Welcome to the Big Careers, Small Children podcast.My name is Farina Hefti.I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children.
For much too long, amazing people, like I'm sure you listening right now, have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children.
And that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership, because those people don't progress to senior leadership. and the same stale, often male, middle class people leading our organisations.
We must change this together, and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like, where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place.
Outside of the podcast, I am the CEO and founder of the social enterprise Leaders Plus.We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families.We have three
events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, shared parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges or managing as a dual career couple.
We also have an award-winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family.
You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight-knit supportive group of parents who have your back.
Together you'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations.
You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself.
I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the programme, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having a better flexible working arrangement.
They always impress me so much with the courage that they instil in each other to do what is right for them without apologising for having a family or apologising for wanting that top job. Details are on lidusplus.org forward slash fellowship.
Today I'm chatting to Dave Smith and Brad Johnson about their research into allies.How do you find an ally?If you want to be an ally to someone who is underrepresented in leadership, how do you do it?How do you put the ladder down?
It was quite a different conversation for me as speaking to two military people from the US, but I learned a lot and found it very interesting.I hope you do too.Enjoy the conversation. A very warm welcome, David and Brad, to the podcast.
It is wonderful to have you here.Let's start with you introducing who you are, what you do for work, and who is in your family.Brad, let's start with you.
Okay.Yeah, I'm Brad Johnson.I am a professor at the U.S.Naval Academy.I'm a clinical psychologist and do a lot of my research and writing in the area of developmental relationships, especially mentoring and sponsoring.
Recently, I've, in the last 12, 13 years, most of my collaboration and writing has been with David Smith, whom you'll meet in a moment.
We really write a lot about and research allyship in the workplace across gender and what it looks like when men are better.From the perspective of women, what do women say they really appreciate?So that's what Dave and I have been up to.
My wife and I have three sons, all long gone out of the house, but they've been gone so long we now have three grandchildren, or actually two and one on the way.
So we have moved in, when it comes to caregiving, we've taken that step into the next phase, grandparenting.
Thanks Farina. So I'm David Smith.I'm a professor at Johns Hopkins in the Cary Business School.I'm a sociologist and I do all my research in the area of gender work and family issues.
I started focusing on dual career families specifically in professions.
And then as Brad mentioned, we have transitioned, spent more than a decade now focusing on really how we can all work together in terms of allyship and engaging men, creating better gender equity, both in the workplace, but also at home and understanding the impact that that has in both directions there.
My wife and I have two kids.Like Brad, they are launched and out there doing great things in the world, and one of them has a son.
We are new grandparents in the last couple of years as well, and excited to take on this new caregiving aspect and really treasure it.
Lovely.Very nice.I also have three children, as the podcast listeners know, and I don't have grandchildren yet, and I'm not planning on having any too soon. I'm interested, what got your first interest in this concept?
I mean, the listeners don't see this, but you're two white males, you are very well-educated.You could have very easily chosen a different topic.You didn't have to get involved in studying allyship.
Yeah.Well, I can begin, Dave, and fill in the gaps, but I think for both Dave and I, there was an academic interest in this, right?All of Dave's research was in dual-career families and work and family intersection.
For me, it was the developmental relationship, but I think for both of us, we recognized
Men often are on the sidelines, meaning they don't fully engage, whether we're talking about allyship, mentoring in the workplace, or whether we're talking about really showing up at home as partners and parents.And we were curious about why.
So there was the academic.For me, there was also the personal.I have one sibling, it's a sister, and Shannon followed me into the military. here in the United States and is still active duty as a very senior officer in the Navy.
And she has done it all.She's quite the warrior, but she encounters headwinds constantly that I never did in the same career track.And I think that was kind of an eye-opening moment for me that women have very different experiences.
And we as men often don't see that because we don't feel it ourselves. I think for me, the personal and the academic led me into this stream of research with Dave, but Dave, how about you?
Yeah, I think this is a great question.And I think especially for those of us who identify in a lot of the majority identity areas that it's helpful because I think people are curious about this and why that might be.
So for me, like Brad, mine, I think mine really started with the personal and my wife and I both graduated from the U.S.Naval Academy and had parallel careers in the military.
