LEAP Listens
LEAP Listens is a bitesize podcast hosted by Sara MacGregor and Roger Cayless who are both leaders in Employer Branding, Candidate Experience and Recruitment Marketing. In this ongoing series of podcasts they tackle client and industry themes and along the way host expert guests who provide opinion, stories and advice on the world of ‘people communications’.
LEAP Listens
What Every Employer Gets Wrong About Parenthood with Jess Heagren
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In this episode of LEAP Listens, Sara and Roger are joined by Jess Heagren, founder of Careers After Babies, to explore the uncomfortable truth about working parenthood, and why it’s not just a personal issue, it’s a business one.
From a defining moment in the boardroom to building a framework now used by leading employers, Jess shares why organisations need to move beyond policies and start addressing culture. She unpacks why 87% of parents say full-time work doesn’t work, how line managers shape retention more than HR ever could, and what it really takes to become a workplace where parents can thrive.
LEAP Listens is brought to you by LEAP Create, an award-winning people communications agency. Find out more at leapcreate.co.uk
Podcast Introduction
Speaker 1Sarah Duffy. Leaplistens Sarah Duffy. Leaplistens Sarah Duffy. Leaplistens Sarah Duffy. Leaplistens Sarah Duffy.
Speaker 2LeapListens Sarah Duffy.
Speaker 1LeapListens. Sarah Duffy LeapListens. Sarah Duffy LeapListens. Sarah Duffy LeapListens. Sarah Duffy LeapListens. Sarah Duffy LeapListens. Our sixth series of Leap Listens and, if you're new here, we chat to a variety of industry specialists about workplace culture and how to communicate with candidates and employees. And if you want to know more, head over to our website or Spotify for over 70 episodes to listen to. Welcome.
Speaker 2Hello Sarah.
Speaker 1Hi Rod.
Speaker 2How are you?
Speaker 1Yes, good, thank you. We're on a bit of a roll now, aren't we?
Speaker 2We are indeed, we are indeed, and we've got a good one today. I mean, they're all good of course. But, today we are speaking to Jess Hegrin, who I think we saw at a Happiness Index event, didn't we speaking? And she was pretty.
Speaker 1We did. She was brilliant, wasn't she? Yeah, and she was pretty. We did she was brilliant, wasn't she?
Speaker 2Yeah, for those who don't know, she is the founder of Careers After Babies and is someone who's been right in the heart of that conversation around organisations can support women returning to work after having children.
Speaker 1So she had a really senior position, didn't she? At quite a young age. I think late 20s, and found herself as sort of one of the youngest and only women in the room, you know, on occasion. So then, going to start a family was quite a challenge for her job, wasn't it so? And yeah, her return to work after her maternity leave, I think, was then when it was proved to be quite difficult and she ultimately left her job.
Speaker 2She did and I think, as we'll hear, it was that experience is what led her to set up the platform and speak to thousands of parents and create a career site and an accreditation. That means that businesses have somewhere to go to make change and not just sort of pay lip service or tick boxes. Great, she's got a lot of insight to share, so let's get to it.
Speaker 1Welcome to the podcast, Jess.
Jess Hegrin's Career Journey
Speaker 3Hello, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1It's great to have you. So, jess, do you want to give a little bit of background about you and what you do?
Speaker 3Yeah, sure Shall I tell the story, tell the story, tell the story. So I, yeah, okay. So my last employed role I was director of strategy and distribution for direct light group. Uh, I had worked my way up there very well from a very young age. I was the most, uh, senior female uh in my late 20s kind of in in that group.
Speaker 3Um, and I took our strategy to the public facing board one day, where in there I was asked by one of the non-exec directors what it was like to be a young, talented female in their insurance business. I should obviously add. I was like 20 years younger than I am now and I had one of those moments of I can either tell the truth to this guy or I can sort of tow the party line. So I decided to go for the truth bomb and I said look, the reality is that I spend most of my time surrounded by middle-aged white men with stay-at-home wives. I don't really have any friends at work and I want a baby at some point in the next couple of years. You've invested a lot in me getting me to this point and I think having a child in the business as it is at the moment will spell the end of my career.
