‘Never sacrifice your family ambitions’: Marketers on changing the game for working parents

Amid the rollback in some businesses of flexibility, low uptake of shared parental leave and increasing numbers of mothers leaving the workplace, the UK has a long way to go before working parents feel fully supported.

Marketing Week’s reporting reveals working parents are struggling to maintain a balance between their work and home life, with the return to work proving challenging as mothers, in particular, continue to find themselves demoted, sidelined and forced out. Stats from Pregnant Then Screwed from February found 74,000 women each year lose their job for becoming pregnant or taking maternity leave, up 37% on 2016.

In the latest edition of Marketing Week’s webinar series The Lowdown, deputy managing editor Charlotte Rogers was joined by Allison Beattie, global brand director at AXA XL, Claire Ferreira, founder and CMO of Mums in Marketing, Will Lion, chief strategy officer at BBH, and Sophie Maunder, founder of Matri Coaching to discuss the realities of being a working parent in marketing.

For Ferreira, the struggles faced by working mums and dads are, sadly, not surprising. The stats from Pregnant Then Screwed are “representative of hugely talented, incredible humans being lost from our industry”, she argued, highlighting the “message that sends to new talent coming in”.

Maunder’s own research finds of the nearly 600,000 women who go on leave every year, 160,000 don’t return or leave within a year, citing a lack of flexibility or poor parental policies.

“That’s a loss for the company. It’s a loss for the talent. It’s a loss for our future female leaders. And I just looked at it and just thought, this is madness,” said Maunder.

It’s “insanity”, she argued, that businesses are not taking better care of working parents.

Lion, who took three months shared parental leave on the birth of his second child, said becoming a parent has made him realise how “misaligned” the structure of work is with parenthood. He also finds it “alarming” that only 2% of people are taking up shared parental leave in the UK and half of dads don’t know it exists.

“There’s a whole part of that onboarding into childhood and being parents that is missing awareness,” he stated.

Ferreira agreed, pointing out “a breakdown in communication” within organisations with regards letting mothers know they are supported.

Having empathy and flexibility

Beattie highlighted the “unseen journey” of parenthood starting before the baby is even born, which companies need to be empathetic towards and applies to both mothers and fathers.

From a “brand ethos standpoint”, she added that “it just takes one person to be able to start to have those open conversations”. Maunder echoed that sentiment, adding that “good businesses” want to make it a “really good, effective transition back” to work for parents.

Ferreira advised organisations to get over the need to see people physically in an office to know they’re getting work done, saying they should “adapt to the landscape”. Beattie agreed that “it’s not about presenteeism or time spent at a desk”.

According to Maunder, it comes down to businesses realising parenthood is far from the end of ambition.

“[Parenthood] is not going to change my desire and engagement with the business. I’m not going to work less. I just need to go through this enormous life change and transition and let it resettle in a way that works,” she said.

Having “maximum transparency about what you want” is important to allow the chance to work around your needs, said Lion. He talked about the concept of a “five to thrive” policy for the first year of parenting, urging parents to clock off at 5pm to “create space for families to properly grow”.

Never sacrifice your family ambitions for your career ones. You can have them both. You just need to be brave and vulnerable with that.

Allison Beattie, AXA XL

However, Maunder also noted the need to be flexible from the parent’s side in order not to miss out on career opportunities.

“Yes, I ask for flexibility from the business, but I am able to give flexibility back I think is the critical answer to making flexibility work for everybody and is what we spend a lot of time talking to people about. It can’t just be flexibility on your terms,” she explained.

While taking shared parental leave has been a “massive empathy builder” for Lion personally, he noted the stigma that still exists for men in general. He has come out of taking the leave with “a huge amount more empathy”, which has “changed” the way he talks to women and men in the team. 

Empathy from a company perspective is needed throughout the “unseen” parenthood journey, the panel agreed, taking into account mental health, miscarriage, fertility journeys and post-natal depression.

Beattie called for the need to “expand the scope of what parenthood is to make a difference”, adding that just because she’s on a fertility journey “does not mean I’m any less ambitious about moving forward”.

“Never sacrifice your family ambitions for your career ones. You can have them both. You just need to be brave and vulnerable with that,” added Beattie.

The panel agreed parents should never be excluded from progression and if anything being a parent adds a “string to your bow”.

Maunder noted the skillset required to be a parent should be seen as a strength in the workplace, as it shows “resilience”. Lion agreed he’s “probably three times more productive” than he used to be before becoming a father.

Open communication

In terms of advice from the panel, Beattie argued gaining a sense of perspective can free parents from anxiety around taking time away from the workplace.

“When you take the six months or a year that is such a blip in your life to have to create an amazing family,” she explained.

Beattie acknowledged it’s easy to get “wrapped up in the fear of being able to tell someone that you’re pregnant and being able to take mat leave”.

“When you take a step back in five years’ time, you’re going to be really grateful that you had that time,” she added.

When you have the right people around you, magic is going to happen.

Claire Ferreira, Mums in Marketing

Maunder echoed this sentiment, urging parents not to penalise themselves or “feel too guilty, just do what you can and be open with your communication”.

Going forward, she backs the idea of a second tranche of paternity leave offered when the mother is transitioning back to work. As well as helping with the transition, she explained that extra time would “skill up” the partner and help them appreciate what the “mental load” of childcare looks like.

Acknowledging that parenthood can lead to career breaks and discrimination in the workplace, Ferreira advised parents to “find communities that will support you and lift you up”.

“When you have the right people around you, magic is going to happen,” she stated.

Having been through a career break herself, Ferreira urged brands to remove the negative bias, inviting them to “create an inclusive culture of community”.

Perspectives from people from different walks of life is particularly valuable to marketing teams, said Beattie, who argued “brands start from within”.

Click here to read all our working parents reporting so far. 

The next edition of The Lowdown will take place on 27 August at 11am.