And for us, you know, these conversations we would have at the dinner table would often, you know, center around some of the, what we were experiencing and just to notice the very different experiences she was having.
Many of the interpersonal that Brad mentioned, like with his sister, but also on the career side.
access to really important information when it came to career advancement opportunities, new positions and roles, responsibilities that are out there, that in many cases, for me, it was very easy to access that information.
And I really didn't have to think a whole lot about it.For my wife, very challenging.And really felt in many cases, even the structure of our careers was holding her back and was made it very simple and straightforward for me in a lot of ways.
And so it got me curious about how do other women experience this and looking around at my colleagues and shipmates that I worked with and seeing their experiences and realizing that this is not a one-off.
It was much more of a systemic issue in the military.
And so I think that's another part of this, you know, Brad and I come from a military background working in today, even in academia, where we're still very, in many ways, very male dominated in lots of ways around the leadership, especially.
that there are still a lot of these inequities across professions and industries, and there's a lot of similarity to them.
And so I think that really piqued our curiosity in how we could all be better in terms as men, people with majority identities, and working together and collaborating to create a better workplace that worked for everyone.
And for those of the listeners who haven't come across the concept of allyship, can you explain what it means on a day-to-day basis?
Yeah, yeah.And this is another great question because I think that allyship has become a more popular term in terms of people beginning to understand and hear it and use it in different ways.
But the challenge is that it does have a lot of different meanings to people.And so I think leveling the playing field on what we're talking about and maybe what we're not talking about when it comes to allyship is important.
And when we did our research, we really focused in on what we thought were an operational definition that had three key areas.
And the first is really thinking about on a day-to-day basis, interpersonally, from an allyship perspective, how do you show up in the workplace?What are the kinds of relationships you have? How are you being supportive and collaborative, collegial?
If you have equity and fairness initiatives in your workplace, how do you show up in those spaces?What does that look like?
And being very deliberate and purposeful about developing your own awareness and understanding about how others may experience the workplace differently than you.Really the easy part of allyship.
The second part, the harder part, was around public allyship.And this is where we felt like people, and especially men, were really putting some skin in the game now because they were having to publicly advocate for people who didn't look like them.
And maybe even in places and spaces where those people weren't even representative or in those because it was just all men there in that case.So doing the public sponsorship, the public advocacy and disrupting.
When we see or hear something that is biased or sexist or whatever the case might be of how we don't just accept it and let it go, but we're actually doing something.We're disrupting, confronting
in real time and thinking about how do we change those in a way that makes it better.And then, of course, that leads us into accountability at the highest levels, and that gets to systemic allyship.
How do we hold the senior leaders in our organization, our organization broadly accountable for some of these practices that have bias within them that are causing a systemic inequity like a wage gap or a lack of representation in senior leadership positions?
Well, now I need to think about how do I change that practice to make it more equitable for everyone so we can begin to eliminate these systemic inequities.
And so thinking of kind of allyship for everyone, for many, as opposed to allyship for one in that way.
I haven't actually looked at that from that allyship for many perspective, but I can picture right now in my head, people who do that and actually without the... So we run a social enterprise, which is all about supporting working parents to progress their careers.
And I can picture individuals who, HR leaders who, even though it's not advantageous for them, even though there's no
I shouldn't say this probably in a public pop-up, but they're doing it even though it might not be on the agenda for their boards because they want to support the working parents who they see are struggling in their organizations.
That's quite interesting.I'm obviously a career progression geek, and that's what I'm interested in.You've done tons of research.
Brad, can you share a bit about what's the impact of allyship on career progression of underrepresented groups in leadership?
Yeah, that is a great question.And actually, you know, there is some good research on this, right?
We find that when there is a climate of allyship, meaning majority members of the organization or the community just show up with an attitude of creating space, leveling the playing field, as Dave and I often refer to it, making sure that I am creating opportunity for people
who don't look like me, so as an older white male, if we're talking about gender equity, I'm really thoughtful about, gosh, the people that I'm mentoring or sponsoring right now, do they all look like me or am I creating a level playing field there?