Speaker 3A bit of a mic drop moment yeah, lots of things happened off the back of that conversation, one of them being that I set up the diversity and inclusion committee for DLG, which still exists today, and I led the gender and working families part of that. So that was my first foray into, I guess, diversity and inclusion type work. A couple of years later, I gave birth to my first daughter. I only took a five-month mat leave because I didn't want a cover to come in and take my role. Obviously, if you take less than six months, you're entitled to go back to the same role. If you take more, you can be put into an equivalent, but five months first time time mum c-section still feeling all of those issues made it really, really difficult.
Speaker 3I was I think I was managing sort of six, seven hundred people at the time across multiple locations, a lot of traveling, and even though I was working a four-day week, I just I just really really struggled and I lost all my confidence. I stopped speaking in meetings and after eight months I just said to my husband I can't keep doing this. I also hadn't told anyone at work because it was such a male-dominated environment that I didn't want to be branded the hormonal crying woman in the corner. So we opted to have a second child. Great reason to have a second. We'll do it now.
Speaker 3And I said that I would make a decision about what I did with my career during that mat leave. Unsurprisingly, I ended up quitting completely, which for a year or so was fine because I had a two-year-old and I had a baby and you know life was pretty busy. But after a year I started. I started like making spreadsheets of meal plans for the week and you know what vegetables I could mash together for the best, best vitamin combinations. And my husband very gently said to me one day Jess, do you think, do you?
Speaker 3think maybe your brain needs something more. Yes, absolutely I do transferable skills yeah, right, yeah, it wasn't.
The Truth Bomb at the Board Meeting
Speaker 3It wasn't quite giving me the same level of challenge. So I I looked around so I obviously go into lots of baby groups and that type of thing and I'd be sat next to the ex-marketing officer of this place and the ex-CFO of this place and I just thought what is going on with that? You have all of these incredible and it was women mostly at that point who have spent years investing in their careers only to be doing the same thing as me and just sort of sit around not doing anything or struggling to get back into a career that they had before. So I launched a business initially that was a platform to help find mums flexible and part-time work back in the field that they were looking for and that it did okay. You know, for a first small business, we had some great clients, we won a couple of big awards, but I very quickly realised that we were putting people into companies who said they were one thing on the outside that, you know, talked about flexible working, talked about all of their great benefits, but when they actually got into their role, their experience was completely determined by their line manager and the local culture of their team. So it felt like I was sort of mis-selling people to some degree, so I started helping more organisations out with fixing some of those kind of systemic issues that they face internally, which led to me doing a massive piece of research called Careers After.
Speaker 3Baby is the Uncomfortable Truth, and that I can share some of the stats with you in a minute. But things just sort of blew up from there, really. I very unexpectedly published this report on the findings of what happens to women. It went viral on LinkedIn and I had hundreds of businesses getting in touch, so I ended up creating Careers After Babies, which you mentioned. Obviously, I'm the founder of now and we we're together with, I think I convinced 10 companies across a mix of different sectors to work with me on building a framework for what good looks like, and that framework is now what we use in Careers After Babies to accredit and conversations against. So our mission is to create world class employers of working parents. Was that your longest introduction ever?
Speaker 2It's one of the best.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's amazing and yeah, your story like really resonates. I mean I again, when I was on maternity leave I was quite bored and set up a photography business and ended up going to a lot of like these mompreneur lunches and breakfasts and just sat with all these women, like you say, who were ex-marketing directors or really high up and sort of trying to find something to fit into their lives. I mean, I didn't continue down that route, I went back into work part-time, but it's hard. I remember one company I worked with. I was working very, very late into the evenings to try and get all my work done and I was having I was a single mum at the time taking my three-year-old to nursery, coming coming into work 9, 15 and I was told I was put on a watch list because I was coming in at 15 minutes late. It's like yeah it's.
Speaker 3It's just exhausting's such. I always come back to the stat that over 80% of us will become parents by the age of 40. So four in every five people that you work with will become a parent. Why make their lives that much more difficult? When you think about it in the context of your workforce? I've literally just been writing a post on LinkedIn and I was thinking, if I'm a manager, sat there thinking, oh well, oh well.
