HR Trends
HR Trends
Difference Makers Series: The care opportunity with Megan Rapinoe
Megan Rapinoe is the captain of the U.S. National Women's Soccer Team, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion. On March 2, she was named in TIME’s 2023 Women of the Year list of extraordinary leaders working toward a more equal world. In this episode, Megan joins Unum leave expert Ellen McCann for a frank and lively discussion on pay equity, inclusive leave policies and other ways employers can demonstrate care for employees facing challenging times.
- The call to “be more.” After the national team’s second World Cup victory in 2019, Rapinoe challenged everyone to “step outside of yourself, be more, be better, be bigger than you’ve ever been before.” Applying this to the HR context, she said it is a charge to make an impact on your organization and on the lives of your employees. [02:46]
- The rise of the care opportunity. Employee needs and demands for support from their employers are growing, and are key drivers of attraction and retention. According to Ellen, leave is critical in this equation: “Companies focus so much on employees at work. What about those times when our employees can’t come to work?” [07:33]
- The importance of inclusive policies. Employers show caring by implementing leave and benefit policies that are inclusive and equitable, addressing the needs of all caregivers and relationships, not just parents and children. [11:19]
- Pay equity as a signal of caring. Equitable pay shows employees that employers care about them as individuals. [12:18]
- Pay equity as a driver of attraction and retention. In a still-tight labor market, employees have new power to negotiate pay. The pay-equity fight won by the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team has had far-reaching effects on the environment worldwide, and women are more aware than ever of what they deserve and what they require. [19:32]
- Steps to an effective pay-equity program. Think through where your company has been and where it wants to go, identifying areas where it is still falling short and why. Apologize for mistakes in the past. Make pay equity an authentic priority and act to fulfill your promises. [23:39]
- The importance of the employee experience. Caring and inclusiveness extend to the experience employees have while accessing the benefits you provide. [29:18]
Featured speakers
Megan Rapinoe
Chief Equality Officer, Trusaic
Megan Rapinoe is a difference maker on a global scale. She is the captain of the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team, an Olympic gold medalist, and a two-time World Cup champion, renowned for her activism. In February 2022, after a lengthy legal battle led by Rapinoe, the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team reached a historic equal pay agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation, which included $22 million in back pay for the players and the promise of equal pay going forward. Today, Megan Rapinoe is Chief Equality Officer for Trusaic – a leading workplace equity company focused on advancing social good by solving HR's most complex challenges across people, data and analytics.
Ellen McCann
Assistant Vice President, Leave Solutions, Unum Group
Ellen McCann serves as a leading expert in applying benefits and benefits technology to power modern solutions to more effective employee leave programs, stronger regulatory compliance and enhanced digital HR transformation.
Read more about Megan Rapinoe, one of TIME’s 2023 Women of the Year, at https://trusaic.com/megan-rapinoe-partnership/. For more information about Unum, visit https://www.unum.com/employers/solutions
| Speaker Name | Start Time | End Time | Text
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| Clare Morin | 00:00:01:14 | 00:00:03:13 | Today on HR Trends.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:00:04:01 | 00:00:18:09 | You do have to care. The company has to care. People generally do not spend a lot of time. The best parts of their brain don't go to places that they don't care about. It's just like human nature.
| Ellen McCann | 00:00:18:11 | 00:00:44:04 | One way we can show care is by providing leave and supporting them when they can't come to work. Right. So a lot of companies focus so much on when employees are at work, but what about those times when our employees can't come to work? And so paid leave in particular is one way that employers can show that they care about their employees and they're supporting them holistically in their whole selves, not just their work selves.
