Transcript Episode 122

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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:11

DAY ONE intro

You're listening to a day one FM show.

00:00:08:06 - 00:00:21:09

Emma

I'm Emma Walsh, the CEO of Parents at Work and founder of Family Friendly Workplaces. Our vision is bold and it's clear to make Australia one of the best places in the world to work and care for family.

Join me on this podcast as we explore how we're doing this and why it really matters, and how everyone can benefit.

00:00:29:04 - 00:00:48:07

Carrie

Today's guest is Emma Walsh, the founder of Parents at Work, Australia's first dedicated return to work service for parents. Designed to help parents navigate the challenges of re-entering the workforce. Recognized as one of Australia's top 200 businesses of tomorrow by Westpac in 2017.

Emma's work has been transformed, formative for so many working parents across the country. And she's a finalist for several prestigious awards, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, Business Award and the Visa Business Awards, and has served as president of the Career Development Association of Australia. Emma has also been shortlisted for the New South Wales Telstra Business Women of the year awards too.

She's a true leader in the field of workplace equality and family friendly policies, and today she's here to share her journey, insights and a vision for a future where all parents can thrive at work and home.

A big welcome to you, Emma.

00:01:32:20 - 00:01:35:09

Emma

Well, thanks for having me, Carrie. It's great to be here.

00:01:35:09 - 00:01:53:22

Carrie

I'm so, so excited that you, here today. The first of our thought leaders, because you have been doing some incredible work, but let me let me ask you to explain it in your words. How did parents at work help? Who? How? Please give us your pitch.

00:01:54:10 - 00:02:18:20

Emma

I was just listening to that introduction, and I thought, wow. Yeah, it takes me back because this organisation has been going for almost 20 years. I started the organisation back in 2007, six months after my twin boys were born. And I'm sure will come more to the story of what led to that and so on. I won't get into that just now. But very much about helping women return to work very much around helping, them reengage with their employers. So this wasn't about slowly, helping people get a job again. It was really about connecting women back with their employers, the people that they had taken the break from. How could they navigate back into their jobs back then?

And I look back over the last journey of, of almost as I said 20 years and go, well, how much it's grown and how much more it is today than that. And appearance at work today is Australia's leading employer membership based organisations championing family friendly workplaces. Our bold and clear vision is to make Australia one of the best places in the world to live, work and raise a family.

And that's what really continues to drive me, because, there's something for everyone in that. And it's not just about mums, and it's not just about children anymore. It's actually about all of us. And, I talk now about having a really inclusive way that we describe family because we all belong to a family. Doesn't matter whether we're a parent or a carer or not.

We have loved ones, our family shape and size is different for all of us and how we describe it, but we have people that we care for, we love. We've got commitment to that we need to be there for. And most of us are working too. And so parents at work now is about how do we reduce will recognise that connection and reduce the tension that often exists between the two, because we know that if we can improve work life wellbeing by decreasing that conflict, the outcomes that can be delivered not only for obviously individuals and their families, but for the wider community and economy is so great. And that is definitely what continues to drive me every day, because this is about ensuring our economy has a sustainable workforce for the future. It's about contributing to better health and wellbeing, gender equality and overall productivity outcomes for our whole community.

So yeah, that that's a little bit of that. You took me back to the very beginning of what we were as an organisation to, to who we are today. And maybe some people will notice that when you hear about parents at work, you very clearly hear about family friendly workplaces. That's something that we founded with Unicef and a whole lot of other organisations during Covid to set standards for workplaces around what good looks like when it comes to work and family policy, so that employers can benchmark themselves and know that they're putting in, family policies that are actually going to be able to be measured and be able to make a difference.

00:05:07:20 - 00:05:36:16

Carrie

And you know that that's hard to put. 20 years of advocacy and hard work, and championing, so many issues that, like you said, affect. Everyone has a family. All right, so how do we actually bring the fact that really true identity, to the other place that we spend most of our time in, it's either in the home or it's in the, in the working sort of environment. So, I think definitely that has evolved over those 20 years. And we need to be able to integrate and harmonize those elements of caring, whether it be for the generation above or the generation below, or ourselves. Love the work that you do and very grateful for it. And I'm always thinking there's a lot of our community are in the early stages, stages and starting a business. You've gone through a couple of phases. What’s one thing that you wish you knew before you started the business? One thing you knew when you and things were going steady. Or one thing when you wanted to quit or when you, yeah. You know, let's be real about that.

