A Sponsored Initiative

Projects, Not Jobs: Jody Miller, Business Talent Group

Contributor: Sathvik Ramanan

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by Wharton. Every Tuesday at 7 pm EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community, and the private self (mind, body, and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Jody Miller, the Co-Founder and CEO of the Business Talent Group, which teams up the world’s best independent professionals to provide consulting and project-based support to companies. Jody previously served in senior roles in business, government, media and law, and was deputy to David Gergen under President Bill Clinton and White House fellow under George H. W. Bush as well as mover and shaker at Time-Life, Lehman Brothers, and Americast. Before founding BTG, Ms. Miller was a venture partner with Maveron, the Seattle-based venture capital firm, from 2000 to 2007. Stew spoke with Jody about project-based work and other disruptions in she made to the otherwise standard career path.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: After going into venture capital, how did you get to where you are today?

Jody Miller: 625_Jody MillerI enjoyed venture capital but it’s still very different to be an investor than to be someone who’s really driving a business. I missed that.  And, at the same time, I was being sought out to do consulting projects because I knew a lot about interactive television from my experience at Americast. I started building teams, finding other independent professionals—many of whom worked at major consulting firms—and started helping clients who were coming to me solve their problems with these independent professionals. Before I knew it, I was one of the largest outside contractors to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, doing a series of five projects all with different teams constructed of independent professionals.  What they were saying to me was Boy, this is really interesting and unique. No one else is really doing this.

SF: What was interesting and unique to them?

JM: One was that no one else was offering them this blend of former consultants with former executives. Number two was that it was actually producing a better result for them than just going to a classic consulting model.

SF: You mean it was less expensive?

JM: No, that was the third. But the actual result was better because what they ended up having were people who had deep knowledge about whatever it was that they were doing. So for example, one of the first projects we did was on education, helping them with an online education company they’d invested in. We brought in someone that had actually led an online education company and paired them with a former consultant and that combination produced a really magical result for the client.

SF: So you’re able to access talent that’s very specifically relevant for the project.

JM: Exactly.

SF: And most of the people that you connected to project work are not in the work of sales and creating the business, but rather they do the implementation. Is that right?

JM: Our projects can be very significant and involved, but a lot of the folks in this market want to think about the project itself. They want to think about the problems. They don’t want to just be responsible for overseeing, which is what happens in a lot of consulting firms where you rise to the top and your job becomes selling business rather than rolling up your sleeves and actually doing the work.

SF: What kinds of effects are you seeing in the talent-side of the equation in terms of people’s lives and how people are changed by this form of employment?

JM: It’s really interesting. We survey our talent pretty frequently, and they always say the same thing about why they’re doing this. Surprisingly, it’s not flexibility—that isn’t even in the top two. Most importantly, they want to choose what they work on and who they work for. They don’t want to be forced to work with people they don’t like.

SF: Well that’s a kind of flexibility; it’s just not about time.

JM: That’s true, but it’s fascinating. Psychologically, it’s also really interesting. Let’s just say there’s a great project available but with somebody who’s really not someone’s cup of tea. It’s a different mindset if you know its only going to be for this project and then you’re out of there.

SF: You think, I can put up with this jerk for another two weeks because this is a really cool project, and I’m excited about it.

JM: Exactly. I’ll put up with this guy or this woman for a bit, and then I’m out of here. That’s very different than if you’re in a permanent situation where you’re thinking I just can’t do this anymore. It frees you up in a way that I think is very liberating for people. Obviously, it’s also nice to be able to decide when you take on projects. I have a hypothesis that when this model really does become ubiquitous, the rate for summer work will be significantly higher than the rate for work during the school year. A lot of people want more time in the summer, and I think the market doesn’t adjust for that today, but it will someday.

SF: Interesting! So what other tips can you give to people who want to be successful in this new labor market? What do you think are the keys? You mentioned having the stomach for some uncertainty and being able to present yourself in terms of the work that’s relevant to the task at hand. What else is there?

JM: Staying current. You’ve got to have a sense of where the world is going and how you fit into it. If you need to supplement your existing skills, you need to know what those things you need are and how to get them. It requires a constant ability to understand where your skills are and where the market’s needs are, and then you get the skills you need to supply what’s most in demand.

Join Work and Life next Tuesday at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

To learn more about Jody Miller and her company, visit her web site www.businesstalentgroup.com or follow her on twitter @jodygmiller

About the Author

Sathvik Ramanan Sathvik Ramananis an undergraduate freshman in the Vagelos Program in the Life Sciences and Management at the University of Pennsylvania.

Building a Mentoring Roundtable — Kathy Korman Frey

Contributor: Morgan Motzel

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by Wharton. Every Tuesday at 7 pm EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community, and the private self (mind, body, and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Kathy Korman Frey, Founder and Chief of the Hot Mommas Project and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the George Washington University School of Business. The Hot Mommas (c) Project is home to the world’s largest library of women’s leadership case studies and is an award-winning organization that helps women achieve confidence and reach their potential for success. Frey also teaches Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership at the George Washington University School of Business where her course has won a National Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Award.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: Kathy, I understand that you are doing a lot to provide examples of women leaders that other people can learn from and perhaps be inspired by.

Kathy Korman Frey: kathy korman freyThat’s absolutely right—access to role models and mentors is directly correlated to women’s career success, even in case study form.

SF: What exactly does Hot Momma’s do?

KKF: At first, we focused on the development of women’s leadership cases because a lot of folks were interested in ensuring that the stories of various women were told. We developed a software whereby women from all over the world could share their stories in a very specific format, hence the cases. Since then, our organization has grown to include classes that bring the concept of role models and mentors to life through workshops and a virtual campus model that we are launching next month.

We’ve done the classes many times in-person, and on a number of different campuses. The psychographic and demographic that usually come to us have very specific needs. We’re doing something a little different with our virtual campus model that will really meet their different needs in terms of accessibility and time-saving.

SF: How do the case studies actually help people? What evidence do you have that they actually make a difference?

