S2 E33: Beyond individual coaching, what organizations should be doing for moms
with organizational specialist Mary Beth Ferrante
Key Takeways
I remember sharing with my boss when I quit that I was going to start this business and I was gonna really needed more flexibility in my work. All he heard was I'm going home to be a mom. And I was like no, that's not at all what I'm going to do.
There was no respect for the fact that my whole life had changed and that my responsibilities had changed. And there was an expectation that I was going to be exactly who I was before I walked out the door for maternity leave. And I think that really hit me very hard that there was just no ramp up there was no appreciation and there was no kind of recognition about, these huge changes that are going on in our personal lives.
We focused on supporting individual new parents and specifically new moms in a coaching capacity and working with individuals to help support them through the transition of planning for leave, returning to work and really with that identity of what is it to be a working mother. And what I quickly realized is that I was often coaching women to move into a new role because they felt the only solution was to restart. Moms feel like there's this disconnect between who they were before maternity leave and before becoming a working mother. And they don't feel that support from their organization. And so the only option is to leave and start fresh.
I think what I realized in that very quickly is, oh, we need to start to shift the conversation to the manager. We need to really focus on how are these leaders supporting their employees as they're going through these major life transitions and returning from parental leave and we started to shift into that work: Who's setting the policy? Who's setting the framework? Who's setting the culture within the organization.
There was a silver lining to Covid and the fact that we really pivoted to really take a broader look at care and to recognize that we all are impacted by care. At any given point, all of us are either a caregiver or we're receiving care, or we're going to receive care in the future, or we are going to give care in the future. And I think that recognition is what has put us in the position we are today, which is really focusing on addressing burnout and addressing flexibility and creating cultures that allow for their employees to have the space to care whether that's for themselves, for their families or for their communities.
And I really see this as a transition from recognizing the ideal worker as someone who is only, or who is only dedicated to their job, available 24 /7, ready to travel at the drop of a hat to realizing that the people that are going to be the most successful and the most creative and the most innovative are the people who are able to care for themselves, who are able to take breaks, who are part of an organization that recognizes that space to live a whole life.
And then a recognition that we need to really do a lot of work with aligning leadership. So that's the kind of the next phase for us is that we often are doing a lot of facilitation with the leadership teams, the executive teams, and then even with the managers, direct managers on how do you actually implement this? How do you make sure that you're believing in it too? Because if there isn't leadership alignment, there's no change.
But the cultures have not shifted enough where men actually feel comfortable taking their leave. And so really looking at how do you shift the culture? How do you start to story-tell within those organizations about the positive things, about men who are taking their leave, how do you shift managers into recognizing that the expectation should be that you do take all of it. How do we actually shift mindsets? How do we actually shift behaviors? And that has a lot to do with the communications that are being sent out by the organization, the storytelling that is happening, and then actually the behavior modeling changes at the leadership level and at the manager level.
We have left it up to the market for over a hundred years and 80% of American workers still have no access to any sort of paid leave. And yet, over 75% of Americans think that we should. So obviously there's a disconnect with just corporations to be the ones to step in, especially because so many people are employed by small businesses that simply don't have the funds to really invest in paid leave programs. And so we need to have the government come in and really set that groundwork.
One of the things that is so critical to this equity in the workplace really does begin with equity in the home. And I think that the more that women and mothers can really change how their homes operate and stop being martyrs to the idea that we have to be these superhero moms that do it all and actually say, no, we're not going to do it all. And instead we are going to expect that our partners take an active role in caregiving. It's a slower impact. It's almost like campaigning for votes, right? It's one voter at a time. It's one family at a time, but I think this is why we got involved with Fair Play and Eve Rodsky and the team over at Hello Sunshine because what Fair Play does is it actually brings a tangible solution to all of these challenges and says, here's a framework. Here's an organizational system that you can bring into your home. Here's a way that you can talk about it with your partner. That's not emotional. That's not gendered. That really recognizes that all people in your home have an opportunity to play a role.
I think that those shifts within individual families will start to change culture more dramatically and give particularly women more space to be able to take these active roles in advocacy and in politics. And at the same time, we also have amazing incredible leaders like Senator Gillibrand and the team over at Paid Leave U S Plus, and Melinda French Gates and all of these incredible people who are advocating and doing work to make the systemic changes happen as well. And we need to be doing both of these things at the same time.
We need men to actually experience it so that they can feel it. Senator Mansion is a 74 year old white man who has had a caregiver. Or a spouse who has been that caregiver and his family, his whole life. And he's, single-handedly made a decision for millions of women and families that they don't need the time and the paid time to care for their families. And it's because he has never experienced it. The more that we can have men be at the table and doing it with us, there will be a bigger opportunity for change because they will actually understand it.
I think the most important thing at the end of the day is to really take an active role. And if you are looking for changes, look at the way that you can be that change in even the tiniest little bit. And, there's this idea of a kaleidoscope, right? If you just shift it a little bit, the ripple effect, the whole picture changes. And so for that, I would say if you are in a position where you have the influence to have changes brought into your organization, yeah, that is where Work 360 can absolutely step in and can support your organization through the change management, through the strategic change that needs to occur so that there can be more space in your organizations for people to be caregivers and to support caregivers in the workplace.
If you care about burnout, you have to care about equity in the home and you have to care about equity at work. Because we are looking at all of the workers across the U S but really across the world where, we have said that the only way to be successful is to be so dedicated to your work that you're available 24 /7. And that of course is going to lead to burnout because it doesn't allow you to be a whole person. And so I think we have to realize as leaders that if we want to address burnout, we have to really give people the space to take a break, and that's not take a vacation. That's not even take a sabbatical. That's take a break every day to be able to put your work down, to be able to walk away, to do something joyful, whether that is to take care of yourself or to take care of your family. But then to also have space to just be you. The ideal worker is someone who is resourceful and whole and creative and engages in many aspects of their life.
Bio
Mary Beth Ferrante is a mom of 2 and advocates for creating inclusive workplaces for parents. She is the Founder & Managing Partner of WRK/360, a platform designed to create workplace cultures that care through scalable leadership development programs that promote flexible work, empathetic leadership, and breaking down parental bias. As a former SVP in the finance industry, she always valued growing her career, and like so many other career-driven mamas, she was surprised to hit the Maternal Wall. Her own experience propelled her to dive deeper into maternal and caregiver bias, to influence changes to workplace culture, and to advocate for a national paid leave policy. Today she blends her corporate strategy and change management background with her experience in professional coaching and leadership development. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and Certified Fair Play Facilitator. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Today, CNBC, Working Mother, Motherly, FairyGodBoss, and more.
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