Am I initiating relationships with high talent women in my organization? And, you know, Dave and I often talk about mentor of the moment conversations.
Do I just, do I notice these high talent women and start conversations and tell them what I appreciate about the way they're performing so that I'm leading into developmental relationships?I'm noticing things, right?
Dave and I talk about situational awareness.So who's in the room?Who got invited?Who's sitting at the table?Who feels comfortable?Who's getting interrupted? more than somebody else?Am I paying attention to these things?
When that's going on, you find the minoritized people in that organization, maybe it's women, reporting more of a sense of commitment, more of a sense of belonging.
They're more likely to stay with the organization when there's more allies present there.You find the organizations themselves do better.They have a better bottom line because they're retaining women.
They get to more gender balance all the way up into the leadership suite.And when that happens, companies make more money.They just do better because we have diverse perspectives contributing to decision making.
So there's a lot in this for companies, there's a lot in this for women, but one thing we don't talk about is, boy, there's a lot in this for men too.And we should be talking more about this.
Men who do better allyship, have better interpersonal skills, better emotional intelligence.And these are all things, by the way, that don't just help me at work.
In my leadership brand, I get to take these home with me to be a better parent and a better partner.
Absolutely.And you wrote in your book, Good Guys, How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, about all these stats and the hard evidence, why it's a good thing.
But I'm thinking of the person who is listening, who maybe is a woman, but maybe has an additional factor in that they might be from a minoritized group because of their ethnicity or so.
How do you practically, if you are someone listening and you don't have an ally, what's the solution?Is it to move to an organization that has a public allyship program or can you create an ally or you just have to hope?
Yeah, we often hear this from especially women and again, I think other minority groups, underrepresented groups in the organization and thinking about that.
One of the things that I think a lot of women have told us that they've done is they just, in many cases, look around and who are those guys?So thinking about men, who are those men who kind of get it?And they're already maybe doing these things.
Maybe it's just part of their personal brand. who they are and how they identify as a leader.They think of it that way.We've heard that from a lot of men.When we talked about allyship, it was kind of a new term for them.
But the minute we started talking about leadership, they're like, Oh, yeah, this is doing the right thing for my people, taking care of my people, making sure that I'm helping them to progress and to develop and giving them opportunities.
they were doing and saying all the right things.It just wasn't in that context, which is fine, right, that we can, we can do this normally.
And those are the people that we ought to start there and have a conversation about how we can collaborate together and helping maybe open their eyes to some things maybe that they're not seeing.And to think about, you know, how can we work together
in trying to solve for some of these and making it better.
We often hear that women will take one of those men that they think is an ally and maybe they have a meeting with somebody that is kind of hard to get one of the constantly challenged and trying to trying to get their point across or be able to contribute in a way that's meaningful or they're constantly being interrupted or not taken seriously.
And having one of those allies that they pregame
think about going to the meeting beforehand and kind of pregaming it ahead of time, doing a little planning about, Hey, if this happens, you know, talking about some different ways to handle that in the moment.
But also it calls it to attention, some of the behaviors that might be going on or how she's experiencing it that way, so that he can be, he can be attuned to it.
And this is something that we see these leaders do is they have these kinds of questions in mind in their head, the things to pay attention to. that maybe they weren't deliberately paying attention to.
Maybe sometimes they noticed it, sometimes they didn't.But now I'm being very deliberate about being attuned to these things so that if I do see it happen, now I can show up in that moment and be that ally.
But really thinking about Who are some of those men who I feel like kind of get it?
And if you're not really sure, maybe even talking to other women or other people of maybe your underrepresented group of people who kind of get these kinds of things and who do you go to or who do you count on to do this?
And there's a lot of great networking that I think can happen here, but approaching it from a collaborative perspective about how, when I figure out who those people are, how do I partner with them and we can work together to solve some of this.
Interesting.It just makes me think of a story.I was managing a director who was, how I noticed in hindsight, absolutely sexist.And I was doing all the things, ignoring the points that I was making.Other points that my colleagues were making were
a picture book sexism.It was actually quite funny in hindsight, but at the time I felt quite vulnerable because I had a young baby and I was questioning myself.