KKF: We have our own research that we’ve developed, but there was also research which initially led us down this path. When I first started teaching women’s entrepreneurship at GW, I read a study that said exposure to role models and mentors, even in the form of case studies, was shown to increase self-efficacy in women. I learned that self-efficacy is like an action-oriented form of self-confidence. If confidence is feeling good about yourself, self-efficacy is sort of like that Rosie the Riveter picture—an “I can do it” feeling. It’s the confidence that you can act on your abilities or skills and that you can accomplish something. It’s really quite powerful.

SF: Of course.    And especially to the extent that a lack of self-efficacy is what can inhibit people, especially women, in a corporate setting there’s also something to be said for having a social environment that can reinforce self-efficacy and keep you accountable to the promises you make to yourself when the going gets tough.

KKF: That is key. Actually, that’s part of what we’re doing with our virtual campus. In our research, we actually found that there is an optimal number of mentors which is significantly related to people having more confidence and higher perceptions of success than their peers. Between those having four or fewer mentors and those with five or more, there was about a twenty percent difference in self-perceptions of success and confidence. People should think about finding a “table” of mentors, and how they might build that table of five or so people, not all at once, but over the course of the year.

SF: What are some of the critical criteria for putting together that personal board of directors—people who are going to hold you accountable, offer you support, and encourage you to take on the kind of challenge that make you feel good? How should you go about selecting those people?

KKF: The most important thing is making sure that these are people who actually have your best interests at heart. This is not a general admission concert, but a table of at least five very trusted advisors. It’s also important to clarify what this table is not. For example, when somebody gets an assignment like this from our workshop or in my class, there’s always someone who thinks, “Okay, I just need a mentor with a pulse to fill this spot and get the assignment over with.”

But what the table is really about is aligning each of these seats with your goals. Let’s say you have a goal to publish another book, and it’s a book in a totally new area, then you might fill that seat with somebody who is an expert in that area. Let’s say you want to do more online or you want to do more internationally—that could be another seat. Let’s say your work puts a lot of pressure on your family, then you could have a work-life balance seat. Maybe there’s some big personal project that you’ve abandoned in light of other responsibilities, then that’s going to be your fifth seat, thus filling two seats for personal concerns and three seats for business. Folks can choose to change it up however they want, as long as they make a point to not just find a warm body and really try to align those seats to their goals.

At the end of the day, this is one of many things women can do to support themselves and to support each other. We can’t move an entire aspect of policy and decades of history with a magic wand, but when we ask, “What can I do today?” this is something I could do today, and I could teach to all the women around me, too. At Hot Momma’s, that’s really what we try to focus on.

To learn more about Kathy Korman Frey’s work, visit her organization’s website at www.HotMommasProject.com and follow her on Twitter @ChiefHotMomma.

Join Work and Life next Tuesday at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

About the Author

Morgan Motzel Morgan Motzelis an undergraduate senior in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business at Penn focusing on Management and Latin America.

The Leaking Pipeline in Architecture — Rosa Sheng

Contributor: Sathvik Ramanan

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by Wharton. Every Tuesday at 7 pm EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community, and the private self (mind, body, and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Rosa Sheng, an American Institute of Architects Senior Associate at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. She is also the chair of San Francisco’s The Missing 32% Project, a committee to help make the field of architecture more hospitable for female architects. Stew spoke with her about The Missing 32% Project and what inspired her to take action.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: So Rosa, as a very successful architect, why was it important for you to start The Missing 32%?

Rosa Sheng: rosa shengI was contemplating leaving architecture feeling that I had reached the glass ceiling. And up until that point, I had felt pretty invincible—that I could do anything, that there wasn’t really anything in my way. I was one of the lucky ones, but then, when I was starting to have kids, I felt the burden of trying to balance it all. The economic downturn and concerns about being able to get projects and being able to achieve a leadership position were on my mind. I found mentors that said, “You know you’ll overcome it. Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you go outside and share your experiences? I think that’ll give you some insight.” So I started looking into some of The Missing 32% symposiums before I got involved.

SF: Could you explain what The Missing 32% is?

RS: It is a project started by the AIA (American Institute of Architects) San Francisco, and it was fueled by the striking gender difference that only 18% of the architectural licensed AIA members were female.  The statistic generally is that when you graduate from architecture school, the number is nearly 50-50.  So that drops all the way from 50% to 18% by the time one is a licensed member of the AIA. It was such a shocking thing that the AIA San Francisco decided to work on back in 2011.

SF: So 50 minus 18 is 32.

RS: Yes, the magic number.

SF: So you went out and just started talking about your experience.

RS: I told the story of being taken seriously. I was lucky enough to work with Steve Jobs doing some of the glass retail stores that you see. As I was having my first child, I decided that I would “retire from the retail store projects, and do others projects.” He was disappointed, but he asked me to go to dinner with him and the team when it was time for the Fifth Avenue Cube opening in New York City. I was torn because I had my family with me—I had my newborn child and my husband—so I declined.

SF: You declined dinner with Steve jobs!

RS: Yes, because I wasn’t going to go to dinner by myself, without my family, who had come all the way to New York with me. So I explained the situation, and he actually surprised me. He came back to me again during the day and said, “Ok, I got a spot for your husband, but you’ll have to get a babysitter for your kid.” And again, I was torn. He was trying so hard to get me to the table, and I was declining. I held onto my beliefs that I wasn’t going to leave my child behind, and he came back a third time and said, “Ok you drive a hard bargain. The kid can come.” I was again just amazed that somebody believed so much in the value of my services and loyalty over the years that he would stick to his guns and keep asking. I expected that he would just say, “Ok, too bad. You can’t come.”

SF: I guess he not only respected you but also respected the fact that you were holding onto something that was really important to you.

RS: That’s right.  It was a huge lesson for standing up for what you believe to be important, which, for me, was family.

SF: So how did that fail you previously in terms of hitting the glass ceiling?

RS: I think it was two-fold. First, I think it was the economy. I think also it was the lack of new projects. More people plus fewer projects equals a competitive environment. There was tension with who was going to be the leader/project manager and who was going to be promoted within the firm. These are issues that we touched upon in a survey that we issued in early 2014 of trying to compare not only pay equity, but also who’s advancing to leadership roles in firms, and what are the hurdles that lead to people, namely women, not advancing into these positions.

