Why should I care about equal care?

Well, it’s a tricky topic which at some point will crop up in every relationship. It’s hard for all of us to navigate; none of us have hit on the perfect solution or the perfect balance – but that’s exactly why we need to talk about it, and why we need to find better ways to share the care!

That’s also why Equal Care Day is so important to me. Our guest in this week’s podcast – writer, journalist and speaker Almut Schnerring – founded Equal Care Day with her partner Sascha Verlan in 2016, and the idea was always that it should fall on the 29th of February, “the day we don’t see,” as she explains. “Most of the time we oversee it, and that’s what happens to care work.”

In the run up to this year’s Equal Care Day, she explained why the care gap is at the source of all the other injustices talked about more frequently – the pay gap, the pension gap, etc. “The lifetime earning gap is the biggest,” she says. In households with children, „women spend an average of 5 hours and 18 minutes a day on care work, while men only spend 2.5 hours.”

It made me wonder whether there’s a way to shift the rhetoric around care work from the current negative stereotypes (an unpaid career bummer) to something more positive – sharing care work more fairly doesn’t just improve your relationship with your partner and your kids, it also means that both parents benefit from the leadership skills that active parenting teaches us. How can we all do that? Well, I would suggest that –

👉 women give men a chance (so stop trying to do it all yourselves);
👉 male employees be braver about asking for parental leave;
👉 employers actively encourage their male team members to go on parental leave so that it becomes normalised.

We’ll be talking about all this and more this Thursday at Equal Care Day (I’ll be on a live panel  with Sandra Westermann, Johanna Fink, Dr. Nina Gillmann and Johanna Mühlbeyer which you can find out more about here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/equalcare-whyshouldicare7163890428738547713/comments/)

More information on Instagram @equalcareday or equalcareday.de online.

Speaker: Almut Schnerring – Author, Journalist, Speaker, Equalcareday founder
Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder MyCollective

Photo: Larissa Neubauer

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“Everyone is talking about AI and where to use AI,” says Christina Sontheim-Leven in our newest podcast – and as CHRO and board member of @CEWE , she’s fully aware of the importance of encouraging people within her organisation to “broaden their minds to use AI as a co-pilot.” 

But even as we’re increasingly able to automate work tasks, the skills that people bring to the table remain important. Especially if they’re parents: “If you ever have a kid and you need to get their shoes on their feet within a really short time, you really hard-core learn about the power of incentivisation,” laughs Christina, adding that “you can’t force them or put pressure on them.” Those soft skills are vital to “help leaders to develop strong relationships with their team members, motivating them and providing them the support that they need.”

In her podcast, she discussed how she is driving diversity and inclusion in her role at CEWE, but also had some useful advice for anyone in any position who wants to see more diversity and access more opportunities: “Be brave.” To be more specific – 

👉ignore the naysayers. “When you have kids people tell you what won’t work out, and sometimes you just have to close your ears,” she says. You decide what’s possible.

👉“dare to have career ambitions” and talk to your employer about what you need to make that happen.

👉Look for alliances, other people in your organisation who have been down that road. 

👉Find mentors, “male or female, within or outside your company.”  

👉Network, even if that just means finding someone else to eat your lunch with in the canteen, or broaching subjects beyond babies in your baby-group. “You will be surprised how much you can take with you as inspiration and also as support, because there will be others facing the difficult situations that you have to cope with. They might even have a specialised life hack for that situation.” 

Let us know what you think! 

Speaker: @Christina Sontheim-Leven – CHRO and Board Member @CEWE

Interviewer: Dr. @Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Photo: Christina Sontheim-Leven / CEWE 

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #womenleaders #AI #futurework #newwork #peopleskills #leadership #parenthood #diversity #changemakers #getinspired #podcast #ImpulseSessions #parentalleave #elternzeit

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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Anne Theiss wrote a book while she was pregnant with and then nursing her baby – her new novel, “Die Abwertung der Mütter – Wie überholte Familienpolitik uns den Wohlstand kostet” (The Devaluation of Mothers – How outdated family policies are costing us our prosperity) hit bookstores this September. 