And there was this old white male person who never even discussed diversity or even said that they were interested, who took me aside and said, do you realize this person has been sexist?And that behavior was not appropriate at all.
And I still remember today, and they never told me that they were going to try to be my ally or I didn't associate that word, but A year later, I sent them an email.I'd already moved on then.And I just said, thank you so much.
You've made a real difference to my confidence in managing that situation.So from my perspective, in that situation, the allyship was luck.
But I'm wondering from your perspective, do you sometimes need to ask someone almost like a marriage proposal to invite to be your ally?And if yes, how do you go about this?
Yeah, it's funny.Yeah, it's like, you know, Dave and I are not big fans of like, a dating service for allies or mentors, but there are different ways that I can do this, right?You know, I can make what Dave and I call the contextualized ask.
So I think just walking up to somebody and saying, will you be my ally or will you be my mentor can feel a little overwhelming, right?I don't even know what that means.
Maybe I don't really understand what you're asking for, but it's quite different to come to me maybe as a senior male and say, Hey, Could I share with you something that has been happening in a meeting routinely?
And just get your sense of how I could best handle that.Number one, as Dave alluded, that number one brings to my attention that this is happening to women in meetings and I can be more vigilant for it, but it also allows me to partner with her.
to think about how can we together mitigate this?Same thing when it comes to mentoring, right?I think it's overwhelming to approach someone and say, will you be my mentor out of the blue?We all need that.We need mentoring.
But I think it works much more effectively to say, hey, I saw you had this experience.Could I get on your calendar for coffee to ask you about that?Because I'm very interested in that myself.
Most people will say yes to that, and they understand exactly what you're asking for.And then a funny thing happens.One fun coffee conversation often leads to another and another, and that's kind of how informal mentoring begins, those connections.
So rather than just make the cold call for allyship or mentoring, I would ask a very specific question and see if you can pull an ally into your sphere that way.
I love that.That's a very practical tip.And I also love that you're talking intentionally about collaborating.So you're not the knight in shining armor.Although I have to admit in that situation, I was so desperate.
I did feel this person was really a savior because things were so tough.But I think there's something interesting.How do you not become this helpless victim who is being rescued?
Yeah.I think that's a key question. There's a, there's definitely a tight line that you're walking here.
And, and I, and I hear this from both women and from, you know, men from an allyship perspective, too, asking this question quite a bit, that the nuance of this is really important.
And I think getting that right is being very thoughtful and deliberate, again, is very, very helpful. But this gets back to, I think, for the men asking her about what would be most helpful?
What would that look like if I were to engage and to help in whatever way?How can we collaborate to do this and keep it together in that with language?We're going to do this together with each other.
Because again, I think there's a bit of privilege invoking that can happen here for men and that starts to lean into that white knighting or rescuing kind of behavior.
And it's for some men, that's a little more natural for them to kind of lean into that because they've experienced that or they've felt that that's more normal, socialized in some way and other men maybe not.But
But it just holds us back and keeps it front and center about what this is about and lets her call the shots in terms of what that looks like.And I think that's important.
Keeping the control, maintaining a trust in the relationship that, hey, I'm not going to take this someplace that you don't want it to go.And making sure that, again, it is truly with each other and we're partnering in the solution.
And Verena, if I can just add, you know, the example that you used of that gentleman who showed up for you and said, Hey, Verena, I'm noticing that is happening to you in meetings.And that feels quite sexist to me.
Number one, that's an excellent illustration of somebody validating, right?What women are experiencing and encountering.So she doesn't believe that, you know, she's making it up or exaggerating. You know, I think men often gaslight women that way.
Ah, you're blowing it out of proportion.So he validated your experience, but he didn't jump into the meeting and do a lot of rescuing, right?
I think maybe after validating, then he could have had the conversation with you about, hey, Verena, how could I partner with you so this doesn't happen anymore in this meeting?
Very well said. I want to thank you so much to those of you who've been in touch recently to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hi and say that you're listening to the podcast.
These sort of things really make me happy and it's lovely to hear from you.I also always enjoy having listeners from the podcast on our fellowship programs.