Speaker 3Actually I've only got two or three working parents in my team it's because life has been made so difficult for them they've dropped out of the workforce, which which is exactly what we're working against, but all kudos to you for doing it as a single parent. So I think, doubly hard without that, that support unit in place.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's so hard. I mean coming back to your story, jess, and what you said about when you spoke to your colleague and you dropped the truth bomb. What was his response to?
Speaker 3that. So that was in. It was in one of their actual board meetings, so it was with like five non-exec directors and the board of the company as well. I literally couldn't have picked. I've never seen such a look at my boss's face that sat there twitching in his chair.
Speaker 3To start off with it was dumbfounded silence and, I think, possibly the fact that someone had given voice to those fears in that environment, but also probably quiet acceptance that that's actually the reality for a lot of younger women. Like I said, I mean they handled it brilliantly. They responded At the time I was on sort of the succession plan to be the next CEO. It was a big deal to come from someone that they had invested that much kind of time and energy into. But I'd say you know, when you kind of reflect back on pivotal moments, I think that was one of them, that admission to myself and admission to them and you know it changed how they did things afterwards.
Speaker 1Oh, that's great, but it did make that change. What changed?
Speaker 3how they did things afterwards. Oh, that's great, but it did. It did make that change? Yeah, it did. I think that's one of the. I think if more of us were having these types of conversations and being honest about it, I think, as working parents, once we're in an organization, you feel like if you speak up about how hard it is, you're whinging and you're moaning and all you're going to be faced with that. Well, you made these decisions. So it's kind of you've you've made your own bed lie in it. But the reality we can't look like that because actually it's not just about you, it's about all the people that have come before and all the people that will follow after.
Building Careers After Babies
Speaker 3Interestingly, we worked with an organization who looked at they looked at the retention of their working parents, which on paper, looked quite good. So they had women going off on mat leave, coming back, they were staying in the business, but they still had this massive gap when it came to availability of female talent to promote to that next level. When we looked at that next level down so you're talking particularly women, sort of in that 25 to 32 age group that's where they had their big fallout, because that group were looking up, saying is this the organization? Is this an organization where I can start a family and continue my career successfully? And the answer was no. It looked too hard. So before they even got to the point where they were having children, they were, they were jumping out. So it's not again. It's not just the parents you're talking about, it's it's the that's next generation of people who are thinking about becoming parents yeah, it's.
Speaker 2it's a fascinating subject and we do a lot of work in the, I guess, what you would call the diversity, equity and inclusion space, and we work a lot with network organisations. So there's often in large organisations a parents network and a women's network. So I guess they're good to engage with. But thinking about your accreditation process, what's the, what is the process and what is there a checklist and talk through some of the criteria that would give, get someone an accreditation so we have a framework that has three pillars to it.
Speaker 3So we talk about policy, process and practice, and I always say to organizations policy is the easy bit to know. I could write you a piece of paper now that had a policy on it, but that needs to be your backstop. It's all about the practice that sits around it and how people are behaving, whether they're displaying the right behaviours, having the right conversations quite obvious. So equitable and family-friendly policies. So, regardless of what type of parent you are whether you're a mother or a father, same-sex couple, single parent that you have the same access to policies and benefits as as mums. Then we talk about a flexible work environment, which you know. We've already mentioned the need for sort of part-time. You effectively have two full-time jobs when you have children, but but again, in our survey we identified that 87% of parents cannot work full-time alongside having a family. So that's kind of the single biggest need. The other five themes are much more culturally focused. So the first one is consistent nurture and support. So are you making a working parent feel like you want them to stay within the organisation? Are you having quite nurturing, probably gentle, conversations during a vulnerable period, applying no pressure, and then are they supported on that journey back into work by you know? Are they reintegrated back into office life? I use the word gentle quite a lot, which sounds, I think, some people sort of take offence to, but actually you're in a vulnerable, uncertain state and I think you need need that. The next one's empathetic and inclusive line management. So, as I mentioned earlier, a line manager will almost single-handedly dictate whether somebody stays or not, and I think that's the area most from our experience. That's the area that most organizations will fall down on through no fault of the line manager. I have to say. You know they've got an awful lot on their plate, but actually when something in your team is trying to grow their family, it requires a different set of behaviors and skills. I think we don't always prep them for.