00:06:27:09 - 00:07:08:19

Emma

I mean, look, gosh, I, I mean, I look back on the naivete that I had around. Oh, I've got a good idea. You know, I was, I come from a HR background that was actually my, day job before I started a business. So I saw the real lived experiences that parents and carers faced trying to navigate, obviously, with their employer around, you know, making part time possible, you know, obviously working flexibly and all the things that we know, challenges, particularly for women, who, whether we like it or not, do continue to hold the burden of care. And thought. Right, I know I can use my skills that I have in learning and development and HR to build return to work programs for organisations that will help them, get women back to work. And we'll make this problem so much easier. I get it. The HR teams don't have time for this. They don't have all the expertise for this, but it's really needed. And if I build a program, they will come and it will be easy and we will solve some of these issues that I have seen, faced by others and, including my own choice to leave an exit, a corporate job and go out on my own. And gosh, how naive. Gosh, I thought it would be like, yeah, well, we wouldn't be here today.

I wouldn't actually have a business because it wouldn't be needed. It would have all been so for so I think, I think the realised mean for me, very quickly and early on is that social change takes time. I should have known that I have a social policy degree. That's ridiculous. How did I not know this, social policy? And social change takes time. It's a lifelong vocation. And trying to fast track success isn't a live reality for most businesses. It's not. Not for me, not for most businesses. And yeah, for most of us, it's a slow burn. And often I think, gosh, I liken it to a choose your own adventure book where there's kind of endless outcomes and endings.

But they're all choices that you must make, and all of them have consequences. And I perhaps didn't realise the amount of decisions I continuously have to make, every single day.

00:08:45:04 - 00:08:46:20

Carrie

Relentless.

00:08:46:20 - 00:09:00:13

Emma

Absolutely exhausting. And you thinking of doing that with raising three kids as well. And my husband has a really busy, you know, full time job and, and so, so many times I question myself going, why am I doing this? Because I'm actually not living my brand. This is actually really hard. I'm trying to do it all. I'm trying to dress a little, you know, and and what am I doing? And I think each time I had that moment where I really questioned my why going. There must be an easy way. I've taken on too big a problem.

I just can't bitten off more than I can chew. I came back to. Okay, well, what else would I be doing? If I wasn't doing this and actually, a lot of it, every time I asked myself that question, I was like, nothing else. I actually really love this work. I don't want to do anything else. I'm going to make a way to make this work.

I will keep looking for different ways to manage the juggle, you know, to take the small wins in their moments and not get too hung up about, the fact that, you know, these things aren't working out because I actually love the work. So for me, that's probably what's helped me get through the tough times is to really reconnect with my why.

00:10:04:19 - 00:10:29:05

Carrie

It gives you a sense of, energy that you didn't realise you had. Right. Like, if you're. If you do have that, obsession with that problem that you're trying to solve or you're driven by, whatever it might be, like some sort of impact that you're trying to make. It does give you a huge amount of energy. Not to say that you don't need to protect that energy as well.

00:10:33:08 - 00:10:56:19

Emma

Rightly said. But the reason it's so important to be clear about your why and your purpose is because that absolutely should be. I'm in. Or I'm out. If the answers to that question are not, you know, are not congruent. And what do I mean by that? Well, I didn't start my business with an ambition to build an empire, to become rich, to become famous, or even with an endgame in mind. To be honest, brutally honest. I really wanted to create something that I love doing, and spending time on that I thought was important. That gave me an income that helped other people. But most of all gave me flexibility and freedom that I needed to raise my children and be there for my mom and for my, you know, as a mum and for my mum at the time who actually need caring for two.

So, if someone's ‘why’ is more connected to what I'm doing this because I want to be the next Canva unicorn or. Yeah, I see there's a really great, quick way to make some great cash here and so on, and it doesn't happen as fast as we would like or to the extent that we would like.

