S2 E43: Addressing the pay gap to prevent burnout
with HR expert and moms at work advocate Allison Venditti
Key Takeways
Through career coaching, I found out that I wasn't alone in that every woman that I was working with were also mothers and we were all sort of feeling this collective rage about how work wasn't working for us. And I think we really felt during the pandemic that things would change and I've been disappointed in the lack of change. And so Moms at Work sprung into action.
As a career coach I was being asked to speak at these women's events and they were all at 4.30 on a Wednesday. And I said, I have to pick up my kid from daycare and someone said to me don't you have someone to do that for you? I was like, no, do you?
So Moms at Work for the longest time was just 300 women. And we had coffee and we had little like networking events that were free and we just hung out at a bar and it was great. It's so nice to be around other people who just get me and I don't have to apologize or, censor myself and not talk about my children, which is the problem in professional networking. And then once word got out, it grew and grew.
We focus on money. So I truly believe that nothing bad happens when you pay women more money, right? And it upset me the fact that we have two pay equity commissioners in Canada, whose sole job and division is responsible for making sure that women get paid equally to men. And that is a sad state that we have to resort to those things because people can't do the right thing.
Because women are paid 15% less than men. So oftentimes we don't negotiate ourselves into this place and we find out we're paid significantly less than our male counterparts. And then you rinse and repeat. And so I said, no, we are allowed to make that standard. We are allowed to push back against systems that hurt us, and then it snowballed.
So my mother was an advocate, like not by practice or whatever, but just like she was in education and I feel like educators for the whole entirety of their career and just have to fight systems and fight to be recognized because it's another female dominated industry. So I spent a large amount of my teenage years picketing
What mothers need is support. They need to be heard. They need kindness and they need someone to fight for them. So women are exhausted. We do twice the amount of labor we're working full time. We're raising children. Those children might have special needs. There are so many things at play. Is that they have to have something to look towards. And I was like, Moms at Work can be that thing for people. We can be that thing where we will not shut up.
I don't ever want to hear about why can't we retain mid and senior level women when it's staring you right in the face that you were doing this wrong. So no amount of leadership training or, retreats or whatever is going to fix this. You have to fix the system. Otherwise we're uninterested in having this conversation.
They got pushed out of the workforce for a very simple reason is that women are paid less money. So if me and my partner had to look at ourselves and be like, okay, I've got three kids at home. Now full-time, in lockdown. Whose job does it make more sense to give up in order to make this work? And he makes twice as much money as I do. So that is not a choice that society has built out. That's not a choice that I got to make. That was pre-decided.
I think the whole concept of mothers are superheroes is just so damaging . And social media is so damaging because you look at all these other people and they're like, look how happy they are. Their kids are all healthy. They're doing so well at work there they've made partner and what my goal has been we need to normalize that people have lives and that trying to keep all these plates spinning will lead to burnout. That's not how we're supposed to function.
It's messy. That makes you a stronger individual because now you can have empathy for other people when they're experiencing the same thing. So it makes you a better manager. Burnout is hard and it's hard to crawl back from. I found it hard to get out of that space. But every choice I made seemed to sacrifice something else and that burnt me out even more.
So I think that there is no way in hell that anybody during this pandemic could have not experienced some level of burnout, but because I love what I do and the reasons I do it so much. I think it hurt me even more because I had to watch other people collectively experiencing the same things I did.
And so I've had to learn to pace myself. So that's been important for me in looking at how I want my children to advocate and in how I want them to protect themselves at the same time. So trying to set healthy norms and healthy behaviors to protect the people around me is my biggest takeaway from all of this.
And the reason that people advocate is not for reasons that bring them joy. Making change means that something's not working. So that sits heavy on me is that I'm trying to change a system and systems or things that will negatively impact my children.
It's really a sharing of information, but every person who takes that then tell somebody else about that will then share it with someone else who will then be the manager who will fight for their employee. That's how we change things on scale. And it seems slower, but it spreads like wildfire. When you can really explain those systems and be really intentional about helping them put all the pieces together, because sometimes there's just so much information out there that it doesn't feel achievable or understandable, or that you could do anything about it. And that's our changes. It takes very simple steps for you to be a change maker.
I just keep repeating that message that I see women, mothers specifically, this has weighed so heavy on them. It has weighed so heavy on them that they have done something wrong that they haven't been able to figure it out or do whatever. Just because of other people seem to have it together, just means that they're having a good day it doesn't mean that it's the truth. Because this is very hard. And so my message to your listeners is I know it doesn't feel like it, but you're doing a good job.
Bio
Allison Venditti is a Career Coach, Salary Negotiation Whisperer and Founder of Moms at Work - Canada's largest community for working mothers. She has nearly 20 years experience in Human Resources and is a leading expert on creating parental leave programs for organizations large and small. When she is not creating change she can be found drinking coffee, writing, winning at board games or chasing one or all of her 3 kids - but never all at the same time.
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