(gentle music fades) (air swooshing)
| Clare Morin | 00:00:48:04 | 00:01:18:07 | Welcome to H.R. Trends. I'm your host, Clare Morin. And today we are talking about the care opportunity at work. This is part of our Difference Makers series, and our first guest today needs no introduction. Megan Rapinoe is a difference-maker on a global scale. She is the captain of the U.S. National Women's soccer team, a gold medalist, a two times World Cup champion, and is renowned for her activism.
| Clare Morin | 00:01:18:15 | 00:01:53:15 | In February 2022, after a lengthy legal battle led by Rapinoe, the US National women's soccer team reached a historic equal pay agreement with the US Soccer Federation, which included $22 million in back pay for the players and the promise of equal pay going forward. Today, Megan Rapinoe is Chief Equality Officer for Trusaic, a leading workplace equity company focused on advancing social good by solving HR's most complex challenges across people, data, and analytics.
| Clare Morin | 00:01:54:09 | 00:01:57:07 | Megan, it's such an honor to have you with us.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:01:57:10 | 00:01:59:15 | Oh, thank you so much. It's so nice to be here.
| Clare Morin | 00:02:00:04 | 00:02:42:00 | We also are welcoming back Ellen McCann, Assistant Vice President of Leave Solutions at Unum Group. Ellen serves as a leading expert in applying benefits and benefits technology to power modern solutions to more effective employee leave programs, stronger regulatory compliance and enhanced digital HR transformation. In this role, Ellen combines more than 30 years of employment law experience with practical knowledge of the complexities of leave in accommodation management to help develop and create solutions that enable employers to address the challenges of leave in accommodations.
| Clare Morin | 00:02:42:06 | 00:02:44:05 | Ellen It's great to have you with us.
| Ellen McCann | 00:02:44:05 | 00:02:46:02 | Thank you. Claire I'm really happy to be here.
| Clare Morin | 00:02:46:08 | 00:03:14:08 | So, Megan, I wonder if we can begin by actually taking you back to your famous speech when you were standing on the steps of City Hall in New York City in 2019, in July, after you'd won your second World Cup and you gave this extraordinarily inspiring speech. And part of it, you said, and I'm going to quote you here, you said this is my charge to everybody.
| Clare Morin | 00:03:14:09 | 00:03:36:07 | Do what you can. Do what you have to do. Step outside of yourself, be more, be better, be bigger than you've ever been before. It's so inspiring. And I wondered if you could begin just reflecting on that message today and in the context of employers and H.R.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:03:37:00 | 00:04:15:11 | Yeah, it's crazy that that was so many years ago now feels very much like it was yesterday. So it's like I'm having a little bit of a flashback. Mind, body and soul flashback into that moment, which was obviously incredibly special. And it was just a fun day. We obviously enjoyed ourselves as much as we possibly could. I think specifically what resonated about these words and in sort of that moment and the way that I really meant, it was like anybody can do this.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:04:16:04 | 00:04:42:08 | Like, this is this is everybody's ability, whether you're, you know, a schoolteacher, you work in H.R., you're a CEO, you're an athlete, you're, you know, across the United States, like, it doesn't really matter. And I think sometimes people get a little bit paralyzed into inaction by thinking like, well, what if it's like, what am I going to do?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:04:42:09 | 00:04:59:13 | I mean, I'm just I'm just me. You know, I'm just this one person or I don't have a huge platform like Megan does or like, you know, sure, I would say those things. Also, if I was on the steps of city hall, but I'm not. I'm just like in my workplace. I'm just the H.R. manager. So what what do I really do?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:05:00:13 | 00:05:27:15 | But I think for me, what I really meant with these is with these specific words is like I personally believe that it is our responsibility to make the world a better place and to contribute to society, community, family, friends, workplace, all of that in whatever way that you can and whatever the way that you are going to be most impactful.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:05:28:04 | 00:05:44:10 | It's like, what's the point of living life if not to live it and to be, you know, the best version of yourself and to get the best out of everyone. And hopefully everyone feels that way. I'm not a religious person at all, so I'm not waiting for anything coming in the afterlife. So I'm like, This is the one.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:05:44:10 | 00:06:23:02 | This is the one we got. And I think that that did resonate with people because it was it was validating and I think motivating in that, you know, the smallest steps are just as important as, you know, the perceived larger steps. It's just an a our society values certain things over other things, which is not all, not always a good thing, but you don't have to be Megan Rapinoe, who just won a World Cup, getting to stand on the steps of City Hall to make a really big impact or to be a part of an organization that makes a really big impact, that impacts people's lives, that those people go and impact other people's lives