If that's your why and it's not happening, well then maybe. Yeah, absolutely. It's time to walk away. But if your why is more connected to something perhaps deeper than that. Then, yeah. You find the energy, I think, to keep going.

00:11:58:00 - 00:12:23:16

Carrie

Thank you for sharing your, hard lessons along those different phases. Let's shift to the, you know, the never ending challenge I think that many working parents have is that challenge with productivity and time management. And, I'm really interested to know how have you potentially disrupted yourself, right, to achieve this sort of boost in productivity?

Is there one thing that you've had to stop doing in order to create the business, and this life that that that you do love?

00:12:33:10 - 00:12:50:02

Emma

You have to be so honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you're not. And you have to have, you have to put the ego aside, and be vulnerable in that moment to go, I can do this and I can do it really well. I'm not great at that. And I need help with that. And to think about, we're going to get that help from whether that's time to hire staff or whether it's time to outsource things or, find a friend or whatever it might be to have the humility to realise when it is that you know where you're at your best and where you need others. And I say that in relation to this because most people that know me and know me well know that I'm pretty chaotic. I don't, stick to much of a structured day. I kind of have an intention of what I hope the day will go like most days it doesn't. And I just, jump from thing to thing, and I move things around, and I'm not, I don't get, hung up on getting to the end of the day and going. “Well, that didn't go to plan. That was a terrible day. I feel really unproductive, that I didn't get to what I wanted to do.” I, try to really think about every single day. What's the most important thing I need to do today? And as long as that 1 or 2 things is actually cantered and happens, I go with it around the rest of the day.

So it means that when disasters happen, wheels fall off, whether it be at work or at home. I just lean into it and go, okay, that's happened. We're going to have to deal with it. And I have my dinner and it's like 7:00. What are we going to do? I'm going to just find something in the cupboard.

I don't berate myself that I should have been better organised or  I, yeah, I should have known this was going to happen, and I planned it better, because that's really messy. It often doesn't go to plan. And sometimes if we get really hung up on having, lots of rigor and structure in our day, then we're not flexible and agile to, rise to meet the challenges of any given day.

And I do, you know, from time to time, I  think about picking up one of those books, you know, those CEO written books. You know, you start your day at 5 a.m. and you're following its routine, and, you know, that's success. And I think and I and I smirk and I think, yeah, I'll give it a go.

And it lasts for about two minutes. And I think, you know, it just isn't going to work for me. So I don't have I know that there are lots of successful scenarios that and the talk about having a very tight routine to every day, they, you know, start their day and, you know, a morning coffee ritual or whatever, it might be a meditation ritual.

And I don't have that. Every single day starts slightly different. And in terms of where I am, what I'm doing, whether I'm working from home or whether I'm not. And so yeah, it's, pretty carry out chaotic most days to be honest.

00:15:32:03 - 00:15:57:22

Carrie

Which reminds me of this. There's this graph, and you know the trajectory to what success looks like. And you get to line, and you start off and it's, you know, the typical, ascending, extending line. And then it kind of just goes into all these little squiggles. All right. This is the pathway to success and goes down and up, and then you're at success.

00:15:57:22 - 00:16:16:17

Emma

That’s right. I mean, look, at the end of the day, there's a great friend of mine who owns a business, and, we'd often say, oh, you know, good days. We're alive at the end of it. You know, we got we made it through the day. Because sometimes, you know, that is success for that day. You actually made it. Your mental health is intact. And I think we need to, make sure that when we're defining what success looks for ourselves like as a business, it's no good if you break yourself in order to try and make a business that doesn't work. And so making sure that, you recognize the days that might have been frustrating might have been incredibly disappointing or frustrating. But that you got to the end of it and you're still okay. You're intact. You know what? No one died. The family is okay. It's, you know, move on. So, I think that's helped me stay and have, I hope on the whole, a healthy relationship

00:17:06:12 - 00:17:33:19

Carrie

Yeah. Great perspective Emma. Okay, so you mentioned you had, twins before, and, I'm fascinated about what you think is the most transferable skill between motherhood and business. But I'm also fascinated what you think might be that same most transferable skill for fatherhood and business.