Speaker 3We talk about parenting being valued by the organization. So a great example is if I'm planning my annual event, am I doing it bang slack in the middle of the school holidays, where most parents won't be able to make it, or am I thinking about you know timing and and when's the best time to do it? We talk about role models, parenting loudly, so actually in within the organization, is this somewhere where I can talk about the fact that you know, my baby was sick down my top this morning on the way into work and I had to go back home and get changed half an hour after I expected. And are those conversations happening? And who are those sort of pivotal people? One of the tips that I give to organizations if I say, if you're going to walk away and change something tomorrow, on your next comms that you're doing to your whole organization, mention your familyention, that you went to a concert the other day or that you leave at four o'clock on a Tuesday to go and do school, we have tiny little nuggets that make it, that give the rest of the organisation permission to talk about their sort of home life. And then the last one, which is very dear to my heart, as parents are progressing.
The Framework for Family-Friendly Workplaces
Speaker 3So I will often speak to women who have managed to stay in their career. But they've stayed at the same level, in the same role for six, seven years, having previously been promoted every couple of years, and we call this that period of sort of career stagnation, almost. So actually, they've managed to stay with an organisation maybe because the hours fit and because somebody's understanding, but they're not thinking about their development and their growth and that ability to promote and I think this, for, is one of the something that we can all take action around that would have a massive impact on gender pay gap and that ability to progress. So we try and educate organisations on attracted talent in, on making sure, when someone comes back from a period of parental leave, that we're starting to talk about personal development plans, skills development. You know what's your next move. You get the sort of two dynamics at play.
Speaker 3So you, you find that somebody comes back off leave perhaps not feeling as confident as they did before, combined with an organization making assumptions about their ambition or their ability to progress, and then, if those conversations don't happen in those first sort of three, four months, they then don't happen at all. So they get left for years and that's that's when we see it happen. So we, we, our framework has 75 proof points in it, which sounds like a lot. Actually, some of them are tiny, free, easy things to do. So I've already used the example of you know, when you're thinking about events, thinking about the timing of them, when somebody's coming back to work, putting them back on the induction program to smooth things in having a structure around, keep in touch, days, you know, completing a planning leave template. So we have.
Speaker 3We have guides relating to every single point in the framework in our small members portal. So small companies join up for membership with us and we help them put all these practices into place from day one and then, once that's in place, they can become certified. And for bigger organisations, we're obviously testing the effectiveness of all of those. What makes us different is that we actually ask the employees. We don't rely on feedback from HR. Nothing against HR. They always set out with best intentions, but do those things really filter through the organisation so that their intended audience ends up having the experience they want them to? And that's the bit that we kind of really test for. And then we work with them on a transformation journey after that to bring everything up to standard and bring that consistency piece in and does your accreditation um?
Speaker 2do you, do people need to be re-accredited on a, on a, on a sort of periodic basis?
Speaker 3So we say from experience, so far we've only been going for a couple of years, so we've got we have about 50 companies who are sort of somewhere in that journey. We're saying I think a three year period from when you become accredited and then we'll sort of redo everything. We'll kind of relook at things in that third year, because you know there's a reality, isn't there about how quickly, I think, in particular, cultural change takes to come about. So we're, yeah, very, very aware of that and kind of giving things time to settle in.
Speaker 1That's great so I had a question and you kind of answered it in terms of, like the policy, process and practice. So I'm interested in the practice side, like you said, with the policy, particularly very large companies that have all of these policies and, like you say, they have the intention but it really is. Isn't it down to the the line manager and their views and opinions, how, what in your world? And what advice would you give to companies and to people you know, perhaps listening to this, who are in that situation and they have got, you know, women in their, in their team that do have families? What advice would you give to them to kind of help them become more supportive as a manager?