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:06:23:02 | 00:06:45:09 | and, you know, the sort of ripple effect. So that's kind of what I meant by that. And so I think you can extrapolate that into working in H.R. You obviously are touching all of the the human parts of the companies or of the places that you work, which is essentially like the point of life without the humans in there.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:06:45:09 | 00:07:19:14 | Like we're not you know, we're just not really doing anything. That's kind of where everything starts. That's where the magic is. That's where, you know, the sort of special sauce is. So to take that and to do the best that you can simultaneously for your, you know, the company that you're working for, but also for the people working for the company, you create that kind of mutually beneficial relationship where people buy into where they're working and they feel invested and they also feel invested in they feel valued and they feel seen, and it's mutually beneficial in that way.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:07:21:00 | 00:07:32:12 | So that's kind of what I my my charge was, I guess, or my my hope is that people took that and felt inspired to do the biggest things. And the littlest things alike.
| Clare Morin | 00:07:33:07 | 00:07:59:10 | That is so awesome and it's so timely right now for H.R. in this world we're living in with so much volatility. Right. And and here at Unum, you know, we've been looking at this a lot of this what we're calling always the care opportunity. And Ellen, I'd love for you to kind of add to that. I know some recent data coming from Limuru, which is a big insurance industry research association.
| Clare Morin | 00:07:59:15 | 00:08:28:02 | They released a recent report, 2022, showing the top drivers is what is keeping people in companies and what's driving them out. Right. And the second highest driver for retention right now. Was surprising actually to them because, well, number one was very clear. It was you know, my company's offering me career progression. Fair enough. But number two, 7.4 times more likely to stay with the company.
| Clare Morin | 00:08:28:10 | 00:08:53:07 | If my employer is demonstrating care that caring for me, like you said, as a human. So that was like nearly tied as the leading reason people were staying. Then when you look at the leading drivers, driving employees out very interesting, way ahead of everything else, 6.8 times more likely to leave my company if my employer is not committed to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion.
| Clare Morin | 00:08:54:00 | 00:08:59:07 | Right. So to your point, it's very relevant. Ellen, So I'd love to hear from you on that in HR.
| Ellen McCann | 00:08:59:07 | 00:09:20:06 | yeah, I think Clare and I think Megan hit it so nicely and that is HR right that we need to think about the humans that are involved in that work in our companies. And so one way we can show care is by providing leave and supporting them when they can't come to work. Right? So a lot of companies focus so much on when employees are at work.
| Ellen McCann | 00:09:21:01 | 00:09:40:15 | But what about those times when our employees can't come to work? And so paid leave in particular is one way that employers can show that they care about their employees and they're supporting them holistically in their whole selves, not just their work selves. And we know really paid leave. It didn't get a lot of attention historically. It didn't have the attention it deserved.
| Ellen McCann | 00:09:40:15 | 00:10:03:12 | And I think one thing we saw through the pandemic was it highlighted in a very real way the need for employers to be giving their employees more more leave, particularly paid leave, and helping them out when they needed that help. And we're seeing employees take leave in record numbers. We're seeing leave be valued more highly than ever by both employers and employees.
| Ellen McCann | 00:10:04:03 | 00:10:27:12 | And we really I think, as employers need to lean into that. We also need to realize that when people take leave, it has a ripple effect across the entire economy. Right. Because if someone needs to be out of work because they have their own illness, maybe, or they need to care for someone that doesn't just impact them, it impacts the the company that they work for impacts the other employees.