00:17:33:19 - 00:17:57:20

Emma

Oh, gosh. Yeah. I mean, look, Twins, you don't survive it unless you do have some a plan and some structure that definitely in those early days. But what you realised straight away is, gosh, I'm going to have multiple demands to meet and I'm not going to be able to meet them all at once and satisfy everyone all at once. I remember those early few days in the hospital when, you know, these two babies, are handed to you and they both crying and they both want to be fed and pretty much just cannot do it at once. There are a few amazing people that are able to breastfeed at one full bottle, feed two people at once. And so very quickly you go, okay, well, we're going to have to have different structures.

We're going to have to manage expectations. We're going to have to learn patience and waiting. And I think if I look at my boys now who are now 18, I like where that went; I'm not sure. And the kind of, patient young men they are, the empathy that they have that and I noticed this immediately, actually, when their sister was born five years later, actually. And there's quite a difference between them versus her, funnily enough. Because she didn't have to wait, as a baby to get my attention. She was able to get my full attention at the time because the boys were five years old. They were off to school most of the time, so she didn't have to learn quite those skills.

But it's been so it's been interesting raising twins versus later, a singleton. But, so I think when I liken it to business, it's sort of like, yeah, you can't do it all at once. You do need to think about prioritising. You do need to manage expectations. And you do have to communicate those clearly as well.

But so much positive can come from that as well. I think sometimes we feel huge mother's guilt that, you know, we can't be there for, you know, every whim, every issue, every challenge, every that. And we judge ourselves in that moment that we haven't caught something or that, you know, that we weren't ahead of the game on something, whatever it might be. And I think often that happens in business, too, where we feel like, you know, while I was over here doing this, you know, this disaster happened over here. And, you know, maybe I should have been, you know, why didn't I know about that? Why wasn't I more organised about that? Well, you're only human, right? You can only do often one thing well at a time. I'm not sure that multitasking, doing lots of things well at all at the same time is actually a reality. So, yeah, Parenthood taught me many things, and it's interesting. Sometimes I've asked the kids for their feedback around what do you think, you know, has it been for you? And it because I've always run a business through their lifetime, they haven't seen me go to a, let's say, normal job and an employer. They've noticed the need to be agile, that. Yeah, no day is the same, that they have to adjust to the different kind of demands. So, you know, we just don't have a regular routine where every, you know, 8:30, 9:00 in the morning, mum goes to this job or dad goes to this job and it looks like this.

And there's a sort of routine, structured where that occurs and what time they come home. And what's going to happen after that. They've learned that actually every day is different. And it might be dad that's going to be, picking us up from school today or, you know, dealing with what happens at home around dinnertime and so on.

And most times they have no idea who that's going to be because we're making it up as we go. So I want to bring in the fatherhood piece. As you talk about, none of this would have been possible unless my husband had a really flexible employer, and he has a full time job and actually has a really big job.

But, the nature of his work has always been one that's been done in many different locations because of the different types of engagements that he's had to do and stakeholders. So he's often been on the road at a workplace, at a remote location, at home, and yes, traveling at times as well. And it's all looked very different.

So we've had to really share genuinely the load and twins obviously set us up for success there too. Because I had the business by that stage, we had to share it and, and we have ever since and I that's why I'm such a big advocate for men taking parental leave, because unless those kind of early habits get set up in the early years, we know the research says that, it's more likely the woman will continue to pick up the caring load, the more caring hours and all the rest of it, I can genuinely say in our house that is shared, it always has been, and that has set us up for success. And I would not have the business today had that not been a reality.

00:22:45:22 - 00:23:11:12

Carrie

I know we're a sample size of two here, but I have followed you for a long time, and I know you have some amazing, data based evidence based research behind you. But I'm the same in terms of my husband. I took, some leave with our first boy. And he actually was the primary carer for our second boy. I think he probably had the tougher time because he had two under two that he was looking after for a good few months. Yeah, I, when I was running the business as well at Mums and Co, so it's it, it does it is literally the I think a foundational piece to, to how we can actually run the business raise, strong, well-balanced, healthy human beings, and achieve our ambitions, at the pace that we need to right at the pace that we need to.