Speaker 3my biggest thing when it comes to line managers and their relationships with their team members is about listening, asking open-ended questions and listening and then showing understanding and empathy around what they need. So if somebody sat in front of you telling you that they can't get there till quarter past nine because you know that's when the trains run and that's when nursery drop off is, does why, why make the decision to make life more difficult for them by saying that's a problem, it's 15 minutes, it can be made up at other times. You can make, I think as a people leader, you can make a choice to make somebody's life more difficult, or you can make the choice to say I can make this person's life easier, which in turn means they will be more loyal, they will be more productive. They will be more productive, they will be happier at work, they'll be more committed by saying, okay, fine, but come in at quarter past nine, it's not a problem Let me know if things change.
Speaker 3I just think we sometimes take the humanity out of line management and people management in general, replacing it with processes, whereas, in actual fact, what lots of us need is a human sat on the other side of the desk or at the other end of the phone.
Speaker 3Who's going to say, okay, I hear you and I hear that's what you need, recognizing that if I can keep my team members happy, I'm going to have a much better performing team at the end of the day, and I think anybody that you ask that says there's certainly people that I speak to where you say oh, you've been with your organization a long time, you know what's what's made you stay a great understanding line manager and a supportive team almost certainly the first few things that they will say yeah, I think what I find fascinating about this too is that, as I said, because of the work that we've done in that diversity and inclusion space, often it's the, if you like, the sort of more recognizable diversity traits or inclusion traits that get promoted.
Speaker 2And I guess, because being a parent isn't, isn't really a diversity trait, it's, um, it could potentially be overlooked, whereas and one of the phrases that we're always hearing is about bringing your whole self to work, and you know, bring your whole self to work. So it's it's sort of interesting to hear you say that sometimes organizations are like, yeah, bring your whole self to work. And you know, bring your whole self to work. So it's it's sort of interesting to hear you say that sometimes organizations are like, yeah, bring your whole self to work, but not not that yeah, yeah, yeah, it's um, yeah, it's a really great point, isn't it?
Speaker 3I think the that cultural piece about one of the things actually we another thing we recommend companies do is, within their teams, have these conversations. So I quite often hear all the younger child free members of the team think that we get unfair advantages as parents. And you know, when you're like one, one day they will be there and they will get it. I've the amount of messages that I have sent to ex team members to apologize for my treatment of them in my management days. You know, when I was 27 and I and I just didn't get it.
Creating Cultural Safety for Parents
Speaker 3But I think, having those open conversations, you know we used to have a stop in our team meetings where somebody said, actually, this is my family life, this is what our typical week looks like. Because when you start to throw in by the way, I had to with me this morning get four young kids out of the door, four backpacks, four lunches, a screaming three-year-old, you know when you, when you, when you add in the chaos and people understand things from your perspective and what you're going through, I think that in turn generates that understanding of oh, actually, I just got up this morning had a shower, listened to a podcast and got on the train like god. That sounds like absolutely wow, heaven, I think.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's probably a sort of dream there's.
Speaker 2Psychologists probably have a have a name for it, don't they? But I imagine that part of this as well is is in an attempt to prove that you can do it all. There's probably sometimes that kind of disguising the the truth of what's happening in your, your life, because you, you say you don't want to be criticized, to be seeing as disorganized or unreliable.
Speaker 2So so there probably is sometimes that kind of attempt to make that front that no one gets to hear about aspects of my life, because then then in turn that might make it seem like I'm not as professional as someone else.
Speaker 3Absolutely. But again that comes back to I talk about cultural safety blankets. So I think that when an organisation has these levels of conversations right so when somebody feels free to come in and talk about their you know, their family life, what they're going through, without that fear of being judged, that cultural safety blanket is there because I know that it's not going to have a detrimental impact on my career. I also then know if somebody says something inappropriate. So someone starts talking about, you know, baby brain, or referring to someone as a part-timer, or questioning why they leave at three to get their kids. If that culture is there and it is acting as a safety blanket, that sort of behaviour will be called out. And I think this is one of the key things in terms of the. One of the reasons that we do this sort of three-year period is because that has to take time to build up. But there will come a point where someone says hang on a minute, that's, that's not okay. You know these are their circumstances. This is why they're doing what they're doing.
