‘Be loud’: Why are marketing mums being locked out of progression?

Marking International Women’s Day back in March, the government described achieving women’s equality as a top priority.

By the state’s own estimates, a 5% increase in female employment would grow the UK economy by up to £125bn a year. The fact women are growth drivers is irrefutable. Since 2000, women’s economic inclusion has accounted for 40% of UK economic growth, according to official figures.

To help close the gender pay gap and get more women into the workforce, the government is pushing for better protections for pregnant women and those returning from maternity leave.

While any support is welcome, in reality changing the status quo is far more complicated in a world where women are being forced out of their jobs, demoted and levelling down their career expectations just for having a baby.

Speaking to Marketing Week anonymously, one marketing manager recalls how before becoming pregnant she headed up a team of five, enjoying high levels of autonomy as a key member of the senior management team within her employer.

Be really loud. If you’re pregnant, you make sure everybody knows about it. If you are trying to request flexible working and they’re saying no, be loud.

Worn Out Working Mum Laura

Telling her director she was pregnant was a good conversation and the prospect of dropping down to four days a week seemed possible, especially given the team were already working in a hybrid manner.

“There were no red flags or any causes for concern at all. Right up until I started having those conversations about my return and a few weeks before,” she recalls.

She realised logistically it would be a struggle to manage childcare pick up without reducing the length of her working day.

“That’s where the conversation started towards: ‘Well, you’re a manager. There are certain expectations of a manager, both in terms of availability for your team and what you’ll deliver.’ It became it’s all or nothing,” she recalls.

The business decided the role required four full working days as a minimum. Given she might need to leave earlier in the day to make pick up and wouldn’t be logging on until later in the evening, the company argued there would be a period of time where she wouldn’t be immediately contactable.

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To get the flexibility she needed, the marketer was told she would have to take a step down in seniority.

“[My director said] ‘Look this is what is required of a marketing manager or I’m happy to look at finding you something else within the department, but obviously it requires you to take a step back and you won’t have all those responsibilities that you had before,’” she recalls.

“When you put it on paper, I didn’t really have any choice.”

Having worked extremely hard to attain her leadership position within the business, taking a step down felt like a “bitter pill to swallow” and resonates with the experiences of fellow marketing mums. She has seen her marketing peers struggle to find management roles when looking for reduced hours, especially given the push back towards office work.

Her situation also feels at odds with the rationale that seniority should come with a degree of trust and an element of give and take.

“From when I started working, I always thought if I get to the point where I’m a manager or in a fairly senior role, that’s where the flexibility really kicks in,” she says.

“I know Covid changed things for lots of people, which is great, but I’ve always worked on the assumption that being in one of those roles there was a bit flexibility, because of what you give otherwise.”

‘Be loud’

Laura, a marketer and blogger who goes by the name Worn Out Working Mum, sees scores of women being silenced by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and the threat of legal action if they talk about their experiences of discrimination. While employers will be banned from using NDAs to silence victims of workplace sexual misconduct or discrimination under new legislation coming into effect later this year, the practice is currently widespread.

“My whole account is working mums and I’ll have someone follow me, and then about two months after they’ll message me and say: ‘I started following you. I never thought this would happen to me. I’d set everything up perfectly. They were great. Now it’s happened. Now I get it,’” she explains.

“It’s only when you’d never think it will happen to you and then it does. Everyone’s just so scared to speak out, because they don’t want to be punished. They don’t want to be sued. They don’t want to go through legal action.”

In 2018, while working in a regional marketing role, Laura had her first child after suffering recurrent miscarriages. At that point she had an “amazing manager”, a mum whom Laura had specifically sought out.

[Mothers] have to give up on their careers or give up on that progression because they’ve had children and it’s really upsetting.

Christianne Brammall, Versa

“You do have to go for those promotions. Take the big jobs before you go away and then deal with it when you come back. But what I did was I set everything up perfectly and I sought her out,” she explains.

“When she joined, she headed up the team and I was like she’s going to be a great manager. I want kids, she’s going to support that. She’s not just going to support my career; she’s also going to support my work life balance.”

While Laura knew there wasn’t necessarily any room to progress in that team it felt like a safe environment, not just for the immediate return to work but the following couple of years.

“I was doing that thing of setting everything up, trying to be smart. I feel like as working mums we’re always trying to second guess everything we’ll need to do, because if one thing falls, everything does,” she says.

Knowing she wanted to grow her family it felt sensible to stay in the team. However, after suffering miscarriage Laura wasn’t sure she would be able to have another baby and was pressured to take a global role in order to progress.

This period was extremely stressful for Laura, who was compressing her hours to five days in four, while preparing for her son to start school. After enduring her fifth miscarriage she had to tell her employer.

“I didn’t want to tell work that I was trying for a baby and I’d actually had the conversation with my leader that I probably wasn’t going to be having any more kids. In my experience that was welcome,” she recalls.

“I went through my HR department to say: ‘Look, this is what’s happening. I’m going to have a mental breakdown if I don’t take a week just to mourn the loss of everything that’s been going on.’”