So there's a critical role there. And if I could expand a little bit further on this critical, critical role of fathers, because I feel like the conversation has changed a little bit, right? Again, as I said, social policy takes a little bit of time. You've been really at the forefront of seeing this change and working with organisations that are actually embracing that.

So could you could you maybe share some thoughts around the evolving role of fathers in modern family? You know, perhaps do you think that society's perception of fatherhood has changed? And do we have a way to go so.

00:24:26:16 - 00:24:48:08

Emma

Absolutely. Just as it's changed over generations before us. It's an evolving, you know, role and identity for men. I think if you look back to, you know, the generation that we had and your own parents generation, you know my mum tells to in fact if we go back another generation, my grandmother wasn't legally allowed to work after she had a child. Right. Because that was outlawed then it was against the law for women to work then. That's the generation she was born in. So we skip to my mother's generation who was able to work. She was a nurse, and she worked full time, and she was one of the only mothers I knew that did do that. And she talked about that was acceptable, that she worked because she was in that occupation and her right, her frame of reference, what allowed her to do that work is that, back then it was acceptable if a mother worked either in a as a teacher or a health professional. So you weren't a bad mum if you worked and you did those kind of occupations, but if you did anything else, then you were likely to be really judged for that, right?

And I don't know about you, but I did. I didn't have a lot of friends whose mothers worked, you know, full time. And then you come to our generation caring and we one of the first women that, you know, really went through university, went through full time, part time, you know, full time jobs, had children, most likely went back to work because most women now go back to work after they've had children, that are for the first time really experiencing, what it's like to have a busy career and raise a family and most likely probably care for elderly parents as well. That's never been done before. Now let's bring men into the equation. If we go back in that time again, what expectations have really changed of men in that time? So as more women were pushing for have more to have more rights to enter the workforce, there wasn't the same push for more men to be going home to share the childcare burden. Not at all. In fact, if you look back at some of the press at the time, it was really negative around women attacking men's jobs. How dare they? And there was certainly no mention of well, actually, maybe they could share the load at home. That was not a discussion. So and that's still only a relatively new discussion. In the last decade, 15 years, that that is much more closely followed by media and research to watch the behaviours of men and women, particularly after they have children. As to what happens to their career, what happens to the hours of work. And what we still notice is that even though there's been a change and it's a positive change in more men accessing parental leave and carer's leave and taking on more childcare burden, still, their hours of work are pretty flatlined in terms of the disruption to it. Whereas we still know because there's plenty of longitudinal studies, that are done on this, that if when a woman takes, has a baby and takes the break that her hours and patterns of work over her lifetime and it goes for, you know, for the next 15 years, this is charted around what happens, as the child grows, the hours is still very, you know, it's not a flat line graph.

It's a it's a very, you know, what's the opposite of that? You know, chaotic graph. But what it does show is that, the hours genuinely never recover to what they were prior to having a baby. So, as a result, then that means we've got real societal norms out there that women work part time and that are going to have disrupted hours, and they probably will never go back after they have family, to perhaps the same kind of intensity and, and work availability as they did prior.

And that men will continue on as it's and so we've realised and when I say way, people in this sector in general, the royal we, realize that this is a big issue around gender equality. We're not going to be able to close the gender gap. We won't see more women represented in Parliament in big jobs, you know, boards, etc. unless we start to equalize this out. And one of the big ways that we do that is we absolutely invite an encouragement into more caregiving. And to do that, we need changes in work and family policy, both at the government level and, from a workplace level. And, you're right, we have advocated really heavily for dads to have equal, parental leave. And that was successful. We do have the government now, recognising that parental leave, is something that should be shared. And in fact, they have removed the definitions of primary, caring, or primary, parental leave and dad and partner pay that no longer exists because they realised that that was a divide. And there is now one paid parental leave scheme in Australia, which makes, us actually quite progressive as a nation to have one scheme that doesn't, doesn't define by gender.