I think some of you have applied to the Leaders Plus Fellowship, especially applying if you are a manager or a leader or the future Leaders Plus program, if you don't have responsibility for leadership yet.
As we discussed plenty of times, even today, only nine in 100 FTSE 100 CEOs are women, and most sectors look quite similar.And it's such a massive issue that women's careers are plateauing when they have children.
So if you do also share that belief, and if you want to do something about it for your own career, then do definitely consider joining us.You'll
be part of a group of parents who feel the same, who are passionate about their career progression, but also passionate about their families.You'll have space to think about what you want to do.
You'll be supported to do the things that you want to do.
And you get these practical tools, the network, the support and mentorship to set your boundaries, apply for this next big job, and find a way that you can be present with your child or children in a way that works for you.
I am releasing this in September, October, November.And the deadline for the next cohort for the fellowship program, if you have already got management or leadership responsibility, is the 12th of November.
So if you are a senior manager or director, do apply by then.We also have a deadline later on in November. if you haven't got leadership responsibility yet, but would like to get some for our future Leaders Plus program.
Either way, I would love to hear from you and be in touch with you.And if you want to join any of those programs, get in touch.There are also scholarship opportunities available.Thanks for your interest.
So a very frequent issue that our listeners experience is that when they have children, the expectations of them career-wise drop.
And you've referenced these in the examples that you mentioned, that all of a sudden, individuals think that the parent or the mother now should slow down their career, that now she's not interested in a promotion anymore.
And I really believe that sponsorship or an ally saying, yeah, you can do it.And by the way, you should work on these skills to get the next job up and so on.That's really important.But how do you create that?
I know you said you're not a fan of matching people with a sponsor or ally.What could someone who wants to sponsor someone practically do or how do you engineer those relationships?
I'll mention two things.And Dave, I know you're thinking of other things around caregiving and hurdles that women encounter, especially two things for me.
Number one, I think being very deliberate when people are going on caregiving leave, both men and women, right?I want to normalize that for both parents.Hey, that's just what we do.We have, we have leave available.Both men and women should take it.
That's my expectation as your manager or your sponsor. So I want to normalize that for both men and women.You should be gone, and take your maximum time, and we're going to support you while you're gone.
I think it should be that kind of really clear support and expectation.Second thing, for women in particular,
making sure as a sponsor that she doesn't fall off the grid, meaning we stop paying attention to her, right, if she's gone for several months.So there are upcoming promotions, there are upcoming opportunities.
Nobody's talking about her because we're not seeing her around the office. Here's an opportunity for a sponsor to say, you know who's doing great work in this area?It's Verena.And I know she's gone right now, but she's going to be back.
I've been keeping in touch with her.She's ready for the next thing.So I'd love to keep inserting her name into conversations about promotions or opportunities, even when she's not there.
So I think that very deliberate mentoring sponsoring can be a really powerful piece of that.But Dave, what else?
I think being very deliberate and proactive, too, in leading up to the birth of the child, and I think that this is really important, of having some of those early conversations with the manager and with the team in some cases about, all right, so who's going to, you know, when I go on leave, right, who's going to, there's a very smooth transition in terms of maybe handoff of clients or customers or projects or thinking about the timing of all of those things.
and thinking about the ramp up back, what that looks like, and opening that line of communication, as Brad said, with the manager to make sure that, again, on the radar, monitoring things, the manager's not bothering the employee.
while they're on the caregiving leave, but making sure that, you know, there is that open line of communication, see how things are going, make adjustments and think about, you know, what's next and the steps of what that ramp up looks like.
Because it's kind of a three phase process.
If we think about it, you know, the proactive, deliberate part before the baby's born and so that pre-caregiving leave, the caregiving leave itself and what's going on there, but then the being very deliberate again about that ramp up and that transition back, what it looks like,
what feels right in terms of increasing workload, more flexibility, or whatever the case might be works for that person, the caregiving needs that they have, the childcare needs that they have, the workload, their ambitions and expectations about moving back into the workplace, because it's different for everybody.
I think, again, you can't apply a one-size-fits-all here, but managers need to, again, have some good best practices in place to be able to do that.