| Ellen McCann | 00:10:27:12 | 00:10:46:11 | So how can we be supportive of that and help get them back to work earlier because they have the support they need? And I read an interesting article this morning about the lack of access to paid leave across the country. And as everyone knows, right, the U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn't have a paid leave program at a national level.
| Ellen McCann | 00:10:47:00 | 00:11:07:05 | And what was interesting about the article, it talked about the disparate impact on the lack of paid leave for lower earning employees and said, you know, there's a lot of employees in the U.S. who have no unpaid leave access at all. Right. But when you look at that lowest echelon of wage earners, they only have only about 12% of them have access to paid leave.
| Ellen McCann | 00:11:07:11 | 00:11:29:10 | So that's a great way for employers to show they care about their employees. Right. They can give them paid leave. They can help them take care of their lives in their families and things they need to take care of. But they can't just stop there. They have to look at those leave policies as paid or unpaid and make sure they're inclusive and make sure they're equitable because that's a way to show care as well.
| Ellen McCann | 00:11:30:00 | 00:11:52:14 | So one of the things we often see is we see employers, they pass these policies and they're great, their intentions are fantastic. But maybe that policy isn't equitable because it only benefits a very small segment of the population. So if we look at paid parental leave, right, we all know those are great things to have. It's important, but it only benefits a small segment of the population.
| Ellen McCann | 00:11:52:14 | 00:12:15:15 | So what about folks who aren't having children or have already had their children? What about people who are caring for elderly parents or partners? Employers really want to think about should we be adding paid caregiver policies in addition so that we're really serving a larger impact or a larger percentage of our our people and it's more equitable to have benefits everyone can use?
| Clare Morin | 00:12:16:07 | 00:12:44:07 | That's wonderful. And Megan, obviously pay equity is huge piece of this displaying parity, right like and tangible sign you're caring for your employees. But I know I'd love your thoughts on some recent data coming from Harvard Business Review 2022 data showing some really interesting stats. Fewer than half of employees say 41% of employees believe that employers have successfully achieved pay equity.
| Clare Morin | 00:12:44:08 | 00:13:12:08 | So only half fewer than half, 26% of employees say that organizations have been completely unsuccessful in ensuring equal pay for equal work. Also that same survey was showing 49% of companies do not have a well-established pay equity plan in place, and nearly a quarter of employees are not aware whether such plans exist. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, Megan, since you're close to this issue.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:13:13:13 | 00:13:46:09 | Yeah, we certainly didn't have any of those things, nor were we achieving equal pay on our own and left to our own devices as they're left to their own devices rather. I mean, I think this is such a a big and a simple problem that it's a complicated and a simple problem at the same time. It's it's simple because I think at the at the heart of it, you know, and I'm hearing this word care over, over and over whether it's caregiving or care for the employee.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:13:46:09 | 00:14:11:15 | And it's like you do have to care. The company has to care. People generally do not spend a lot of time. The best parts of their brain don't go to places that they don't care about. It's just like human nature. We're just like, we're not going to be that focused on things that we actually don't care about. So from, you know, the executive level, obviously the CEO of a company is incredibly important.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:14:11:15 | 00:14:37:15 | That person is the figurehead and, you know, ostensibly setting the tone and the vibe for the entire company that is really important that they care about it and that they don't just say, cool, like we're going to put up this pay parity thing for women's equal pay day or like, you know, it happened obviously with all the civil unrest around racial injustice.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:14:37:15 | 00:14:54:00 | Like all we're going to put up a Black Lives Matter sign. You don't do anything else like people are sniffing that out now. I mean, to go back to the stats you had before about, you know, who's leaving companies and why are they leaving or why are they staying? People are it is kind of like common sense to people.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:14:54:00 | 00:15:15:09 | And I think they they know that they want to be treated fairly. They want to work hard, but also be compensated fairly for that. And they want to be appreciated. Right. And if those things aren't happening, why am I going to stay here? I think people are a little tired of putting up with the B.S. So I think particularly with the the pay equity, that has to be kind of the main thing.