However, it's not generous enough to share. So unfortunately we still see many women taking advantage of that. So we need to see a much greater, financial incentive, for men to equally be able to access and take that leave. And in Australia, we're only getting to about 26 weeks, by 2026, but the OECD average is actually 52 weeks. So we are way off base compared to other older city nations. When it comes to properly investing in paid parental leave. And until we do that, we're just not going to say, unfortunately, we'll see some incremental improvements because dads do want to be more involved in there are progressive workplaces that are paying it and paying it well and encouraging dads to leave and take the leave. But if we don't invest more broadly at a government level in this, we won't see, unfortunately, the same advancements, of men, leaning into caregiving as we have seen of women returning and entering the workforce after motherhood.

00:30:56:14 - 00:31:22:00

Carrie

So much to unpack in this space. And not even just the economical benefits. Because I know, you know, we've got really high rates of part time working in Australia. And the caregiving predominantly still falls to women. When we take out time from the workforce, there's the motherhood penalty in terms of it affects our career trajectory and superannuation levels and contribution levels. And this is flow on effect, this flow in effect. But what also sparked when you were talking was that it's not just I think about, you know, my husband and his relationship with his boys. And it is so, so solid. It's strong because he has been there from the very beginning. He's able to have this relationship where they will go to him as much as me.

There's no, you know, I mean, actually, I'm a bit I'm the weaker parent, apparently. So the softer parent. So if they know they really want something, I'll say yes. More likely than dad. So they might come to me then. So it's it's just that, you know, there's a I think it's a stronger family unit because he has these relationships, and then he takes part in the domestic duties as well.

Because he knows that, you know, we're in that sort of together and, if something isn't done, then it has a flow, an effect on the on the kids getting. Yeah. Thinking. Yeah.

00:32:28:10 - 00:32:46:15

Emma

Yes and I think most peoples lived experience of that is the same, right? That's very positive about, you know, the relationship and fathers and more involved. And both parents are available and connected. It generally has a very positive effect on children's development and wellbeing. And I don't think there's many people that would argue that. Right. But where the problem becomes in today's is, well, where's the business case for action around why I, as an employer need to do more to help you have a lovely home life. What's in it for me? Why would I do that as an employer? And that's really what I've spent probably the last 20 years trying to advocate for, trying to make that really clear, that actually, if you help people thrive at home and at work, they're absolutely going to be more productive for you in your workforce. How do you make the tension less, is what I’m really looking at.

00:33:20:08 - 00:33:22:09

Carrie

So is that, Is there something that you could, you know, discuss in terms of an initiative or a program that actually allows that to be implemented to get the employer on board?

00:34:53:11 - 00:35:13:15

Emma

That's really what family friendly workplaces is all about. It was about, building standards around what good work and family policy looks like, because if you're an employer starting at, you go, okay, well, I kind of follow what Emma is saying. That kind of makes sense. Alright. Maybe I'm interested in implementing some policies.

Where do I start? And that's a really great question because up until having the standards developed, you wouldn't have known as an employer what good look like, what kind of flexible work policies and practices and provisions should you have? And you know what if I paid parental leave, how much should I pay and what's too much and what's going to give me a return on investment?

You wouldn't have known the answers to those questions. So, we designed the work and family standards, which are now global. And what we do is allow organisations to benchmark to come and answer a questionnaire against those standards so that they can, look at the gap that might exist between the current policies they have and practices that they follow, compared to what best practice suggests will deliver a better return on investment for them.

And that's the first of its kind. And that's what makes family friendly workplaces such an exciting initiative. And so we're partly funded by the federal government. So that benchmarking exercise is a free one for employers to, take part in, which is great. And from there, organisations can start to go on a journey to pinpoint what specifically, the kind of policies and practices that would be better for them to invest in as a workplace based on their results.

And that's really what parents at work, are about doing, assessing these workplaces, helping them identify what the gaps are, what would deliver a better ROI for them, and then measuring that impact over time. So in many ways, and I do describe our organisation as a social impact advisory business. We are helping organisations measure their social impact. And you know, that that contributes obviously to their business performance.

00:37:03:12 - 00:37:24:23

Carrie

Absolutely. I know the Family Friendly Workplaces certification program is a terrific initiative. Our parent company IAG has been certified as well. What if you're thinking about this? What steps can organisations take to start the journey towards becoming family friendly workplaces?