Interesting.I want to delve a bit into your own personal relationship with the concept.So you researched this for quite a number of years.You also did write a book, which takes a lot of detailed delving through resources and so on.
I'm interested, what surprised you the most or made you change your mind around this topic?
Wow.Yeah, that's a good question.And I can start, Dave.I think for me, one of the big shockers was just how little men especially know about how they're really showing up as a partner at home.
You know, a lot of women in dual-career couples looking at the research, you know, even in 2024 are doing double or triple the amount of domestic work and childcare at home.And these are both parents that are working full-time, right?
don't really have an understanding of how little they're sharing equally at home in dual-career couples.
Dave and I often encourage men to do what we call a domestic audit, meaning go home and, you know, especially if you're partnered with a woman, ask, hey, am I really sharing?
And this is so important in couples where both are working because we've got to share equally to make this work for us, right?
And so get a domestic audit from your partner, find out how you're doing, and then don't get defensive when you get the response.
So I won't speak for Dave, but it's made some interesting conversations with my wife and I, and especially around grandparenting, right?
How are we gonna share this equally so that it doesn't become just one of us doing all of the extra labor that comes with being a good grandparent?We both need to have some skin in the game here.
I think that's a really powerful word, the skin in the game, because you're giving something up, isn't it?
I mean, it's great to be with grandchildren, I'm sure, most of the time, but you are giving up maybe freedom to not rush home from work or freedom to stay out.
I don't know when your grandkids come, but there are things you're giving up and maybe we need to be honest about that.It's not just fun and games.How about you, Dave?Have you changed your mind on anything as a result of the research for the book?
Yeah, a few things here that really stand out to me, in addition to what Brad was just talking about, that I think to add on to that, a few things that came up.
One was how more widespread, I think, at least from my perspective, my own understanding, how widespread today's younger generations of men the expectation that they will be more equal parents and partners at home.They're looking for that.
There's an expectation within the relationship they have at home to do that, but they walk into a workplace that is largely very traditional for the most part.There's, of course, a lot of great exceptions to that, but in general, we find that
Most of them are much more traditional in nature and don't support, especially support men being caregivers or sharing in caregiving in a way that they expect and they want to be in that role.
So I think that's, and that leads to a lot of frustration on the part of men and women that men can't You know, it's not supported.We can't find work in a way that supports that, but it also can lead.
So we get these, you know, kind of conflicted dads is, you know, Brad Harrington's work talked about at Boston College and.
But I also think you get these men who are going to choose to go somewhere else in some cases, and there's a lot of them that do.
They will keep searching, finding the company, the right role, the right combination that does provide the kind of structure around work and family that suits the needs and expectations that they have in their family.
And so again, businesses that I think can leverage that or wake up to it, I think there's a lot of opportunity there for them.And I think that businesses that aren't recognizing it are watching talent walk out the door in many cases.
And this has been true for women for a long time, of course, but now it's also, you know, including men in there.So I think that that's a real game changer in terms of how we think about that.
The structure of the workplace piece of it is a part that I think, just back to the personal, and seeing now as Brad and I are stepping into these new caregiving roles as grandparents, but also the potential for our own aging parents and where that might become a factor for us as well.
where is the opportunity within our own organizations today, the structure, the programs, policies to be able to help us to provide the flexibility or structure of the work in a way that we can do both.We can be the caregivers that we want to be.
At the same time, we both value the work that we do and we find great opportunity there and we love the colleagues we work with and we want to continue to be able to make important contributions there.
We need to be able to combine that in a new way in this new phase of life that I think is important to us.
Absolutely.I've been reading this book by Florence Graup.I think she works for NATO and she has Futurist as a job title, which I think is a very cool job title.But she says that we all should work harder to imagine what the future might be.
And so, again, sorry, this is not a question I have put on your very lengthy question briefing, out of which I've asked absolutely zero questions.But I'm really interested in your thinking about how allyship might change the workplace in the future.
So 20, 30 years from now, how might the workplace look different as a result of allyship today?
