Tandem solutions may not be mainstream yet, but at @MyCollective we’re hearing more and more people talking about them – and our community are parents who work in a really diverse range of industries. Some of them have even formed a group for tandems, so it was exciting for us to have @Nina Gillmann return to our podcast. Nina is co-founder and CEO of @TWISE, a company that creates tandem solutions and that has worked with many of our participants.

The perspective that our work gives us on parents returning to their careers post-baby has shown us that tandems are a really important piece of the solution. They represent an innovative and fluid working model that makes being a hands-on parent while accelerating your career actually possible. “For parents with really small children, working 25-30 hours per week is realistic and that doesn’t fit with the expectations for a leadership position, which is more like 50-70 hours per week,” Nina explains. But if there are two of you, 50-70 hours becomes realistic – AND you still have time for family.

For companies, there are lots of advantages:

👉 two people = more skills, more ideas, more experience.
👉 everything has already been vetted by two people, meaning less work for their immediate manager and fewer mistakes.
👉 managers and team leaders become drivers for diversity, making them a real talent magnet.

Nina lists some interesting pluses for individuals in a tandem too:
🙌 it broadens your skillset because “you have an expert at your side who has it in his or her own best interest to teach you and to transfer everything they know.”
🙌  Pitching ideas as “we” instead of “I” is “a beautifully subtle way for women to gain more visibility, more credibility and more power.”
🙌  When you can’t be at work, you know that the person backfilling for you fully wants you to succeed – it’s their job as well as yours!

Speaker: @Nina Gillmann – Co-founder and CEO, @TWISE

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Photo: Nina Gillmann

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