00:37:24:23 - 00:37:51:12

Emma

Well, it's to take this benchmarking assessment that I've suggested and that spray on the family friendly with, workplaces website, which I'm sure will share after this podcast. But, it's a survey that they can complete online and they get an instant report in doing so. And it'll score them, against the best practice standards. So I always say to start there, it's good to just do a baseline of what you've currently got. And how that stacks up compared to best practice. And obviously we've got lots of data now, lots of organisations that have done that benchmarking. So we're starting to get a very clear picture of which industries invest in what, and where the shortcomings are. And so what you're going to see from us more this year is a sharing of that industry data, which, you know, industries invest better in what, what kind of outcomes are they having?

You know, what are the organisations spotlighting? Also the industries that perhaps haven't traditionally been good and investing in family friendly policies, often very male dominated industries, fall into that category to try and find who are the shining stars, because it's always an example of an exemplar organisation that is trying to do, good work in an industry that generally, perhaps is lag as a laggard and shine a light on those stories.

So we're always looking for organisation case studies, and to build on the good work that they have already done. And, you know, no organisation is perfect at this. Sometimes people say to me also, which is the best organisation to work? But, and I got none because no one's perfect, you know, no one's necessarily, going to be the amazing workplace you want them to be. But what this does do is it lets you know if an organisation is committed to getting better, is committed to benchmarking themselves, is prepared to get themselves scored, and is prepared to put a work and family action plan in place to get

00:39:27:06 - 00:39:28:23

Carrie

Yeah. That commitment.

00:39:28:23 - 00:39:31:06

Emma

That peaks that speaks volumes. I think.

00:39:32:03 - 00:39:58:03

Carrie

Absolutely. I know we're having so many different areas, and I need to get my questions out. I could talk for days with you Emma. Let’s shift our conversation a little bit to broaden out again, because there's, there's obviously a big issue that's, you know, post-Covid, everyone went back and was working flexibly from, you know, remote, remote locations, working from home. You know, with that rise of remote working, there are some current debates around working from home. What do you think is most interesting at the moment?

00:40:06:11 - 00:40:25:22

Emma

Oh, gosh. Like, I was asked this question yesterday on another, media piece I did, and it's such a controversial one, isn't it? Flexible work at the moment. And I'm going to answer and I said this yesterday and three, three lenses. One, I'm a business owner, right? I'm an employer. And so I get the employer pressure here. Secondly, I'm an HR practitioner. So I get the HR pressures that, you know, H.R. Teams are under in relation to dealing with this. And thirdly, I'm a parent and a carer and I need flexibility. Right. So I have this sort of unique lens on how I look at this. And the first thing I'd say is from a business owners perspective, I don't understand why you would not want a flexible workforce. I just think, look at what we have had to survive through Covid and the more, unflexible you were, you know, or the more rigid you were as a business owner, probably the harder you found it to try and pivot, to try and rally, to try and keep a productive business going forward. And so from my perspective, flexibility is absolutely what I want to have in my business because I want to be able to rise to meet the challenges of the economy, the challenges of, clients, the changing nature of our society all the time.

And if I don't have flexibility in our business to do it, we don't have a flexible way of working or flexible mindset as to how we do business. Then I can't possibly continue to evolve and grow this business to the best it can be. So, I think that's, I don't understand that an employer wouldn't want to have flexibility in, in the mix in terms of how they thinking about their workforce. And then the second problem associated with this, so this is really now in the HR territory is somehow, if you think back to prior to Covid, you know, for those that have been working in this space for a while, we realise as well that flexible work had have been on a steady incline. There was more and more, favourable evidence and a public opinion that actually flexibility was good.

And organisations were on a pathway to do more of it, and there was steady progress being made sort of year on year. But then we had this sort of leap with obviously Covid, the ripping of the band aid where everyone went home. And now suddenly, as we've emerged from that flexibility now equals working from home. And I go, wow, what happens? Flexibility does not equal working from home. And for some reason we've got obsessed and put the two together as if they were, a really gnarly business problem that never existed before. And was, you know, as something that, you know, it is very defined and, under one, boundary and definition. So of course, we know flexible work is not just about working from home. It isn't. And so we need to think as practitioners, we need to be thinking and reminding our, boards and executives that might be pressing for we need to stop this flexibility and bring everyone back into the office. To go. Whoa. Flexibility is way more than that. Do we need to think about what kind of flexible workforce we need into the future? If we start cutting down on flexibility, how is that going to impact our business strategy? How is that going to impact our ability to be agile and evolve? We need to maintain an agile way of being able to, you know, make sure that our business manages the headwinds that we're going to experience. And let's start there. Before we start diving into whether we're allowing some to work from home two days or three days a week, because to me, we start missing, you know, in our micro moment of obsessing over that, we miss the bigger picture as to why we would even want to invest in flexibility at all in the first place.

