Sneak Peak! 👀 Helena Masat on motherhood, flexibility & designing for true accessibility

0:00Helena Masat:But then what that almost like from your from the timing perspective, like in your story, that's quite fortunate. But like somebody could have the baby like halfway through the project. Yeah, you don't know. And it's like kind of your lucky dad was at the end, but it could not be. And you have to think about like how that comes over to the client, I guess, and how that internally hands over. And yeah, I think hopefully at that point, you've got maybe like some visuals you can reference or some imagery that's been selected that another designer could quite happily pick up. but I've had to pick up jobs for other people before.

0:32I remember having to, I had to take over somebody's pitch once because they had COVID and rang up on the day and I had to pitch the work for them and we were discussing on the phone. Yeah, it was her job. It wasn't my job. And it was like, we're in panic stations here. She's in bed unwell. And I had to go in and present it.

0:50Helena Masat:How did that work? I won it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Maybe the pressure. So maybe we don't need to get so worried about it then. Maybe it's not like an unheard of. But yeah, it was definitely a learning curve. That was definitely, and I felt so much pressure to do well for her because it was her job. So yeah, I think I'm used to learning to quickly pivot and learning to having to deal with stressful situations and just having a child, you get these things crop up that you don't expect. And I've got things, contingencies in place and things to, you know, quickly change a different direction if needed.

1:23you know that's the nature of the business and what it's like being a mother as well

1:28Helena Masat:yeah i was gonna say that if you have been in any sort of dmv particularly a designer or a project manager i was gonna say like you can handle like this like that right decisions change of direction we're cutting this out we're adding this we're being that we're not taking that floor we are taking this role we changed our right like but the pitch is tomorrow like oh my like yeah you're used So like, decision needs to be made now. And it needs to be good. Like anything second rate is just not good enough in DMV. Like everyone wants like the best at the best price, like yesterday. You often get a situation where you've got a large team of clients and we have a clash of meetings.

2:06And so you have to rearrange that meeting. So we're already flexing in the kind of system and we're having to flex budgets. We're having to flex programs. So why can't you just flex around a mother? because to me you're losing a lot of talent like I know a lot of yeah have you seen a good talent yeah I've seen mothers that have been demoted when returning back at work I've seen mothers that have requested to job share and it's been declined and you think what a waste of talent and then in the flip side of that I've got a really good friend who works for a large tech firm and she's been completely valued she actually had her baby around the similar time to me they allowed her to return back with like compressed hours so she does like a five-day week in four days and she got a promotion while she was on maternity leave she's since moved up again since returning back like they completely value her and of course that makes her want to work more and be more productive and prove to them how great she is and if that's what a multi-million business tech firm is doing they're obviously making it successful and they are successful so why can't our industry see that you can make it successful and be successful.

3:16I think it definitely opened my eyes to the obstacles that people face, just on a really minute level compared to somebody that maybe needs accessibility needs, might need a wheelchair, like you said. These people are facing these obstacles every day. I can make a choice not to bring the pram and put the child in a carrier, but they haven't got a choice. And there's certain shops I couldn't go into because I couldn't get the pram in. And it's definitely all about inclusivity at the moment. and like you mentioned earlier about neurodiversity that's a big topic at the moment which is amazing um but i do feel like the accessibility is getting left behind a bit physical accessibility yeah physical accessibility um it should still be one of the main things that we focus on we shouldn't be considering like oh people can use an alternative route or an alternative access into the building um there should be things in place so that people don't feel like ostracized because of it it's it's really opened my eyes to that and it's made me think I really have to think about this when designing spaces and the only space I've seen it done really well the Institute of Civil Engineers building which I know because my dad is actually a fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers and and it's a like Edwardian grade two listed building really beautiful building and they've really cleverly designed the stairs which are very traditional or stone stairs so that they retract and a lift comes up so that if somebody needs to access the lift it's exactly the same route as the person taking the stairs so they're literally experiencing the exact same experience together like you're going up in the lift here while I walk up the stairs and they're engineers so you think yeah they should be designing these really clever things I keep thinking we're designers we should be able to design this better than thinking about it as like retrofit options um because unfortunately I think it does contribute to like unconscious bias when hiring people because people are thinking well we'll have to make the adaptions to our t-point or you know all these kind of things and it's it shouldn't be like that should be we can just take in anyone like this is an inclusive place and everyone has the right to work here