Join Work and Life next Tuesday at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

To learn more about Rosa Sheng, check out her feature in Architect Magazine. Go to The Missing 32% Project website and follow on Twitter @miss32percent and @rosasheng.

About the Author

Sathvik Ramanan Sathvik Ramananis an undergraduate freshman in the Vagelos Program in the Life Sciences and Management at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Best Companies to Work for in 2014 — Carol Evans

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media about their just-released 2014 list of 100 Best Places to Work.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman:Working Mother just released list of Best Companies for 2014.  What makes a company a great Working Mother pick?

Carol Evans:  Caro lEvansWe ask 500 questions, and we get very detailed.

SF: Who has time to complete a survey like that?

CE:  Companies who care about working families including parental leave for both working parents, corporate culture, leadership, having women in middle level positions and top level positions, mentorship, support, and more.

SF: This is now a coveted position for corporations to be on this list.  It helps them compete in the labor market.

CE: It’s a big differentiator. Women look to the list for where to work. Men now want to know, too.

SF: So how can a corporation get to the top 10?

CE: Parental leave, childcare, excellence across the board on many, but not all, factors. A lot of these companies have been on the list for a long time.

SF: So the list covers all dimensions of work and life issues.  Will having good programs that support life beyond work get you on the list?

CE: If you have programs, but women aren’t advancing, then no, you will not accumulate the points you’d need to be on the list.  It’s not subjective. We want to know how many people have access to each policy and then how many actually use them.  And what about the culture; do people feel afraid to use programs designed to retain them?

SF: Policy and practice only go so far.  So cultural mores determine if they’re really being accessed.

CE: Companies have to market it to their employees. If people don’t use it, it becomes the norm not to use it.

SF: How do you ensure the data is valid and accurate?

CE: We fact check data.  And we put in magazine. That’s the best check and balance. If it’s not accurate your employees will call you on it. The companies don’t know what we’ll put in the magazine.

SF: Have you ever had situation where the company said one thing and employees said it wasn’t so?

CE: Yes, before but not now. We had a typo.  We wrote a 16 week not a 6 week leave policy.  Oh my gosh, we heard from everyone in the company!

SF: So, what happened?  Did it create pressure to increase the leave?

CE: Yes, they increased it!

SF: How does the list influence policy – apart from typos?

CE:  We launched in 1986 and we’ve seen tremendous change because of the list. First, the companies themselves benefit via the application process itself. The people writing the answers to our survey get to know what their organization even has to offer and how much it’s used – flex, childcare, going to the gym, mentoring program, ERG (employee resource group). Second, after publication they learn that they have 8 weeks of maternity leave, but their competitor has 12 weeks.  And they have to ask, as their employees do, why don’t we have that?  And then if all the top ten have X, let’s get up to that so we can be competitive. Relative to your competition or to the best. Knowledge is like gold; it’s a competitive advantage. It’s a great carrot. You give us your data. And we show aggregates. Finally, for the talent, that is for individual women, they find out from reading the magazine once a year what’s the latest and greatest in work/life. They learn ideas of what to ask for and this helps them to be brave enough to take advantage of the benefits.

SF: So it’s the knowledge that’s empowering.  In 30 years – what’s changed? What’s the big idea, the big shift? Has there been real progress?

CE: The pregnancy act was in 1978. That made it illegal to fire someone for being pregnant. Before 1978 it was perfectly acceptable to do so.  When we started the list only 30 companies were doing something. Now the offerings are much more sophisticated and culturally embedded, and they’re demanded by moms and dads and by millennials.

SF: Is technology a catalyst for some of the change you’re seeing especially for millennials?

CE: It’s a double-edged sword. Some companies are experimenting with new policies about not having the digital line crossed. For instance, Deloitte has digital free weekends to renew and refresh. On the list we uncover new things that companies are doing.  We codify the new stuff, put it in magazine, discuss it at the Work/Life Conference, tweet about it. Then next year we ask everyone else if theyr’e doing it.

SF: The list is a catalyst for change not a catalog of policies.

CE: Yes, so now we ask, Are you sponsoring, not mentoring? Do you have paid paternity leave.

SF: Working Mother is the name, so what about dads? Other demographics benefit from work/life practices. How has it spread and how does the list address these changes?

CE: Millennials demand it and that helps to get it across to CEOs. Women are like the icebreaker and behind you all the other boats get through. Women get these benefits, and then everybody benefits.

 

Carol Evans, is President of Working Mother Media, CEO of the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) Diversity Best Practices (DBP), and author of This is How We Do It: The Working Mother’s Manifesto. For more information check out www.workingmother.com and follow Carol at @CarolEvansWM

Join Work and Life next Tuesday at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

Unifying the Work/Life Field — Kathie Lingle

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Kathie Lingle, an architect of change and  a leader in the Work Life field who led WorldatWork’s Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP), was a member of the Conference Board’s Work-Life Leadership Council, for which she served as co-chair for several years, and who served as National Work-Life Director at KPMG.

Stew Friedman: How have things changed in the field of work/life?

Kathie Lingle: Kathie LingleWhen I started childcare was my field because the question was “who’s going to take care of all the kids of the women we’re hiring? We’re not in that biz.”  Now it’s morphed into something other than childcare – eldercare, the sandwich generation. We are now focused on new ways of doing work, workplace flexibility, not just childcare. Now it’s not just childcare and it’s not just about women. The power tool of the work/life field is flexibility, because the more flex-work options the business has the better they do financially.

SF: Better productivity?  Better retention?

KL: Yes, retention, productivity and engagement. Engagement came later though, initially it was called commitment. At the Alliance for Work Life Progress (AWLP) we called it a work/life portfolio of assets which includes health and wellness programs and policies, paid and unpaid time off, corporate culture.  If you invest in all these parts of the portfolio, you don’t just keep employees but it’s also excellent for bottom line.

SF: So, work/life policies provide a competitive advantage?