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:15:15:11 | 00:15:35:14 | And then from there, this is where the more complicated parts come in. How do you actually do that? How do you sort of undo, you know, decades and centuries of of pay inequality or how do you undo pay inequality with someone who spent the first 20 years of their career not being paid fairly? How do you make it up?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:15:35:14 | 00:15:57:11 | What are the solutions? That's why I partnered with True Zajac a couple of years ago or last year. They're actually like offering a solution and a tool that companies can use. And it's sometimes I think it's not because companies don't want to do it. It's like they literally don't know how or how do you catch it or how do you make up the difference or what?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:15:57:14 | 00:16:17:06 | What's the starting salary? How do you adjust for race, class, sexuality, all of these things, you know, So the the, the pay parity tool is is really cool because it does give people an actual, you know, a software tool that not only is just kind of like a one time audit because I think that's what a lot of companies do as well.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:16:17:07 | 00:16:36:14 | And it's like, well, then what? What that's that doesn't really do anybody any good to know what we already know. We already know this. So this is kind of like an on going software tool that companies can use that sort of runs in the background. And that's kind of like, you know, part of the health of the company is to continue that.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:16:36:14 | 00:17:14:15 | And then I think another thing is like putting a lot of emphasis and effort on having, you know, we've sort of called it the E suite, kind of the at the equity officer actually giving that person a lot of power, giving that person a say in the boardroom, giving that person to say in not just specifically, you know, the sort of softer touches on the business, but how that actually affects the bottom line and how it affects business and how we can get the most out of our employees in the most out of our business if we're doing these things in the right way, that's taking into account people's full humanity in the whole thing.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:17:14:15 | 00:17:44:12 | And we want people to feel appreciated. So this is kind of a combination of of all of those things. And I think really with so much more publicity or so much more talk about pay equity, I mean, I think our team, you know, was was a big part of that. I think people felt so galvanized and so seen and so heard, and it was sort of this movement that people could really hang on to, because before that it was like, what's the it's like it's happening to everyone but nobody really knows how to talk about it.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:17:44:12 | 00:18:13:03 | And it's not really sort of like a big movement. And I feel like that was kind of a a galvanizing kind of figure in the whole space, having our team sort of do that. So I think my message to employers mostly would be like, actually care about it. You need to actually care about it. You need to have a pretty high level of humility because most likely you're getting it wrong and most likely you're going to continue to, you know, get it wrong in the process of getting to what's right.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:18:13:03 | 00:18:34:02 | And you need to listen and show up. And I think a real focus on diversity is key. I mean, you talked about it's like if you only have, you know, a white person running the H.R. Department, there's probably going to be a lot missed when we talk about, you know, other ethnicities or other races or if that person straight, you're going to have misses.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:18:34:02 | 00:19:01:10 | So it's like that's the point of having everybody at the table is so we can get all the different opinions so we can identify the certain areas. I think you're calling it protected classes. You can sort of identify that and understand the unique needs of everybody and then service the entire company from the department in the way that's, you know, most beneficial to the company but also to the employees, which I think is kind of the same thing.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:19:01:10 | 00:19:20:01 | It's kind of like your nothing is really split from from yourself. It's kind of like your body, you know, your mind body and emotional body and physical body. It's all one in the same. So if if one is not operating at a high clip, it's going to affect the other ones. And I see that, you know, translating into business in companies as well.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:19:20:01 | 00:19:31:07 | If your employee bases and isn't happy or if you're not treating them well or whatever it may be, the overall health of the company in the business. And ultimately the bottom line is going to suffer pretty significantly.
