For many parents, returning to work after having a baby is the first – and biggest – hurdle to staying in a career. What can really help is knowing the possibilities, and having the transparent conversations that you need to have at work and at home so that both you and your team can plan ahead for your re-entry. 

In this podcast, lawyer, author and entrepreneur Sandra Runge takes us through some of the options, starting with her own experience as a cautionary tale: when she came back to her job as head of a legal department 10 years ago, she found an empty office where her computer had been, was told that her role had been outsourced, handed her notice and sent home. Although she was devastated at the time, she says now that the experience changed her life for the better. 

Today, she gives legal and professional advice to parents who want to return to work; she has set up kindergartens to provide childcare solutions for working parents; she runs campaigns for better legal frameworks as the co-founder of ProParents; and she has written a celebrated book – „Glückwunsch zum Baby, sie sind gefeuert!” – or “Congratulations on your baby, you’re fired!“

This podcast is full of invaluable advice for parents returning to work, including:

⭐️ Communicate! „Communication is one of the most important parts of a strategy coming back to work,” says Sandra. „Look for a conversation, ask for a meeting, come by when the baby is born, participate in activities of the company like a training day, or a summer party or Christmas party of whatever. Keep in contact with colleagues – and from time to time talk to your employer to ask for updates. I know you are in this baby bubble and it’s not always easy to go there – but it’s really good to be active and to show your face.” For employers, it’s a good idea to check in with your parental leavers from time to time.

⭐️ Be bold. “Ask for an onboarding after your parental leave,” suggests Sandra, so that you know „what will happen when you come back.” She suggests asking for a mentor too – it would benefit both you and your company. 

⭐️ Cover your legal bases and put any important decisions on the record: „When you have meetings and your manager is saying part-time is no problem, fix it in a written form.“

⭐️ Be a role model. Family-friendly companies don’t necessarily need to make a big financial investment, says Sandra: „it’s more the mindset – that there are role models, managers in a higher position that work part time, fathers that work part time – that this is really the real life that is lived in the company.” You are a part of that!

Whatever your company’s policies, everyone can be proactive about removing those initial hurdles. If we all do it, we can change the narrative around parental leave and working parents, together ❤️

Speaker: Sandra Runge – lawyer, author, entrepreneur

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Manu Wolf / Sandra Runge

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #parentalleave #elternzeit

Although during your parental leave you’ll be focused on spending time with your baby, this is also an excellent time to check your finances, says Astrid Zehbe.

The journalist and mother of two has always had an interest in female finances, and she turned that into a career during her own parental leave, when she co-founded the magazine Courage to cover female careers, finance and wellbeing. Today, she is editor in chief at finanzielle, a finance magazine for women published by Emotion Magazine.

In this podcast, she shares a wealth of knowledge and advice on things that we can do now – particularly if we are on parental leave – to ensure that we are financially independent later in life. Parental leave is a great time to do this for two reasons (and it’s not because you have time off, because we all know that’s not true!) 

⭐️ there’s a new urgency to ensure that our finances are in order because there’s an extra person in the family;

⭐️ any decision that we make to work less after our parental leave ends will result in a pay-gap and later a pension-gap. So it’s really important to plan for the financial  consequences when making those decisions now. 

Of course, she has solutions to offer. And she also recommends investing for our children now, not later: „They have a very long investing horizon,” she says, „so you can invest very risky because it’s such a long time – so I would just start right away.” 

But, as they say in the airplane, remember to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others! By securing your own financial future, you are of course also helping your children, because you won’t be a financial burden on them later.

And of course, talk to your partner and make sure you are on the same page 💕

What are you doing to prepare for the time after your parental leave when it comes to finances? How have you and your partner addressed the pay-gap and pension-gap of the parent who is taking on more care work? 

Speaker: Astrid Zehbe, Editor in Chief @finanzielle Magazine @emotion

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Markus Witte / Astrid Zehbe

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

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Leadership isn’t a position, it’s a behaviour. And no matter where we are in our company’s hierarchy, we can all change our behaviour, and by extension our work culture, says Rainer Höll. 

Rainer Höll is an Organisational Developer: he’s a soul-searcher, a philosopher, a visionary, who helps companies ask themselves the tough questions needed to become better workplaces.

In his particular case, he realised that the organisation that he was CEO of at the time – Ashoka Germany – would benefit from a less hierarchical structure, so he took steps to change that. „We distributed the leadership across all members of the team; that’s when I switched my title from Managing Director to partner – all the permanent members of the team became partners,” he explains in this Podcast. 