KL: Yes, companies are falling all over themselves to be named “employers of choice.” It’s not for fun and games, but to be attractive to prospective employees, to retain talent, to engage employees and ultimately to make money.

SF: You see this sentiment all over college campuses and employment boards.  People are talking about doing well by doing good.

KL: In the last five years universities are leading the charge. At our recent work/life forum, Stew, you were speaker, a university won our best in class; Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  They were working their entire portfolio.  They had lots of policies. They understood that work/life is holistic; it’s about connecting the dots between one thing and another.  Some examples of their policies: giving money to employees to help them buy a home; providing job security; providing health and financial packages.

SF: What has changed and next wave of innovation?

KL:  We started wtih childcare as women entered workforce and need for care for their kids. So smart employers who want to attract, retain, and engage employees now use eldercare/dependent care, flex-options, community involvement, as well as programs that help provide caregiving for the caregiver – the sandwiched generation.  They provide affinity groups and financial support for workers who are pressured from both ends – caring for children and for parents.

SF: It seems as though the scope of the field has expanded, so what about competence in area of Human Resources and Work/Life?

KL: AWLP (founded 1996) had promised Work/Life certification from 1996 — exams, standards, minimum threshold of competencies. We have created a certification with real certification, with letters and designation. We felt as though we were building the airplane while flying. But inside HR associations, HR is not always Work/Life’s best friend. Within an organization there’s siloing and different HR functions (compensation, benefits, diversity, work/life, employee relations) and they are all different. Compensation and benefits operate behind doors and they are still bigger. The different functions are siloed and not pulled together in most effective way to get job done.

SF: What’s the biggest obstacle to getting everyone to pull together toward a shared goal?

KL: Mindset. Set of beliefs that lead to knee jerk reactions and statements such as “that’s the way things are done here.”

SF: What can be done to shift a mindset?

KL: One of the biggest elephants in room is that we haven’t cracked this code of overwhelmed so health and wellness is a big category. Our nation spends so much on healthcare and we’re getting too little bang for the buck. We are killing ourselves at work. We need to shift from teaching people to play the piano to teaching people about the language of music. We need to go from implementing flex work arrangements  to greater autonomy. Flex arrangements are tool whereas maximizing autonomy is the goal. We need to get to the point where I get what I need and so does my company. Universities are doing great job with career flexibility, but corporations are not. Corporations are obsessed with get “Mary” in at 10 AM so she can get home at 4 PM; they’re obsessed with scheduling. People need autonomy. The question is: Do I have all I need to get my work done from the top and from my colleagues.

SF: What are the most important levers for producing change?

KL:  We need to get into mindset of the leaders. This stuff is not really foreign to them.  Leaders have lots of flexibility themselves. They think they’re athletes, so talk to them in a language they understand — driving the firm, hitting the top of your game, winning, leading.

Kathie Lingle led WorldatWork’s Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP) and has been a member of the Conference Board’s Work-Life Leadership Council, for which she served as co-chair for several years.  She directed AWLP’s Strategy Board for a dozen years and is a former member of the steering commitee of the Boston College Work-Life Roundtable. Prior to joining WorldatWork, she served as National Work-Life Director at KPMG LLP, where she was the primary architect of KPMG’s Work Environment Initiative, a multi-year culture change effort that continues to evolve.  To learn more,  follow her on Twitter: @WorldatWork @kathielingle

 

Join Work and Life next Tuesday, at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

Real Family Values: Ellen Bravo on Work and Life

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Ellen Bravo, Director of the Family Values @ Work Consortium about what individuals and employers can do to bring family values – paid sick days and family leave – to organizations to help working families.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: Last time I saw you was a week or so ago at the White House Summit for Working Families, where you had the honor of speaking directly after President Obama’s stirring speech.

Ellen Bravo: Ellen BravoI was so glad to be able to thank him and to bring the stories of the “experts” that we brought with us.  These are people who have found themselves fired because they wouldn’t let a special needs child stay home alone when the schools were closed because it was too cold or had their pay docked because they insisted on being with a kid with sickle cell anemia, or taking care of a dad who just had eye surgery. These are people who have taken that personal pain and hardship and are standing up together and trying to change policies so that what happened to them does not happen to them again and does not happen to others, either.

SF: Tell us about Family Values @ Work.  What do you do?

EB: Family Values @ Work is a network of coalitions in 21 states that work for policies like paid sick days, paid family leave, fairness for pregnant workers, fair schedules, policies that value families. It’s local groups that form broad and diverse local coalitions.  Restaurant owners and restaurant workers.  We have business partners, labor partners, people who care about kids and people who care about seniors, people who want to end poverty.  All of them come at this from the point of view that we know what works, when 40% of the population doesn’t earn a single paid sick day, when only 12% of workers get paid sick leave from their employers, we know that that’s bad for families. And it turns out it’s also bad for the economy and bad for businesses.  We are way behind the rest of the world. What we’re trying to do is modest, some might say meagre.  I think President Obama was shocked and horrified when he heard that we were one of only 3 countries in the world that don’t offer at least some form of paid leave.  Most employed women have to cobble together vacation days.  It’s a great joy to have a child, but it is not a vacation.

SF: You have been uniquely effective in advocating at the local, state and federal levels to help make our nation a more caring society. So what fuels your passion? How did you get into advocating for social change for families?

EB: My sons are in their 30s. I had two unpaid leaves. When the second one was born I hurt my back, the doctor said I needed to be flat on my back.  My husband could not take off.  We had no money.  I asked how I would do that with a toddler, too? He said, “Oh, just have your mother or your housekeeper take care of you.” We didn’t have a house much less a housekeeper and my mother worked full time. Then when the kids were 1 and 4 we moved to Milwaukee and one of us needed a job with health insurance.  So I took a job with the phone company which had health benefits and the person who hired me said, “You can’t be sick for five years” and she said, “I know you’re thinking how the hell am I going to do this.” I remember being surprised that she used that language because she was very prim and proper. She said, “Well you just have to.  We’re a public utility. We need you here every day.” And obviously what happened is that people came to work sick and they made each other sick and they stayed sick much longer.  And I thought this doesn’t make sense.  I was already an activist and I realized that I needed to actively address this issues; that family values cannot end at the workplace door. And I found the group 9 to 5 that was focused on low wage women and this was one of their key issues. We worked for and won family unpaid leave in Wisconsin and then in the nation. But we knew we needed to find a way to make it affordable.  We have to make sure that we don’t fire people for following doctor’s orders by staying home.