But she was a very different parent to her older child. “My daughter has a cognitive handicap,” she explains in this podcast. “So I went very quickly to – I am the most important person for the child. No one even asked if I want I go back to work anymore, or what my wishes are. I had to be there for my child.” 

That social pressure on women to be the number one parent and stay at home remains widespread in Germany, argues Theiss. “The socialisation is so strong to be at home, to be as a woman with your child – we are often quite insecure whether going back to work as the right thing,” she says. 

That comes as a huge cost. It robs companies of highly skilled labour – and the country of a vital sector of its workforce. “It’s a really strange thing,” she says, “because in Germany we are so proud of our innovation, but when it comes to mothers, we totally forget the potential.” 

Change needs to come at every level, from us as individuals, to companies, to politics. So she suggests not one, but three calls to action: 

👉 individuals: “Do whatever you like, and go for it!” Remember that by making that choice, you will be a role model and inspiration to other young women too. 

👉 companies: Communicate. Don’t just say that you’re parent-friendly, but really talk to the mothers in your company, both before and after they’ve given birth. 

👉 politics: Invest in the daycare system! (And if that means eradicating Ehegattensplitting – or joint taxation for anyone outside Germany – then so be it…)

Another highlight for me was being able to attend Anne’s book launch and hearing her mention @MyCollective as one of the drivers of positive change. Let’s make the world better together 🥰💪

Speaker: @Anne Theiss – Author & Speaker @Burda Media

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Photo: Tom Ziora

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Isabel Hochgesand’s meteoric career took her from Managing Director and Procurement VP at Procter&Gamble to Chief Procurement Officer at global skincare company Beiersdorf. She says she “didn’t have any career goals when [she] started“ – but when her role was moved abroad and friends pressured her to stay with her partner, something shifted. “This was the first time I felt a bit of a revolution within me.” 

Ever since then, she took the path less trodden. In 2001, she turned down a highly sought-after position in Geneva for a location-free job in Frankfurt to be with her husband. “I was first the guinea-pig and then the role model for working location-free,” she says. So she made the option available to others, and built „the best, closely-knit virtual team.” 

She shared some great leadership and life lessons – my main takeaways: 

👉 Embrace innovative working models, such as job tandems. “Best for parents who want to work part-time and also progress in their career and development.” For companies it’s also a way to retain talent and boost motivation and loyalty.

👉 Don’t bow to societal pressure. In the U.S., Isabel’s 4 months maternity leave was considered long – in Germany people felt it was too short. Expectations differ from country to country and even from person to person, so don’t sweat it. 

👉 The importance of networks. Isabel has created networks for women and stresses the importance of peer coaching. Since we do both at MyCollective, it was great to hear this from someone with her experience 🥰

👉 Be confident! After our podcast, she told me that she recently had two women apply for a job in her team – both returning from parental leave and aiming for higher positions. She was really impressed by their confidence – and then realised that they came straight out of the MyCollective programme ❤️❤️❤️ 

I’m so happy that Beiersdorf’s collaboration with MyCollective includes all parental leavers all over the world – if anyone from Beiersdorf reading this is on parental leave and wants to join the programme, please let me know! 

PS: Our programmes are also open for DADs! As we all know, the more dads take parental leave, the more it normalises a return to a career for everyone. We also have a close cooperation with @Volker Baisch and his Väternetzwerk conpadres – and since he is also active with Beiersdorf’s @DAD.icated network, the circle closes here. #ChangingTheNarrative really is a collaboration!

Speaker: @Isabel Hochgesand – Chief Procurement Officer @Beiersdorf AG

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Photo: Isabel Hochgesand 

#getinspired #podcast #MyCollective #femaleleadership #womeninpower #equality #flexiblework #newwork #diversity #changemakers #equalopportunity #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #parenthood #parentalleave #elternzeit