Wow.Well, and so Verena, we should ask, do we have a half hour more?So let me just give a couple of thoughts about that.I know Dave has thoughts.Here are two.Number one, I think in terms of changing the workplace,
Men need to lean in at home and lean in so they are equal partners, they are engaged parents.Because one thing is crystal clear, we are never going to get to gender parity on pay. on leadership positions in the workplace until men lean in at home.
Men need to share in that because women are doing too much of the unpaid labor, right, at home, too much of the caregiving.And it's preventing us from getting the equal participation of women in the workplace.
So that's number one, men need to show up fully as partners at home.And as Dave said, a lot of men want to do that.They're just finding the workplace often doesn't fully allow them to do that.
Maybe one other one is that we have got to train managers and anyone in a supervisory position to be a better ally in the sense of executing things like paid leave.
When people need to step away for caregiving, step away to have a baby, take care of an aging parent, managers need to approach that with, of course you do.Let's assume you're going to take your full leave and how can I support you?
And maybe you're going to work part-time or you're going to work flex or you're going to work remote.How are we going to support you?Not the current approach, which is, do you really need that time?How much do you need?
It is expressed to the employee as a burden and that's got to change, right?So I think allies need to include managers who are executing this workplace policies.Dave?
I think that the one kind of a macro, I'll start there first. that affects everybody, I think, more worldwide.And it varies a bit by region and different societies.But the care infrastructure, we've got to sort that out.
And we have bigger issues in the United States than in some other areas of the world.But there's room for improvement across the board.And as Brad said, care cannot be looked at as some sort of an add-on piece of who we are.
It's a part of everybody's life.Everybody identifies as a caregiver in some way, some part of their life.You know, we know today that 80 plus percent of employees right now and in a moment identify as caregivers.
So the vast majority of our workforce identifies that way, yet it often is an afterthought.If the work is more important, the caregiving is not as important.Until we put those on a level playing field that they're equally important,
I think this will become challenging to see the practices that we need to put in place to do that.And I think that that is the future.We're going to have to get to the point where we put those on the same, at the same level.
And so fixing in many ways, kind of the care infrastructure and some of that's organizationally in some areas of the world and other areas like the U.S., we need more national level, state level policy to fix some of that as well.
The other thing at a more micro level, I think you're going to see shift and change is that
As managers, you know, I'm thinking about people managers, even at the lowest levels, because their jobs have really shifted and changed over the last 5 to 10 years.
It started before the pandemic, and then the pandemic has really accelerated a lot of that change.The responsibilities have changed, and we haven't necessarily addressed that in terms of
of providing the right training and development, education, the upskilling of managers, preparing them to do a lot of this management of people in a way that they're, Hey, I'm, I am now responsible for people and this caregiving piece or whatever the, you know, the adjusting schedules and finding the flexibility to do these things.
I need to be able to, to be able to understand how to do that and do it most effectively.So again, from a performance perspective, we can get the most out of the time and the people and right.
There is a business here at the end, and so we need to make that a part of it.
And so I think thinking more deliberately about how we're going to re-envision what management looks like, not just programs and the typical business outcomes of our managers, but more along the lines of they're not just people working on a shop floor.
They're working on a shop floor and they're managing people. And so we have to think of a more that way of how to prepare them and educate them and make that a part of, again, the business of who we are and what we do every day.
Absolutely.Well said.We're coming towards the end of our podcast and I want to invite you to share some practical things that someone who's listening today could do this week to start become an ally.
And I would really also encourage the women listening to this podcast to also be allies, both to younger women and also other underrepresented groups.
And just as a reminder, the outcomes for mothers are worse than other women in terms of career progression. the outcome of mothers who identifies from an ethnic minority is almost twice as bad in terms of career progression.
So please, if you're listening to this and feel in any way motivated, then just do what Dave and Brad tell you now.So over to you.Any practical things someone who wants to be an ally could do this week?
Yeah, I'll get to really quickly and they're both public Dave on my end.So, so here's number one.How about when you're in the next meeting and some sexist inappropriate comment gets made that clearly is antagonistic toward women.
Maybe someone says, you know, why don't we have more senior women here?Cause women don't want to work that hard.That's why boom. What do you do?