Speaker 3And I think building that comes from conversations on you know, understanding each other's circumstances, that empathy, that ability to listen and then and not questioning people's on, you know, understanding each other's circumstances, that empathy, that ability to listen and then, and not questioning people's commitment. You know, how often do you hear about people not being trusted to do their work and or have to see them to believe that they're doing a job. If you don't trust someone, like, why are you working with them? Well, if you don't trust them to do their job, why are they there? Um, so yeah, it's no one's. No one ever said cultural change is easy, but I think there are lots of little things that can be done that don't have to cross the earth to actually start those. Start those changes and really bring them into effect.
Speaker 1Excellent so, jess, these are bite-sized episodes and I feel like we could go on and, on and on, but, um, it looks like you're frozen, roger oh sorry.
Speaker 2Yeah, is the mannequin challenge still a thing, or is that?
Speaker 1has that passed um, yeah, the question we're going to ask you, jess, was what's your top read or listen that you can share with our listeners? And it could be anything.
Speaker 3It could be anything so I can either tell the truth here, can't I, or I can. I can tell you. So my, my business answer would be go away and read the Equal Parent by Paul Morgan Bentley. That talks about parent balance, and it takes it from the view of a same-sex couple, which I think is absolutely fascinating. That's, that would be my if. If I wasn't being my true self, I would say that anyway. What I'm actually reading is I've gone back to read the Jilly Cooper book after watching Rivals on TV. I love that.
Speaker 3Brilliant In the spirit of being honest, I think and bringing your whole self.
Speaker 1I think that's perfect.
Speaker 2I've never read a Jilly Cooper, but I'm always intrigued. There's the sort of thing, isn't it, where you've got like someone's bottom in tight jodhpurs and a riding crop on the front cover. Is that the promo? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Or there's I can't remember the main character now, but there was a whole series of Vegas hotels. Yeah, yeah, I remember my old holiday days when I was sort of like early twenties.
Speaker 2I've read all of those.
Speaker 3Oh, I love it lost in the dust with Rupert, rupert Campbell Black and the Polo Horses. It's hilarious, although interestingly, the books published in the 80s. You realize just how much times have changed so there have been quite a few things where I've been like, oh, you wouldn't, just wouldn't be able to publish that now. So, yeah, it's been there. You go to bring some business logic into it has been interesting observations of uh the dni world there's a lot of things I think that wouldn't stand the test of time.
Speaker 1I think those books you're right, probably, probably wouldn't.
Book Recommendations and Closing
Speaker 2Yeah oh well, thanks so much for joining us, jess. It's been a great conversation thanks for having me. It's been fab thank you very much thank you so much and there is our leap.
Speaker 1Lift again, roger, right, right. What are we lifting about today? Can you see my enthusiasm for this one?
Speaker 2I, can you feel more enthusiastic than you've ever felt before about a leap lift?
Speaker 1I know I can't wait to get stuck in, and today we're going to be talking about email talent pools.
Speaker 2We are, and I mean that was the line in my script. But that's absolutely fine, sarah hold on.
Speaker 1Let me cue sarah. Ah, one of my favorites. In actual fact, it is actually one of my favorites. I do love a bit of email talent pools, so, um, building and nurturing email talent pools is, um, one of the most cost effective recruitment marketing channels available. It's all owned data and what we can do at LeapCreate is help you scope that out perfectly to a perfect strategy to help keep potential candidates engaged and informed about your company.
Speaker 2That's right.
Speaker 1We design and build custom email nurture programs that keep talented candidates updated on company news, culture insights and relevant job alerts, keeping your brand top of mind when they're ready to make their next move brilliant for creating that warm and engaged talent pipeline, and what we've done is we've crafted some really great email campaigns to help nurture, like I say, that owned data, which is a much more cost-effective way than, say, paid social or constantly paying for new job boards, which is obviously all still very important, but it's definitely a channel which I think gets massively overlooked.
Speaker 2It does, and what we can do is design and build emails that suit specific recruitment needs. So, whether that's a graduate programs or you need senior leadership or you've got very niche technical roles, then I recommend that you talk to us about getting started with your email. Talent pool strategy.
Speaker 1Yes, talk to us, Give us a call or drop us a DM in LinkedIn.
Speaker 2Slide into our DMs. Right, good, all right. Well, we've arrived.