SF: And yet people still do live in fear of having to take time away from work to meet family responsibilities. But how did you win your first big victory?  Tell us about what you did in Wisconsin.  What did you have to do and what did you accomplish.

EB: The way we won was kids.  The governor had said he’s only sign a maternity leave bill and only a 30 day bill.  We knew we had to establish the principle of family leave; it’s not just new babies who need their parents and it’s not just mothers whom they need.  We put together a group of children each of whom had a reason why their family needed leave. One was a kid who’d had cancer when he was five; he was now nine and he remembered both his parents would be in the room with him when he got treatments.  One to hold him and one to tell him a story. He said the kid in the next bed didn’t have parents there during the day.  What he didn’t know then when he was five, but what he knew then was he was nine was that they would have lost their jobs and their health insurance if they had been with him.  There was a kid who had been adopted for the first time at the age of 12.  He was so happy to have a family but his new mom had to put the kids to bed at 8 PM because the adoption agency required that she be home during the day, but work wouldn’t give her leave so she had to work the nightshift. My younger son, he was seven at the time but when he was five he got hit by a car and had to stay overnight in the hospital for a concussion, which for him was two days.  But the idea that you would have to go through that without your parents there was unimaginable to him.

They all told their stories.  They met with the Secretary of Employment Relations for the State of Wisconsin. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because they were very moving, but cute, as well. He said, we’re so used to meeting with lobbyists we sometimes forget about the people are impacted by the bills we pass. The Secretary asked if anyone had any questions, my little son, the youngest in the room, asked why wouldn’t the Governor sign this bill. The Secretary said, I promise that he will sign some version of the bill.  So, we quickly had a press conference and made this announcement, the kids all told their stories again.  The headline read: Children Lobbyists Win Lawmaker Hearts. The Governor said, it’s because of the kids that I’m signing this.

SF: So is this the modus operandi, to bring the voices of children in?  Or are there other strategies to influence policy-makers?

EB: There are many ways. So, California had won paid family leave in 2002.  We knew that there were other places that could do it, but they needed resources. We went to funders asking for seed money to create a new model where we work to raise money, but we share it among many groups, especially those working at the local and grassroots level. And our funders really liked this idea. So we started with eight states and now we’re in 21.  People can go to our web site www.familyvaluesatwork.org .  You can sign up on our web site and we’ll find ways to help you get involved in one of those states.

SF: So, what’s the business case for family leave, paid leave?

EB:  We’ve collected a growing body of evidence that shows that these policies are really beneficial. The majority of businesses now support these policies they find that it’s a non-event.  It cuts down on turnover costs. Advertising, screening, and training new hires is one of a businesses biggest expense.

SF: What have the states that have enacted enacted paid leave learned about what works or what doesn’t?

EB: For example Herb Greenberg of Caliper in NJ says for him this is a no-brainer because it helps him attract and retain people. He’s talking about the NJ Family Leave Insurance Fund. In the three states that have it, it’s all employee-paid. So it’s a cost savings for the employer because they don’t have to pay the person’s salary while they’re out, and they get them back. And they do what they want to do which is to help that employee be a good family member.

Same thing with paid sick days. Makini Howell was one of the people who spoke at the White House Summit.  She’s a restaurant owner in Seattle, and she said, why wouldn’t small businesses do this? You attract and keep people and you don’t have someone coming to work and making other people sick, and it’s good in the community.  Her business increased since she became known as a leader in the fight for paid sick leave.

SF:  It’s good for her brand.

EB: Makini Howell also said, “I want to be the kind of employer that I’d want to work for.”

SF: What are the hurdles? What are the barriers to adopting these policies?

EB: The biggest hurdle is lobbyists who claim to speak for the business community when they often do a disservice to employers by making it seem as though they’re mean-spirited or have a knew-jerk reaction to simple regulations. Because of the role of money in politics, they sort of threaten politicians, we’ll say that you’re anti-business if you support this policy. So it’s made a lot of politicians nervous.  The good thing is our coalition has really helped to break the “identity theft” by having business owners speak their stories of success.  They say that they already provide this for their employees but they want there to be a floor, some minimum standard and that’s the reason for a public policy.  They also say to other business owners, your workers are my customers so if they don’t get a paycheck or if they lose their job because they were being a good parent or taking care of themselves it’s bad for the economy as a whole. This is what small business owners tell us all the time, sales is the number one problem.  They need people to have money in their pockets.  That’s why business owners are supporting higher minimum wage as well.

 

Ellen Bravo directs the Family Values @ Work Consortium, a network of broad coalitions working for—and winning—policies such as paid sick days and family leave insurance.  She’s the author of Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business and the Nation.  To learn more about her work go to the Family Values @ Work web site www.familyvaluesatwork.orgfollow them on Twitter @FmlyValuesWork.

Join Work and Life next on July 29 at 7:00 PM ET on Sirius XM Channel 111 for conversations with Gretchen Spreitzer and Kathie Lingle.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

Aging and Work: Nursing Professor Sarah Kagan

Work and Life is a radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Sarah Kagan about the impact of aging on our work lives.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Stew Friedman: Why is aging an important issue for employers and employees?

Sarah Kagan: Sarah KaganWe’re seeing a big demographic shift.  We’re becoming much older as a society and all sorts of things cascade from that.  Your example of midlife women having to make choices about career and family responsibilities.

SF: And leaving the workforce because they feel compelled to take care of aging parents, disrupting their career progress and future earnings, as noted in The New York Times article at the top of the hour, For Women in Midlife, Career Gains Slip Away.

 

SK: You can see that as an economic cascade. It influences them financially but it also changes the workforce. We lose really valuable workers from a sector like education. How do we mentor and support younger teachers if everybody in that generation is busy taking care of mom, grandma, grandpa? All of a sudden we have a dearth of experience that has social implications, financial implications, families suffer financially and our economy suffers as well.