And I'm just going to recommend that you don't let more than two or three seconds go by before you disrupt that.Whether you're male, female, or non-binary, you can just say something like, ouch, just disrupt it.And then when everyone looks at you,
make it clear what was not okay about that comment.I think we have to get comfortable breaking through bystander paralysis and disrupting sexism in real time.And that's hard, right?It's uncomfortable, but we've got to do that.
Second thing I'll recommend is when you have a high talent woman, maybe she's been on caregiving leave and has been gone for a while, now she's returned. There's an upcoming opportunity or promotion, and she hasn't put her name in for it.
And you know she's perfectly qualified for it.She would be great, but she's not putting her name in. Learn to not accept that, right?Go have a conversation with her and say, hey, I see you as ready, yet you're not applying.Can I just ask why?
And if it's that she doesn't see herself as qualified, maybe you have that developmental conversation to help her change her mind.
But a lot of women get socialized not to put their hand in the air for opportunities because they don't want to appear too ambitious.They're so concerned they don't meet every criteria. So supervisors can be allies here.
Go to her and have the conversation.Help her see that you see her differently.
Wonderful.How about you, Dave?
Yeah, a couple on the more kind of interpersonal side.And I think these are with relationships with colleagues is where I'll start first.
And one of the things that I think is very helpful is having a community of, I'm just gonna say broadly around caregivers within your organization to be able to share experiences, best practices, things that are working, because I think in many cases, these are things that are very stigmatizing to talk about with people.
And so it doesn't come up in normal conversation as often as it needs to, especially for maybe, maybe people who are new to caregiving roles, or different caregiving roles, things are changing in your life.And who do you reach out to?
What are the resources available?So I think it's helpful to create a community.And sometimes this can be more formal.It could be like an employee resource group, an ERG.And we see those more caregiving ERGs have become more and more popular today.
And I think it's a great place for, again, caregivers broadly.And so men and women, right, people, you know, all genders coming together to talk about these and to support each other and have a community of support there.
Again, I think having the organization be supporting that ERG as well, I think is very helpful.
The other part, I think, gets to making sure that as, again, us as employees, that we are having conversations with our supervisor and being very deliberate about it.
And this can be more or less challenging depending on who that supervisor is and where they are in terms of their own understanding and experience of this.But being able to, again, be very
deliberate about having a conversation about what your caregiving needs and expectations are, how those intersect with your work and enable better work in terms of the performance of what you, you doing your job.And I think that remembering that
you know, putting it in that context for most managers is really helpful, because they're going to be focused on your work to begin with.
But understanding that there's an intersection here of these things that I need, right, to make me better, to make me perform at the highest levels, to achieve what you're looking for, to get more out of this.There's something in it for both of us.
And I think when we can meet the managers, you know, halfway on this, that it's more likely to pull them into that conversation.I realize there are some challenges out there with personality and
the way people perceive things when it comes to caregiving and work, but it doesn't get any easier when we totally ignore it.
So finding ways to, and maybe even coming together with other people on your team to have these conversations with a supervisor might be another way to think about that.
Absolutely.I think it's about getting, you mentioned the word majority a lot, and I think at the moment, allies are still in the minority, and that's a tough place to be.You're automatically, intentionally putting yourself into that minority seat.
connecting with other allies in that space that you mentioned, Dave, is really powerful.We do actually, on an informal level, we bring together chairs of ERGs just because it's a really tough job to run an ERG for peer support.
So if anyone's listening and wants to join our next peer support session, please shout.So if people want to find your book, do you want to direct them to where they should find it?Maybe repeat the title again?
Certainly.So our latest book, Good Guys, How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, can be found on any of your online retailers.Pick your favorite one out there.
But we also encourage people to go out to your local bookstores and support your local bookstores as well.And hopefully, if they don't have it, then hopefully they can order it for you.
And you can also just find out more about us at workplaceallies.com.
Fantastic.Let me know if you're ever in the UK.It'd be great to do an event or something jointly.Yeah.Thank you so much for your time.It's been great chatting to you.
Thanks, Farina.Thank you, Farina.
I really appreciate you listening.Thank you so much.And I always love to hear from our listeners.
If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just go to Farina Hefti and I'd be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi.
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