Ashoka may be an extreme case of an organisation abandoning its hierarchies entirely – but there are lessons in this for any company. It’s about overcoming fears, building trust and authenticity, and a more open workplace. „There are so many conversations that don’t happen in conventional organisations because people are afraid of bringing up certain topics,” says Höll. „You have a default, which is the conventional hierarchy – but no one really questions it because no one knows if it’s dangerous to question it. But it’s entirely possible to have a conscious conversation about – is this the best set-up for us? It’s not about the intricacies and the details of the decision-making structure; it’s the cultural foundation of trust and conversational ability that you need to build.”

That culture of open conversation and trust makes for a more attractive workplace – and staff who are more open to developing leadership skills at any level. „There are a lot of competencies around emotional self-management or having a systemic view of an organisation – that’s a typical leader skill toolset,” he says. “If you distribute the decisions-making power among people, everyone needs to be able to do that.” And everyone benefits.

Speaker: Rainer Höll, Executive Coach and Organisational Developer

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Rainer Höll / Christian Klant

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #changemakers #leadership #sustainability #talentsustainability #parenthood #workwithouthierarchy #workculture #socialenterprise #newwork#workingparents #parentalleave #elternzeit #changingthenarrative

Laura Gersch is a parent. She’s also CFO at Allianz Versicherungs-AG. So she knows first-hand that having a family and a career at the same time takes planning – even if you don’t end up sticking to the plan 😊

As a manager, she asks parental leavers some tough questions. „What I want to trigger is the discussion in the family,” she explains. She doesn’t actually need to know those answers herself, she just wants the family in question to give it a think. 

„If the idea is to come back at some point and to somehow juggle two jobs and kids, then it’s very valuable to ask some questions up front. It doesn’t mean you will realise the plan because you cannot plan everything around babies. But I want people to think before they leave, What actually is my plan for coming back?”

Some of the questions that she says need to be on your list: 

⭐︎ the starting point: what do you mean by career? Do you want to just keep a toe in the water for now, or actively grow your career? 

⭐︎ the working model: once you’ve established that, how can you make it happen while also being there for your family? She mentions some options: full time but flexible hours / reduced hours / job-sharing.

⭐︎ preparing your re-entry:  Talk to your boss. And build peer groups at work with people who have had similar experiences and 😎programmes like @mycollective really help!

⭐︎ your financial independence, especially long-term: if you think that your decision to work part-time only affects your income now, you’re wrong. There are lots of different solutions to protecting your financial independence later, including having part of your household money go to pension payments for the parent who is doing more care-work and earning less money.

What other questions do you think we should be asking ourselves, as #workingparents with #careers ?

Speaker: Laura Gersch, CFO, Allianz Versicherungs-AG / Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Laura Gersch

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #womenchangemakers #womenleaders #leadership #diversity #paygap #pensiongap #equality #careers #femalecareers #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #parenthood #workingparents #parentalleave #elternzeit #rentenluecke

Job sharing seems to be the ideal solution to combine career and family. So why do people still hesitate? We speak to Dr. Nina Gillmann to find out more.

Since Nina Gillmann moved back to Germany from the States and saw that „management in Germany looked very white and very male” by comparison, she’s been on a mission to diversify our workplaces. So she set up TWISE – Twice Wise – an agency that creates job-sharing partnerships for people who want to work part-time in high-powered, fulfilling jobs. The solution is to apply for those jobs in tandem with someone who has similar experience and skills.

“One company asked me, ‚Frau Gillmann, can you explain why we fill any vacancy with one single person?’” Nina Gillmann remembers. It was a question that was meant to be ironic – but her honest answer was: “I don’t understand it – it makes no economic sense!”

As far as she’s concerned, working in tandem is a win-win for everyone. Companies attract more female talent in leadership positions, which means that they actually perform better. Parents can work in a position that is truly part-time but still give it their all. And companies get a much greater return than they would from one full-time staffer. 

„You get the equivalent of 140 or even 150% productivity back,” she says. “When two people have the same interests, they trust each other and they have no fear – this is where the synergies happen in a tandem. And that’s where we are arguing it goes from 120% productivity to maybe even 150. So it’s an economic no-brainer.” 

I could go on and on quoting the things that Nina said in this podcast – she said so many insightful and game-changing things that I wanted to write them all down! Instead, I encourage you to just listen to the whole conversation!

I will leave you with this: „Tandems lead to more women. Women make companies more successful. It’s just a very simple equation.” 💃🏾

Speaker: Dr. Nina Gillmann, Founder and CEO @TWISE

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Michael Kleinespel / Dr. Nina Gillmann 

Graphic & Production: MyCollective