Around the world most elder care is direct care provided by women and the “instrumental caregiving” – organizing things, financing things is being done by the men in the family.  For the most part wives and daughters and daughters-in-law are doing a lot of direct caregiving which means that they have high absenteeism.  The work can’t be done remotely.  Unless you have a great deal of money you’re the one taking your father-in-law to the doctor.

SF: Wait. What about the man?  If it’s his father, why isn’t he taking him to the doctor? Why the daughter-in-law?

SK: Well, we still have a gender divide there.

SF: The study referred to in the article finds the burden is disproportionally borne by women.

SK: This means that stress is borne disproportionately by women, too.  If you’re caring for an aging parent with dementia, for example, it’s a big family stressor.  And if you’re facing that every morning it’s going to take a toll on you – the primary direct caregiver.

SF: What suggestions and advice do you provide for your students and others and what advice do you have for our listeners who might be in a similar situation?

SK: The first thing a recommend is to step back, even if only for one hour, take a breather and think about what really needs to get done and when, what’s a top priority, what’s a lower priority.  Then think about who needs to do it and what resources are available to relieve some of that load. And it helps to write out a plan and assess.

SF: But how do you do that when you’re in the throes of the problem?

SK: Sometime you need help to take a step back.

SF: But doesn’t everyone need that?

SK:  We’re social animals. We need to crush that myth of independence, and say, “hey, who can I reach out to?”  A friend, a neighbor, somebody in a similar situation who can help you step back and take a survey of the situation.

SF: So what more can this “sandwich” generation of women, especially, do to get help so that they can remain engaged in their work lives?

SK: After assessing, the next step is to think about other resources. And we have a tendency to think they have to do it alone. I recommend that people look for their local Area Agency on Aging.  And other people want to help.  Perhaps set up a meal schedule so you’re not doing all the cooking. Maybe the kid down the block who’s thinking about college would like some kind of service experience, resume builder, and something that brings generations together.  Put an 18 year old with an 80 year old and both of them are going to learn good things.

SF: So you’re thinking of the health benefits for teenagers and seniors for them to be working together.

SK: Real relationships not mediated by phones, computers, other technology and distractions and pressures.  Instead, slow it down.

SF:  What about FOMO?  Kids have a Fear Of Missing Out.

SK: I think we have to push back on that. FOMO should be replace by Slow-Mo.  Slow down and recognize that thinking about and caring about someone else, means we’re all stronger, we’re all better off.  The Druker Center for Health System Innovation at The Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) is doing some amazing work with “time banking.”  It turns out that social interaction is more important than physical activity for keeping your mind sharp.  They’ve created a “time bank” where people donate time to help with specific activities (driving someone to a doctor’s appoint,  garden clean up, piano teaching, driving to worship, getting to a friend) and others can use that time.  So it becomes a social exchange.

SF: It’s part of the new sharing economy.

Kagan is a MacArthur Fellow and the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing who writes a column, Myths of Aging, and teaches a popular MOOC on Coursera, Growing Old Around the Globe. Hear more from her on Twitter @SarahHKagan and @OldGlobeMooc and read her Myths of Aging column at http://www.calkins.com/digital.html

 

Join Work and Life next Tuesday, July 22 at 7:00 PM ET on Sirius XM Channel 111 for conversations with Herminia Ibarra and Sam Polk.  Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

 

Breadwinning and Caregiving: Liza Mundy on Work and Life

Contributor: Liz Stiverson

Work and Life is a weekly radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday from 7 to 9 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Liza Mundy, award-winning journalist and author of The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming our Culture, about how breadwinning and caregiving roles have become gender-neutral and shared by all Americans, and the barriers to men and women embracing the roles that fit them best.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: Tell us about your primary responsibilities at the New America Foundation.

Liza Mundy: Liza MundyI started at New America after receiving a fellowship from the Foundation to write my last book; it was a real source of intellectual stimulation and support and a wonderful community. Now that I’m taking over as Director of our work and family program, Breadwinning and Caregiving, the aim is to continue to reframe the conversation. I think this is a really interesting moment for these issues – there have been some significant books and articles, and a stream of research in the last several years. The more we can talk about work and family and bring these issues into the public domain, the more we can help people understand that we are all breadwinners and we are all caregivers at some point in our lives. Those two responsibilities are shared by every citizen, and I think it’s fair to say that our laws and policies haven’t changed to enable people to fulfill both sets of obligations, and the workplace is changing in ways that in some respects make it easier and in some respects make it harder to play both roles.

SF: A central question is, Who are the breadwinners and who are the caregivers?  You’re saying we are all breadwinners and caregivers. That’s a radical idea, to construe these roles in society as gender neutral. What do you think are the main barriers to people feeling a greater sense of freedom and opportunity to take up the roles that fit best – breadwinner or caregiver, whether man or woman?

LM: I’ll begin with one that may not be obvious – family members can be a real barrier. For my book, I interviewed any number of couples where the woman had emerged as the primary breadwinner and the man was taking a secondary role in terms of earnings. In many couples, this was working out extremely well, and allowed both partners to fall into patterns that were comfortable for them as a couple. And yet, they were met with a lot of resistance from in-laws who sent powerful signals to the husband that he is, in the words of one man, a parasite – not fulfilling the household role he should. These were often situations in which the grandparents were very proud of their daughter, but unable to see that one of the reasons she is able to be so successful and productive is her supportive partner. After my book came out, I found myself in many conversations with people who were parents of young adult children who were really troubled if, for example, their son made a career concession like moving to another job in another city for the sake of his girlfriend. It’s natural for parents who raised their children – male and female – to be super-performers to have a hard time when one of those children decides to be the lower-key member of a couple. And stigma doesn’t necessarily come only from in-laws.