Laura took some time off from the business where, by this time, she had worked for nearly a decade. She then fell pregnant with her second child and gave birth in 2023. Despite a restructure taking place while she was on maternity leave, Laura felt “pretty confident” she was returning to the same role.

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Having previously worked compressed hours, she asked to come back part-time. Despite it being well within her rights to make the request, Laura felt like this was her “biggest mistake”.

“I was really scared about it. I put in a flexible working application, but the way I saw it I was going to be a lot cheaper for the company and the output was probably going to be the same anyway. They came back and said: ‘Yeah’. I thought this is great,” Laura recalls.

“There was no discussion about my job changing. None at this point. Then when I returned, I had a great chat and my leader at the time said to me: ‘We just want to reacclimatise you.’ It was very much positioned as we’re going to support you. We don’t want you to take on too much. I thought: ‘This is great.’ No alarm bells rang.”

In fact, the new structure suggested she would be taking on a slightly bigger role looking after team members more closely, which felt like a reward for all her years of hard work and dedication. Laura set up calls with the teams across different regions and it was during one such conversation everything started to unravel.

“It transpired that what was essentially my old job was no longer mine and the job that I was taking back on was my old regional role of about three years prior,” she recalls.

There was no conversation, no agreement leading up to this point. The new role was essentially a demotion and naturally Laura’s confidence took a “massive” knock. It felt like losing the career she’d built for over a decade just because she’d come back from maternity leave.

“I thought being nice, being kind, being liked and being good would keep me safe and it doesn’t. They all say online: ‘Be loud,’” says Laura.

“Be really loud. If you’re pregnant, you make sure everybody knows about it. If you are trying to request flexible working and they’re saying no, be loud. Do not let anything go under the radar. If you’ve gone back to work and you’ve been promoted, and they’re making out like it is a favour and you think it’s too good to be true – it is too good to be true.”

Unlocking the workforce

Now working as a freelancer, Laura’s Worn Out Working Mum blog has created a community for other working mothers. The comments she receives proves mums are losing their careers, while the current nature of parental leave means fathers aren’t affected in the same way.

“Until companies – marketing or non-marketing specific – can give dads time off paid leave it will always come back to the mum,” she argues. “It will always be on us and then that’s where the scale starts to tip. It has to be equal and it isn’t.”

Moreover, she recognises that going freelance often doesn’t feel like a choice for mums who are forced out of the workforce and end up doing their own thing out of necessity.

“I’m really sick to my teeth – specifically marketing mums that I hear from feel the same way – that freelancing is glamorous. It’s the answer. It’s not glamorous, it’s a risk,” she notes.

“Within the marketing industry specifically, I’m hearing that a lot and it’s not a choice being kicked out of a career. It’s not a choice.”

I’ve always worked on the assumption that being in one of those roles there was a bit flexibility, because of what you give otherwise.

Anonymous marketer

Christianne Brammall is director of mum-focused influencer marketing platform Mumfluence.co and community and growth manager at Versa, which connects professionals to fractional and flexible jobs.

Mum of three, Brammall left her corporate role when she was pregnant with her third child after feeling like she couldn’t trust the workforce to offer her flexibility. At four months pregnant she started Mumfluence, supporting fellow mothers find careers as creators.

Launching her own business didn’t necessarily feel like a choice, Brammall explains, as she didn’t get maternity leave and was only able to take two months off after giving birth. She had hoped businesses would truly embrace flexibility post-Covid, but admits “the world’s not there yet”.

“I’m in a place where I’m upset and I’m confused, because I thought Covid was horrible, but the silver lining was I thought the world had seen that hybrid working or work from home, or even fractional work, is something that would not just benefit the human being, that it can benefit businesses. It’s a no brainer,” Brammall explains.

Versa has mothers signing up who have been refused flexibility, told their role is five days a week, 9am to 5pm, without any answer as to why.

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“It’s very frustrating. So many women are coming to us. Parents, as a whole, are coming to us and saying: ‘I’ve had my children. I’m still very good at what I do. I still should be going into that seniority of role, but because I can only do three days a week what they’re offering me is something below,’” she explains.

“They have to give up on their careers or give up on that progression because they’ve had children and it’s really upsetting.”

A big believer in fractional work, she loves working with businesses that embrace flexibility. Brammall finds these are typically smaller firms either founded by parents, people who have built the business around flexibility or younger CEOs who prioritise different ways of working. Having this mentality can unlock roles for senior talent.

A startup, for example, might not want to risk its seed money on employing a full-time marketer, but a part-time or fractional role enables them to appoint someone senior to work for three days a week on a project basis, rather than a permanent – more junior – employee for five days. This arrangement gives the marketer a chance to progress their career in a different way.

Seeing businesses embrace this approach to work gives Brammall hope.

“I want to be really positive. I can’t find that positivity with society right now, but I do feel there is change coming,” she states.

“I have spoken to startups and small businesses who are progressive, who do see the benefits of fractional and part-time work, who do want to support mums. There are companies out there, because we are finding them and they do believe that women can change the world.”