| Clare Morin | 00:19:31:07 | 00:20:09:13 | I think. it's such great. It's so true. And I'm so glad you brought that connection. So I was going to ask you both about that, actually about how the impact of your team's very visible and public fight for pay equity. Right. And it had impacts globally, right? It had a huge impact on women, young women, girls. Right. And meanwhile, what we're seeing, too and Ellen, I know you're very close to this data too and sorry employee expectations are dramatically shifting, and that's then shifting how employers are showing care.
| Clare Morin | 00:20:10:01 | 00:20:41:10 | So just a couple of data points here that kind of interesting, 2022 Gartner Data Point, 65% of women say they are rethinking the place of work in their lives. 65%. And then another study from the Employee Benefits Research Institute and 66% of employees say it's the employer's responsibility to make sure they are financially secure and well. So we've seen yeah, certainly since you gave that speech in 2019, this shift of employee expectations.
| Clare Morin | 00:20:41:14 | 00:20:45:09 | And so maybe starting with you Ellen, your thoughts on that shift.
| Ellen McCann | 00:20:46:05 | 00:21:09:11 | Yeah, I do think, Clare, we're seeing it all over that employee expectations are higher than ever, right? We were starting to hear, of course, about a couple of large companies starting to make layoffs and honestly disproportionately impacting women and minorities. And that's another problem for another day. Right. But but we're we really still are in a very tight labor market and a lot of employees know that.
| Ellen McCann | 00:21:09:11 | 00:21:38:04 | And they also know that to replace them and train someone new is very expensive for the employer. And so I think employees feel empowered for the first time, particularly employees who might have great experience or valuable skills. They can usually write their own ticket. But I do think the external environment has played a huge, huge role. And I think, you know, the U.S. women's national team in that fight transcended soccer and it transcended even the United States.
| Ellen McCann | 00:21:38:04 | 00:22:09:02 | I mean, I know there are there are women's soccer teams across the world that have been now standing up and saying in other sports and other industries as well. And so that really was impactful as an entire generation who have grown up watching this fight and seeing it be successful and seeing women who wouldn't back down and who wouldn't take no for an answer, and women who did things like Megan, you know, I read your book and one chapter you start out with and you say, In 2016, I made X and I won't say what X is.
| Ellen McCann | 00:22:09:02 | 00:22:31:11 | So people who haven't read your book will read it. But at the time I thought, Wow, women don't talk about how much money they make. We just don't. We've been trained that that's not feminine or whatever. But man, it's so powerful to have people like you and like Alex and like Becky and others that we all know and respect, standing up there and saying, we're going to tell you what we make.
| Ellen McCann | 00:22:31:14 | 00:22:49:14 | We're going to tell you what we deserve to make, and we're going to ask for what we deserve and not just influence. So many people. I think the other thing that really has influence people and influence the expectation rising is at least in my perspective, what love Megan's is you know at least how I saw it not being an insider.
| Ellen McCann | 00:22:50:01 | 00:23:12:00 | The men's national team stood up and said, Hey, the women deserve equal pay too. And so to get the CBA signed, you know, we're going we agree that we're going to equalize the prize money. And so I think having support there, at least from the outside in, it looked like that also was a really defining point in what others were viewing.
| Ellen McCann | 00:23:12:06 | 00:23:34:13 | That is is not a women's fight alone, that others should also be getting into the fight and should be recognizing. These are human rights. These are rights we all need to stand up for, which is now impacting, again an entire generation of people across the world and saying, hey, I deserve more work and I'm not going to be shy about asking for what I deserve.
| Ellen McCann | 00:23:34:13 | 00:23:39:01 | And that's that's new for a lot of people.
