I think they can have a huge
26:34
impact on longer-term. Social mobility, and really
26:37
breaking that cycle once and for all excellent.
26:40
And it's really what you were saying about work experience and
26:43
parents. My parents were Foster carers
26:46
and they arranged for me to because I want to be an
26:49
accountant. Their range from me to do my
26:50
work experience at Liverpool Social Services finance
26:53
department at the financial year.
26:55
Our end. It was an experience.
26:57
Definitely. I will not forget, but that
26:59
probably for another time and I just have one final question.
27:03
If, if I'm a Justine and that's about about equality and
27:09
diversity, and particularly thinking about women who are
27:12
considering a career in projects.
27:15
And the reason I'm going to want to ask about this, is that the
27:17
project profession traditionally has been seen as associated with
27:22
construction infrastructure Telecom.
27:25
Um's think, probably unfairly seen as associated with those
27:27
professions because I think it's pan sector.
27:29
It's genuinely every single sector.
27:32
But clearly, that means, the starting point means it is
27:35
disproportionately male-dominated as a profession,
27:38
and certainly a p.m. we want to do any everything we can to help
27:42
address that. So, I'm just interested in your
27:44
view on what more you think. A p.m. can do other,
27:47
professional bodies can do, but also government itself with the
27:50
power that it's got an influence, their to God.
27:52
So I think it's a really important question.
27:55
And what's been quite interesting.
27:57
Doing all the social Mobility work is that often the leaders
28:01
that I've come across, who will probably running the most
28:04
Innovative companies. There probably is an over
28:10
representation of women. Compared to what you see, more
28:13
widely say across the ftse, 100, Etc.
28:17
So I do think there's there's something around the skill set
28:22
required for outstanding project management.
28:25
Whatever sector that in probably, absolutely is one that
28:29
should be opened both genders obviously.
28:32
And how you shift it? I think is a combination.
28:36
It's around. Definitely enabling everyone to
28:41
find out what project management really means and really entails.
28:45
And if you like the the broad, Spectrum of sectors.
28:49
You can do it in and I think the second is Role Models,
28:53
definitely, and I think the third is then, you know,
28:57
companies, really perhaps tilting where they put their
29:02
effort on Recruitment and all of that to really bear in mind.
29:05
They absolutely want to make sure they they reach out to
29:09
women. It's not about as it were
29:10
positive discrimination. Particularly it's really around
29:14
saying actually You know, mixed teams of people, we know take
29:19
better decisions and that is on every single level.
29:22
So the better, the mix, you know, the not only better
29:28
retention, better decisions better Recruitment and that
29:31
absolutely includes women. So I think that there's a link
29:36
between being strong, all social mobility and socio-economic
29:39
background and diverse on that and being an organization that
29:43
can pull that through and these other areas of diversity, See
29:46
that people are already working on.
29:48
I think they all come together and I think you can learn across
29:51
all of them. So it'll be interesting whether
29:55
that's proven in the future. But my gut instinct is, is they
30:01
are all inextricably linked. But the gender piece is really,
30:04
really important and especially at the moment, you know, you see
30:07
some sectors, really finding it hard to recruit purely because
30:11
they've been male-dominated and if you're any fishing in half
30:13
the talent pool, then, yeah. You're Hocking have a problem,
30:18
winning the war for talent. So all these things probably
30:21
have never mattered more than they do now.
30:25
I couldn't agree more trusting. Well, thank you very much for
30:28
coming on today p.m. podcast. I really appreciated that and I
30:31
think I'll listen to really going to benefit from from from
30:36
the wisdom that you shared and I hope they will all be encouraged
30:39
to sign up to the social Mobility pledge.
30:41
Certainly, as I say p.m., we'll be looking at that.
30:44
My sense is that the project profession has a really
30:46
important role to play in Social Mobility, but actually, I think
30:50
what we're hearing today as well.
30:51
Is that social Mobility can add huge value to a Active project
30:55
delivery as well. So I think it's a it's a win-win
30:58
so Justine. Thank you very much.
31:01
Thanks, Adam. And good luck with all of all of
31:03
the work, I completely agree. It's crucial.
31:06
If we're going to crack social Mobility, you have to improve
31:08
project management. Thanks to Justin for taking time
31:15
out to join Adam in conversation and to you for listening to this
31:18
podcast. Don't forget that.
31:20
You can find out more about the social Mobility pledge at Social
31:23
Mobility pledged org. If you have any comments
31:26
feedback or suggestions contact us at a p.m. podcast at think
31:30
publishing .co.uk, this podcast has been brought to you by APM
31:35
the childhood body for the project profession.
31:38
For more information visit to a p.m. dot-org but UK