It wasn’t that long ago that marriage was the only available avenue for women to feel like they had been successful; one way for a woman to telegraph her success was to say what her husband did. I interviewed a really successful young woman, an engineer at Georgia Tech, whose salary one year into the workforce exceeded that of her father, who was a construction worker, and who also made considerably more money than her boyfriend. Her boyfriend had taken the only job he could find that would allow him to be near her, as the manager of a fast food franchise. She told me that when she tells people what her boyfriend does, she doesn’t know quite how to say it. She kept telling me she wasn’t embarrassed, but she said she wasn’t embarrassed so many times that it began to signal that she actually was a little embarrassed by his job.

Women can be offenders in this regard and can perpetuate barriers. I also spoke with a gay man who worked as general counsel in a company and was a father who told me that when he adopted his son and took paternity leave, the women in his office threw him a baby shower and celebrated his leave, but a couple of days into his paternity leave, were calling him and expecting his help. They did not respect the boundary of his paternity leave the way they might have respected a woman’s maternity leave.

SF: What else did you discover in writing your book that you think listeners should know about?

LM: I try to make the argument – not everyone buys it – that young women today have a new opportunity to be the lead partner in their relationships – to be the primary earner, the person who moves to take a new job. I think there’s a willingness on the part of some young men to move for the sake of their girlfriend’s career, or to put their wife through law school with the understanding that she’ll be the lead earner going forward. Those are things women have traditionally done for men, and the fact that we are in a time when some men will put their female partners’ careers first is something women should be happy about. I asked a number of young women, “Would you consider marrying or partnering with someone who didn’t go to college or doesn’t have the same level of education you do?” And they were generally very resistant to that idea. They would often say, “I’ve got to marry a guy who’s on my level,” by which they seemed to mean equally driven and ambitious. That can work, but many women who marry someone they meet in law school or especially business school find that his career ends up taking precedence. In an ideal world, no one would have to work too hard, and we would all share responsibilities, but there is a new opportunity for women willing to seize it to enter into relationships where they will be supported and their career will come first.

Liza Mundy’s most recent book, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming our Culture, was named one of the top fiction books of 2012 by the Washington Post and a noteworthy book by the New York Times Book Review. She is also the author of Michelle, a biography of First Lady Michelle Obama, which was a New York Times bestseller. Liza Mundy writes and podcasts regularly for New America and other publications; visit New America for a list of her most recent work, and follow her on Twitter @lizamundy.

Join Work and Life next Tuesday, July 15 at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111 for conversations with Ellen Bravo, Director of Family Values @ Work, and Dave Lissy, CEO of BrightHorizons Family Solutions. Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

 

About the Author

Liz Stiverson Liz Stiversonreceived her MBA from The Wharton School in 2014.

Connecting Best and Brightest Women — Janet Hanson 85 Broads

Contributor: Alice Liu

Work and Life is a weekly radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Janet Hanson, former CEO of Milestone Capital and founder of 85 Broads, a global network of women whose founding members worked at 85 Broad Street in Goldman Sach’s New York office, about her rise to success at Goldman Sachs and the exciting network that she created to empower women, connect them to each other across all stages of life, and connect them to companies who are looking to recruit the best and brightest.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman:Janet, you started as a 24-year-old associate at Goldman Sachs in fixed income sales and trading. Then in 1986, you became the first woman in the firm’s history to be promoted to sales management.  What did you find to be the pros and cons of being one of the lone women succeeding at Wall Street back then?

Janet Hanson: I thinkJanet Hanson they were really all pros – the business and the people who were coming to the firm at that time were so exciting. It was like a giant lab.

SF: What was it like being one of the few women there at the time?

JH: The key to my success was really understanding what the partners cared about. They cared deeply about their firm and how they were viewed by their clients. I learned everything I possibly could about the firm’s history and the firm’s clients, and so when I would have the opportunity to speak with a partner it was about the business. I always tell people, if you want to be taken seriously you have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the company that you work for.

SF: So you’re successful in your role, despite being in the minority as a woman. Fast forward to twenty years later, you found 85 Broads. What lead you to that?

JH: I left Goldman in 1987. After 11 years in a pressure cooker atmosphere, I was pretty burnt out. My thought was just to take a leave of absence. I was 34, and I had focused 100% on my career. I really wanted to reevaluate what my life plan was, because up to that point I didn’t have one.

I was lucky. I got married in 1988. My daughter, Meredith, was born shortly thereafter. My son, Chris, was born in 1990. I found myself knocking on Goldman’s door one more time and was invited back to the asset management division for about two and a half years, and then I bailed because my career really wasn’t going to go anywhere. I had pretty much taken myself out of the partner track when I left in ‘87. I was totally okay with that, but I knew I wanted to do more things with my life and build more things, so I launched Milestone Capital, an asset management company, from scratch in 1995 and built that into a very successful business, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how hard it had been to be at home with two small children full time and how I wanted to reconnect with my colleagues and peers at Goldman and that was quite frankly impossible. I spent a great deal of time thinking about how sad it was that great firms like Goldman Sachs didn’t have alumni networks, because I thought to myself, clearly there’s a role that I could still play in benefiting the firm.

SF: You were feeling personally disconnected, but you also saw that it was a lost opportunity for the firm.

JH: Yes, but I could tell that so many other rock star women that I had worked with and known during my tenure at the firm felt the same way. One day I was out walking my dog in 1997 and I came up with the name 85 Broads, which I thought was hilarious. So I approached Goldman, and I said, “What do you think about creating an alumni network?” They didn’t get it. They didn’t see the need to have a formal connection with people who had made a decision to leave the firm so we were really ahead of our time, because this was just when the internet was starting to be something.

SF: What happened next?

JH: Well the most exciting thing happened. I’d been invited to Harvard Business School to come and speak about being the CEO of Milestone Capital in February of 2000. As I was speaking to 75 to 100 women about what it was like to build an asset management business, I stopped and said, “I don’t want to talk about Milestone anymore, I want to tell you about 85 Broads. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done, and these are the coolest women I’ve ever met and gotten to know.” Then, a girl raised her hand and said, “I don’t mean to be rude but if you look around this room, most of us are not going into banking and even fewer of us are going to Goldman Sachs so you’re talking about a network that the vast majority of the women in this room can’t join.” So I stopped for a second, and I said, “Well I guess that’s over.” Literally like that we opened the network to the women at the leading graduate business schools.