| Clare Morin | 00:23:39:01 | 00:24:05:04 | That's so awesome. Megan, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. And really as we coming to close as well, looking ahead, we're recording this beginning of February 2023. you know, with HR having this powerful role to really help show this can employees are saying we want to feel and what are some other ways than maybe just some final thoughts around how employers can show that care?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:24:05:04 | 00:24:36:11 | Yeah, I mean, I think this is this is not an HR thing. It's just a life thing. I mean, good communication. This is like 101 What is the, the pay equity program? What is the steps? What are the steps that the company is taking? What's maybe a brief history of where we were, where we've come, where we want to go, our sort of, you know, 30, 60, 90 or three, six, ten goals, You know, what are we thinking about that?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:24:36:11 | 00:24:57:00 | What are the areas where we're still falling short and we're trying to work through? What do we need to know more from the employee that can help us as a company continue to, like round out this sort of holistic approach to to pay equity into benefits and, you know, just general care, be transparent, get out in front of the issue.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:24:57:14 | 00:25:20:06 | An apology is incredibly powerful and very simple to do. We didn't get it right. We messed up. We're working on it. You know, that would at times buy you a little time. That'll buy you a little grace with your employees. But, you know, certainly gaslighting everybody is like hip to that now. Everybody's like, now, I've been in therapy since the pandemic.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:25:20:06 | 00:25:59:09 | You're not going to gaslight me. I know what's going on here. So, you know, transparency. I mean, the workforce is I don't I don't say savvier because that implies that at one point they weren't savvy. But I think like just sick of the hooks being dug in so deep and selling your soul for these companies who are not willing to sell anything back to you, you know, it's kind of like that sort of relationship is kind of gone on this weird arc, and maybe it's going back to a time where companies had more respect and employees had more skin in the game.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:25:59:09 | 00:26:23:02 | You know, quite literally. I think for companies also just like be authentic, be upfront about like what you're really trying to do. If if an employee knows or a sort of a group of employees know that you're only doing this because the law requires it or, you know, it's like you're just technically doing what you're supposed to be doing, but you're not really actually doing it.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:26:23:07 | 00:26:50:04 | That's going to get sniffed out right away. You know, that's likely not transparent bad communication and doesn't sort of lend to an open kind of like trusting two way relationships that I think employers really are employees really are looking for at this point. And it has to come top down. I mean, we can talk about, you know, the efficacy of hierarchical structures of leadership, and we should probably delineate some of that power.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:26:50:08 | 00:27:14:01 | But most companies operate like that. And, you know, certainly from the C-suite position, that needs to be a priority and it needs to be an authentic, genuine priority for them. They need to show the employees in word and deed and in paycheck how they are caring for them and how much they actually do care about it. Committed to fostering.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:27:14:01 | 00:27:29:07 | In that kind of fair workplace, the leaders invested, you know, the employees can be invested in. There's sort of a trust that happens there and then you get happier workers which news alert gives you better work, which gives you a better.
| Ellen McCann | 00:27:29:07 | 00:27:30:05 | Company, which gives.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:27:30:05 | 00:27:49:01 | You a better bottom line. It's like miserable people working on things is not ideal. It's like we don't even have what it's like. We don't have to live like that. Why is everybody have to be miserable at work? Like we don't have to live like that? It can you know, it can it can be an environment that people maybe it's not their most favorite environment in the world.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:27:49:01 | 00:28:12:10 | Maybe some people like to hike more. But I think it can be an environment where you do feel valued and you do feel respected and you do feel like you have skin in the game and like you're sort of in it together with the company and the employee workforce. So I think kind of all of those things, you know, again, communication, transparency, be authentic, be like really be about it and really show your employees that like you're with them.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:28:12:10 | 00:28:29:14 | You hear them, you know, and in the areas where you can show them you care. And in our society, the way that we show people that we value them is what, you know, what hits the Chase account. So that's that's the bottom line, too. It's like we don't want just like a nice snack room, Like I want my own.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:28:30:00 | 00:28:51:09 | I want the money, too. I want the money so I can make my own decisions as an autonomous adult, what I want to do with that. So all of those things together, I think can, you know, kind of foster not only an environment where we're achieving pay equity, but we're like continuing to to build upon that. Is it maternity leave and paternity leave and familial leave?
