Stephanie Gaddin Board Chair, Magazine Editor and Technologist Women in Print Australia Digital Image Magazine Rocking Rose Technology
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniegaddin
What does empowerment mean to you as a woman in printing?
Empowerment to me, means being included in opportunities. Finding the courage to challenge myself, or others to stretch a little bit further. Empowerment for me means working though the discomfort of learning something new, or taking on a big challenge.
Empowerment means being considered for the big jobs alongside the men, when there’s big opportunities that come along.
Can you share a moment in your career when you felt truly empowered?
In my early working life, I worked in an inbound call centre – I became frustrated at the delays in manual processing in the back office admin team, knowing that I could potentially complete the process with the caller on the phone, in a short enough time to not be penalised. My knack for systems and workflow meant that I had already identified a bottleneck, and figured out my way to solve the problem. It also meant that I did not have to do follow up calls with clients when the back office work was done a couple of days later. This was important because I had my entire tea and lunch breaks to myself.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that action placed me on the radar of the Systems and IT team, who then made sure I was included in some opportunities to participate in user workshops for the IT systems that were being upgraded, and also to meet several of the in-house architect and developers and business analysts. From there, I felt much more empowered and confident in applying for roles and promotions, where I could see that I would fit, and I could bring a skillset that was very valuable and powerful. I moved up through the business over the years, and eventually ended up in the same systems team that had first noticed my work in the call centre.
What resources or programs have helped you grow in your career that you would recommend to young women?
Some of the programs and certifications I’ve done are not available or they have changed over the years – my advice for this question is to consider both what will make you more skilled or better in your current role, but also have one eye on the horizon of the future.
If you get an opportunity to add a certificate, to learn a new press or printer tech, to skill up in an old-school like gold leaf or sign-writing – take it.
If you get to learn a new skill, something very interesting to you, but maybe not necessarily relevant to your current role, if you can fit the training or program sessions in, then go for it. Take the chance and do the course.
You never know when something will be helpful to you in the future, and you never know where your program colleagues may end up.
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