These women were so excited about joining this network. Back in the early 2000s, the markets were exploding so there was a lot of excitement around hiring the best and the brightest. That was when I got recruited by Joe Gregory, who was the President and COO of Lehman Brothers, to use the 85 Broads platform to bring more fabulous women to Lehman. Joe told me that my job was to make sure that we never lost another great woman to Goldman Sachs, who he considered to be their number one competitor. So I got to meet extraordinary women all across the United States.

In 2012, Hanson was named to Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Forbes’ list of “Women Changing The World.” She is the author of More Than 85 Broads and is featured in the just published book, Nothing But the Truth So Help Me God: 73 Women on Life’s Transitions. 

Join Work and Life next Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111 for conversations with Cary Cooper, Distinguished Professor and Tom Gardner, CEO The Motley Fool. Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

About the Author

Alice Liu Alice Liustudied Management at The Wharton School and English (Creative Writing) at the College of Arts & Sciences. She graduated in 2014.

Caring is Our Most Important Work: Anne-Marie Slaughter

Contributor: Liz Stiverson

Work and Life is a two-hour radio program hosted by Stew Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, on Sirius XM’s Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Every Tuesday from 7 to 9 PM EST, Stew speaks with everyday people and the world’s leading experts about creating harmony among work, home, community and the private self (mind, body and spirit).

On Work and Life, Stew Friedman spoke with Anne-Marie Slaughter – author of the ground-breaking 2012 Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” which sparked a national debate about the real pressures of having a career while also serving as a caregiver at home – about a traditional gender bias that underlies the American work-life conflict and the conversation we need to have in order to move forward.

The following are edited excerpts of their conversation.

Stew Friedman: What has changed in your consciousness and perspective in the two years since you wrote your article for The Atlantic?

Anne-Marie Slaughter: Anne-Marie SlaughterA couple of things have changed. When I wrote that article, I started out with the same question Sheryl Sandberg asked, which was, why are there not enough women at the top? Over time, I became increasingly convinced that that question was actually only one part of a two-part question, and it was very important to consider the two parts together. The other part of the question is, why are there so many women at the bottom? Rather than seeing a divide between privileged, elite women and poor women, I came to see those two questions as part of the same issue. It became increasingly evident to me that, in fact, the answer to both of those questions is that as a society, we don’t value care and care-giving. We say we do, but in reality, people who take time out of their careers to give care pay a real price for it. If you take time out from other kinds of work to give care, your career will be penalized. That’s why we see a huge drop-off in women on the leadership track during their child-bearing years.  And if you are the sole care-giver and bread-winner, supporting your family and giving care at the same time, you are much more likely to be at the bottom.

SF: It also affects people in the labor market.  Childcare workers are among the lowest paid people in our country. I say the closer you are to a diaper – at the beginning or end of life – the less you are valued in society.

AMS: That’s absolutely another dimension of this. If you’re doing care-giving work as paid work, you are neither well-paid nor well-respected.

This really shook me up as a feminist. I realized that I had been raised as a feminist, proudly, to think that the work my father did was much more important than the work my mother did. I thought that the way I was going to be somebody in the world was not to do what my mother did – she was a stay-at-home mother and later a superb artist — but primarily defined herself as a wife and a mother. It was obvious to me that I should want to be a professional, because that was “more important” than care work. Realizing this, I had to say, “Wait a minute – that can’t be true.” If men and women are really equal, then the kinds of work we’ve traditionally done has to be equal, too. It can’t just be that we’re equal as long as we all act like men. Most women of my generation, whatever they say, do not think a stay-at-home mom does work that is as important as being the CEO of a think tank, for example. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but that’s just not what we were raised with. And this recognition of the equal value of different kinds of work is not just important for women – it’s vital for men as well. In the end, we are going to need an equal number of people in the workplace and in the home, supporting different kinds of work. If a woman is a CEO, she’s going to need someone at home who is what I call the lead parent, or the flexible caregiver, depending on who is being cared for. The only way to achieve that is to truly value care-giving, and to value it when men do it as well as when women do it.

SF: Yes, absolutely. What have you discovered and what are you advocating for so that we as a society can truly value care-giving?

AMS: The first thing we need is to break this conversation open. When I wrote my article, there were a lot of women thinking, “Everybody just says make it work, do it all, have it all; I’m supposed to be able to be at the top in my career and be a caregiver, but actually, this is really hard, and no one wants to admit it.” Well, we broke that conversation open. I think similarly, we really have to have a conversation that exposes looming biases. Few people will say openly, “Well no, of course care-giving is not as important as being a professor, or a lawyer, or a factory worker, or anything else,” but that’s what they think. Instead, we have to bring that out and look at it. Taking care of children is investing in the human capital of the next generation. There’s actually nothing more important that we do as a society, and if we do it badly, we pay for it economically, socially, criminally, and morally, in the sense of wasted lives and potential.

SF: And we’re not doing well compared to other developed nations.

AMS: Absolutely. And taking care of elders is an affirmation of our common humanity – a recognition that we will all be there someday. As well as making people’s lives longer and better, it’s a basic commitment to human dignity. Skilled care-giving requires education and experience, and we have to recognize that it’s something we should be valuing every bit as much as we value lending money or drawing up a will.

Anne-Marie Slaughter was the Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department under Hilary Clinton, and is now the President and CEO of The New America Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy institute addressing the next generation of challenges facing the U.S. New America is actively working on issues of bread-winning and care-giving (their more gender-neutral term for family and workforce topics) including cross-generational engagement through technology and the future of higher education after college to enable lifelong learning from multiple sources. Learn more at New America’s website. For more from Slaughter, follow her on Twitter @SlaughterAM.

Join Work and Life next Tuesday, June 3 at 7 pm on Sirius XM Channel 111 for conversations with Shannon Schuyler, Principal and Corporate Responsibility leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Liza Mundy, author of The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Our Culture. Visit Work and Life for a full schedule of future guests.

About the Author:

Liz Stiverson Liz Stiversonreceived her MBA from The Wharton School in 2014.