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:28:51:09 | 00:29:16:14 | Is it caregiver leave? Is it more vacation time? Is it benefits? Is it's like this whole package of thing that's that I think the workforce is really wanting and needing and demanding at this point. But like all of that can go a long ways to continue to foster a better environment, not only for the employees, but I think for the employers and the businesses in a sort of holistic global sense as well.
| Clare Morin | 00:29:18:03 | 00:29:24:06 | Awesome. I'm feeling like this is 2019. You're on the steps, you're talking to HR. feeling. Ellen.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:29:24:06 | 00:29:24:10 | Say.
| Clare Morin | 00:29:25:06 | 00:29:31:08 | Yeah, I'm feeling it. Ellen any thoughts just to finish on on that too? No, And I think.
| Ellen McCann | 00:29:32:03 | 00:29:52:08 | You know, agree with everything Megan said. And I think the other thing to think about, right, all of those things are so important, all of those benefits, the pay, everything. But also think about how your employees are accessing benefits in leave in particular, and making sure that experience is equitable and inclusive as well. Right. And so when employees need time off, they too stressful time for them.
| Ellen McCann | 00:29:52:11 | 00:30:10:09 | How are you making that easier for them? Meet them where they are right in make in recognize that not all employees want the same experience. Many employees might want everything done digitally. Mobile. I want a live chat. I don't want you to call me. I do not want a piece of paper from you. Right. That's okay. Provide that.
| Ellen McCann | 00:30:10:09 | 00:30:39:06 | But then make sure you know that other employees may say, no. I do want to talk to someone. I do want to read that hard copy. Maybe I'm from a generation that you had to have the hard copy to believe it was real. So provide that to them. Right. But I think the other way to really step up as an employer is think about when your employees are out and they need paid leave, whether it's short term disability or whether it's paid parental or paid caregiver work on getting them paid as quickly as possible.
| Ellen McCann | 00:30:39:06 | 00:31:05:10 | Right. We have all of these great modern digital ways that we get paid by our friends when we go out to dinner or whatever it might be. So you lean into that, right? One of the things we're doing as an administrator is we're paying our customers employees short term disability in paid leave claims through Zelle, right? So we can get an employee paid oftentimes within 24 hours of making a decision. For many employees who work check to check.
| Ellen McCann | 00:31:05:10 | 00:31:38:14 | We know a huge percentage of Americans well working check to check. That's the difference between having to work through an illness or not be there to support a loved one who needs you and paying the rent. Right. And so if employers are investing in that kind of technology, that kind of modern experience that shows their employees that they care about their financial well-being, their emotional well-being and their physical well-being, and those are just simple things we can do to make sure our employees feel as if we do care about them as people, as humans.
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| Ellen McCann | 00:31:38:14 | 00:31:39:10 | Well, thank.
| Clare Morin | 00:31:39:10 | 00:31:51:07 | You both so much. I feel incredibly inspired. I know our audience will, too. And Megan, we are wishing you all the best luck. Not that you need any take.
| Megan Rapinoe | 00:31:51:11 | 00:31:55:00 | We'll take everything you need a little bit of luck to to win championships.
| Ellen McCann | 00:31:55:00 | 00:32:00:00 | Megan, I need a fifth star right here, I want that fifth star the end of July.
| Clare Morin | 00:32:00:00 | 00:32:07:04 | So and that's that's Ellen referring to the audio listeners that she was already wearing a certain shirt.
| Ellen McCann | 00:32:07:09 | 00:32:16:01 | woman's national.. has before four stars and they're going to get a fifth one this summer in Australia and New Zealand, they're going to bring it home for us.
| Clare Morin | 00:32:17:08 | 00:32:22:15 | So thank you both so much for your time and have a wonderful 2023.
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| Clare Morin | 00:32:25:08 | 00:32:32:07 | Unum is a registered trademark and marketing brand of Unum Group and its insuring subsidiaries.