00:44:19:13 - 00:44:48:17

Carrie

Yeah. You know how to attract and retain talent. And, yeah, it's interesting how the debate has evolved. And I think there is like a if I look back at it and I don't like to think back on Covid too much, but there's lots of lessons learned and lots of, you know, when, when resources are limited, you do really dig deep into what matters, and you solve you can solve a problem pretty well because there's no other distractions.

It's just pure survival. So, you know, and looking back on that evolution and as a business owner and as an employee, now I'm at the intersection with you. And certainly from a career perspective. There has this perhaps this middle ground, like maybe I wonder if we’ve gone we went to one extreme during Covid. And I think it's actually going well, what's best for the organisation, the type of industry that you're in. The type of requirements of, of your talent like that still has to be the ongoing discussion, I think, to really find that place and get that consultation and trying to meet that middle ground.

00:45:33:06 - 00:45:57:12

Emma

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's this word back vs forward. Because workplaces are dynamic organisms, right? They say, you know, every single day an organisation is evolving. And so we constantly, as business owners, need to be looking ahead as to what's coming next. What's the next challenge, what's the next opportunity? And is our workforce geared for it? And I think the problem is when we get into this work from home to base and we say we need everyone back in the office, I worry that there's a focus on the past, not the future. And this sense of, oh, it's all going horribly wrong because we don't have people back in the office. And I go, whoa, okay.

As, like you, I, I try not to think back at all. I've had past, when it comes to business because there's plenty of things that I would rather not do again. But I can control the, you know, and I can prepare, better for, you know, future and look for opportunities to, as I said, to evolve. And so I think we want to if we're going to talk about flexibility and, be looking for changes or improvement, I would just remind employers to think forward, not back. As you start to plan for what is it that we need to do next and what's the best way to get there? And be mindful of your language when we’re talking about back in office.

00:47:07:08 - 00:47:36:18

Carrie

And make sure they have a conversation with you! I have one last question. At this time, I always love to leave people with a bit of a golden nugget or, just something that they can easily implement straight away. Do you have a hack for fellow working parents? To achieve that harmony between their workplace and their home life, it could be a tech tool that you don't live without in either spaces.

00:47:40:04 - 00:48:03:22

Emma

Yeah, I mean. It's an interesting one, isn't it? I'm always thinking about it when you post one of those questions. What's the one thing? And I just. I'm not sure that I have one particular thing other than to say, as I said, every, every day is different, right? And as we  started the podcast by saying is, how do I have a managed to stay in business for 20 years? Because actually most women don't. We did bootstrapped the business. We didn't have any investment. We've literally grown organically in that time. At that time is plenty reasons I should have failed. And yet I'm still here. And I think that's because I think about that one thing that has to happen today and to, you know, recognise that if I can just do that thing, then that's a win.

And there's always tomorrow and we'll deal with that tomorrow and we'll keep moving forward. And, and I think, being aware that. Yeah, there are going to be lots of challenges along the way and yeah, it's one big adventure, really, as I was saying, that sort of choose your own adventure book. And staying curious about what that might be. You know, I think the inner child in me, was always one for adventure and wanted to know, you know, what was the next page going to tell me in an exciting book? And so I try and think about that. You know, I stay, hopeful and optimistic that there's still really important work to be done, that the work we're doing is fighting the good fight. And, it's worth it.

00:49:22:22 - 00:49:36:20

Carrie

Thank you so much for your time Emma. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And really, your work, your team's work is so very important. So thank you for all that you do for parents now and in the future.

00:49:37:13 - 00:49:40:21

Emma

Thanks, Carrie. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

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