Luke Sylvester-Douglas, conference producer for Mortgage Solutions, was joined by Beth Foryszewski, national account manager at Landbay, and Elle Heal, key account manager at Legal & General (L&G) Mortgage Club.
The session aimed to unpack what it is like to establish credibility early on in a career, the opportunities and challenges of being one of the younger voices in a room, and how employers can help to create an environment in which emerging talent can thrive.
Starting out in the industry
Foryszewski joined CHL Mortgages aged 18, where her mother also worked in an HR position, and noted that being the child of an existing employee as well as being young “infantilises you even more”. There, she estimated she was the youngest employee “by about 30 years”. It was only after she went through redundancy and took a role at Dynamo that she “wasn’t the youngest anymore”.
Heal said she had an opposite experience, having started in a junior role at a company where everyone was “fairly young”. Since a lot of her peers were her age, Heal said “age didn’t really become something I paid attention to” and was not something she “struggled with”.
The challenge of stereotypes
Foryszewski said that, with her “being on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z”, there was a perception that Gen Z are “entitled” or “need constant mollycoddling”, which she noted was not “exclusive to one generation”. She said there was the idea that Gen Z “always complain that they can’t buy a house”, but she did not think people were entitled for wanting to be able to “buy a one-bedroom flat when they’re working a full-time job.” She said this was “not crazy”, given her “grandparents’ generation bought four-bed houses on one salary.”
Heal agreed and said another stereotype that she hears is “that younger people aren’t committed to the industry, that we’re just… passing through. I hear it a lot at conferences”. She said she had heard people say younger people “don’t want to be committed to the industry” and viewed that as “really frustrating” because she knew many people who started out in the industry at a young age and “had the right attitude”.
Foryszewski noted that her parents’ and grandparents’ generations “had final salary pensions” and “big-ticket benefits”, which encouraged people to stay at companies for decades and were “what kept people in jobs”. She said without that “you probably are more likely to… move around a little bit”. Noting the breadth of career opportunities available with emerging technologies that people could pivot to, “you can’t just chastise people for wanting a change”, she said.
Heal explained that “the younger generation are heavily reliant on technology and digital communication” and may be more aware of the opportunities for career segues into technology-related roles.
Differing networking opportunities
Sylvester-Douglas noted that “there’s a whole generation of people that have grown up in a very digital world” and how everything was now “on record”, asking whether younger professionals were networking differently to previous generations and whether the cultivation of business relationships had changed as a result of things such as LinkedIn.
Heal said: “Definitely, but I don’t think it’s changed as much as people think.” She added that “platforms like LinkedIn have made it easier to connect and to start the conversations”. However, she still felt “relationships are built the same way” and the industry was “so heavily dependent on having those real-life interactions and creating opportunities”.
Foryszewski agreed, saying “nothing beats… a nice little coffee chat”. She said that when she was a business development manager (BDM), she “loved travelling around” and “meeting new people”. She said this was something she did not expect to disappear, even with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and “the digitisation of so many things within life”. She said younger people may prefer Teams or Zoom calls initially, but “once they get a bit more confident in their career and branch out and are able to network, I think it will just fall back into that: ‘Yeah, let’s go for a drink, let’s go for a coffee’.”
Heal added that “younger professionals have a better advantage because they’ve got both, they’re almost comfortable doing both”, given that they have grown up with technology.
Younger voices
Sylvester-Douglas noted that “age is one aspect of diversity that isn’t talked about as much” and asked whether younger voices are heard enough in the industry or needed to be heard more.
Foryszewski highlighted the DIFF’s work regarding spotlighting underrepresented voices, including having had “loads of opportunities to speak on panels”. She said it was “still a bit of a taboo to ask people’s ages”, meaning diversity regarding age “isn’t discussed enough”. As someone’s age may not be as obvious as other “characteristics that you can instantly see about somebody”, and because of the potential to “really offend” someone by getting their age wrong, it makes it “a difficult one to talk about”.
Heal said perhaps younger people “don’t put their voices out there to be heard” and needed to gain the confidence to know that their ideas were as important as the ideas of those with “more industry knowledge”. Foryszewski agreed, saying that five years ago, she probably would not have volunteered ideas in a meeting, whereas now, “I’ll just say it”.
Mentorship for younger workers
The speakers moved on to unpack the importance of mentorship for younger professionals, with Sylvester-Douglas asking whether either guest had one person or multiple people helping them out when they first entered the industry.
Both guests emphasised the value of having support in the first few years of their careers, with Heal saying she “came into the industry not knowing anything”, but her mentor “took me under their wing” and has since become “a really good friend who now will still help me”.
Foryszewski had a similar experience, saying all of her mentors had been women and that sometimes there is a perception that women “pull the ladder up behind them”, but that was not her experience. She said it was nice to have someone “who can champion you and give you real-life advice” and she stayed in touch with one of her mentors for advice.
The impact and legacy of DIFF
Finally, the speakers discussed the impact of the DIFF, with Foryszewski saying “it’s a community” and citing the recent DIFF event featuring Adam Pearson, actor and TV presenter, after which she said she just wanted “to sit and think”. She added that DIFF events provoke reflection not only from a work perspective, but on a personal level too.
Heal said the DIFF is “about the people” and mentioned the impact of Pearson’s event on her, as well as June’s DIFF event on the topic of grief and bereavement. Before this latter event, she said she did not know there was no related regulation in place, reflecting the real-world scenarios that DIFF events spotlight.
More generally, Heal explained that there are now a lot of “conversations about creating a culture where you can be yourself”, whereas a couple of years ago, “that wasn’t the case”.
Listen to the full podcast in the video below, hosted by Luke Sylvester-Douglas, conference producer for Mortgage Solutions, with guests Beth Foryszewski, national account manager at Landbay, and Elle Heal, key account manager at L&G Mortgage Club.
