Today, KareInn is celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD). Ensuring all people have equal opportunities and are treated as individuals is something we are passionate about. IWD is a movement to recognise the value of women across all walks of life, but one of the first places we can take immediate action when it comes to promoting equality is in the workplace.  – as a result we want to shine the spotlight on Kate Colborne-Baber, our incredible Managing Director.

KareInn – led by women in senior leadership

One of this year’s themes is DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. As a software company providing digital care planning and care home software solutions to improve the lives of vulnerable people living in social care, KareInn recognises the importance of not only having a strong leadership structure in place, but also a diverse one.

Our Managing Director, Kate Colborne-Baber, holds a crucial role in leading operational excellence and ensuring KareInn continues to hold its values that are embedded deeply in compassion and dignity for residents and their loved ones. With over 10 years’ experience working in social care, Kate is a passionate leader and is driven by shifting the sector’s mindset towards technology and using data to capture outcomes and analyse trends that positively improve the long-term health for those that need it most.

Kate’s extensive experience in managing customer partnerships means that she remains a key contact for many of our customers, often discussing how our next generation in digital care planning can help them work smarter, faster, and more collaborative.

A culture shift is needed

Typically, the tech industry has struggled to create equal opportunities, and to create these there first needs to be a culture change. Kate leads from the front when it comes to demonstrating the change the sector needs to make. She holds a crucial role within the tech space in leading by example, and creating an environment that supports all people and their lifestyles with the different challenges that can bring.

Kate focuses on creating a positive work culture, paying particular attention to how the workforce and employees are treated. It is well documented about “work life balance” and “flexible working” that many companies and organisations can adopt and offer their staff, but this can be misleading, and result in unintended inequalities within a team. KareInn’s approach is to provide ‘flexibility’ to meet the specific needs of the individuals whilst also ensuring ‘fairness’ to all. Rather than being overflowing with specific policies we lead by example and truly live by our ethos of treating people with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

It is about respecting the fact that people have roles and responsibilities outside of work that are equally as important and honouring genuine flexible working, not just starting work an hour earlier. Taking this approach means that KareInn has attracted the best talent pool possible to the organisation. Our way of working has promoted a happy and healthy workforce, with their best interests at the heart of everything that we do.

Outlook for the futureWe have a national and worldwide collective responsibility to empower women to achieve bigger and better things. At KareInn, we can confidently say that we are proud to play a part in this journey and create an example of a good and inclusive workplace.

Kate Colborne-Baber, KareInn’s Managing Director