126: The Parental Leave Playbook with Amy Beacom and Sue Campbell

Welcome back to the Career Clarity Show! We are talking about a topic that in the 100 plus episodes of the show  we have never covered before: Parental Leave.

Because when we talk about career clarity and finding a path that feels like it truly fits you, one of the biggest pieces of that is the life that you want to have. It’s not just about the job you’re doing, or the responsibilities that you have on your job description. It’s about how your work enables you to live the life that you want to live. And for many of us that life includes a family. 

So I am so excited for us to talk about the topic of parenthood, parental leave, and making work work for you. Dr. Amy Beacom and Sue Campbell, authors of The Parental Leave Playbook, are here to share their expertise.

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

Show Notes:

• The Parental Leave Playbook
• Center for Parental Leave Leadership
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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Transcript

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04   

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host, and each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Career Clarity Show. I’m your host, Lisa Miller. And I’m delighted that you are here with us today. On today’s episode of the podcast, we are talking about a topic that we in the 100 plus episodes of the show have never covered before. And I feel both a little bit embarrassed about that and extremely excited about the conversation that you were about to hear. Because when we talk about career clarity and finding a path that feels like it truly fits you and your values and your needs, one of the biggest pieces of that is the life that you want to have. Right? It’s not just about the job you’re doing, or the responsibilities that you have on your job description. It’s not just about the team you’re working on or the industry that you’re working in. It’s about how your work enables you to live the life that you want to live. And for many of us that life includes a family. Maybe it is creating a family through more traditional or more typical means maybe it is creating a family through untraditional, or special, unique circumstances. But for many of us, when we think about the life we want to have and the legacy that we want to leave. It involves becoming a parent or a caregiver in some capacity. And when you think about the four pillars of career fulfillment, and you think about that lifestyle pillar, and how you make sure that your work allows you to have the lifestyle that you want. There are a lot of layers to what that can mean especially when you’re either going through the change of becoming a parent for the first time, or you are growing and expanding your family beyond first time Parenthood. So I am so excited for us to talk about the topic of parenthood, parental leave, and making work work for you. With our guests on the podcast today. Let me tell you a little bit about our guests today. I have two guests for you. The first is Dr. Amy Beacom. Amy Beacom is the founder and CEO of the Center for parental leave leadership, the first consultancy in the US to focus exclusively on parental leave, drawing on over 25 years and executive leadership development and coaching. Amy consults with fortune 100 companies, international organizations, working parents and more to transform the way our companies and our country engage with the parental leave transition. Our second guest on today’s episode is Sue Campbell. Sue is a writer, author and coach who has worked with the Center for parental leave leadership since its early days, helping to communicate the transformative impact of their core mission. Her writing, often focused on issues important to parents has been published in many outlets, including prevention. Good Housekeeping, scary mommy and Mama load. I am so thrilled to have these two luminaries on the show today. Amy and Sue, welcome to the two of you.

Amy Beacom  3:33  

Thanks so much for having us, Lisa.

Sue Campbell  3:35  

Thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

Lisa Lewis Miller  3:38  

The place where I feel like we have to start the conversation is probably the obvious question of as to folks who founded and built the parental leave Leadership Center. What was the impetus for starting this chapter of your work and have your impact?

Amy Beacom  3:59  

Such a good question. I’m I’m going to take that one because it started with me over nearly 15 years ago when I had my first child. And that was if you can imagine what our country was like 15 years ago, parental leave was not a topic in any way. It was something that on the first of all, it wasn’t even parental leave as maternity leave. It was something that women did. And they didn’t talk about it. They go away, they’d have a baby, you never hear about it. And they come back the exact same person into their job and put their heads down and try to fit in. And I at the time, I was living in New York and consulting with some big companies in New York and working on my doctorate where I was focused on women’s economic advancement, leadership and coaching. And so I I had this experience of doing that while becoming a parent for the first time And it was so incredibly unexpected and unexpectedly difficult. I thought I really knew what I was doing. I had a history, a background in work life balance issues, I really was sort of arrogant about my ability to handle this, you know, I’m just gonna have a kid I’m gonna go on, it’s gonna be fine. And that’s not what happened. It’s not what happened at all, I really was blindsided by some postpartum depression that I wasn’t expecting or planning for. I was blindsided by how my relationship with my partner shifted, how I expected my community and family to be in certain ways that they weren’t, and just the whole thing was really, really not what I expected or planned for. And so what I realized in that experience, and it was because I had just created this first coaching curriculum at Columbia University to train people in executive coaching, I realized that we were overlooking one of our or if not the most important transition in a person’s career lifecycle and their personal and their professional life cycle, by not supporting this time frame well, by not creating explicit processes and procedures and ways of doing it and just bringing the experience out of the shadows and treating it like any other life transition at work and home. So that led me to start the Center for parental leave leadership.

Lisa Lewis Miller  6:40  

For people who aren’t yet parents like myself, it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come in a very short amount of time, and how shockingly little was available to people who became parents, even just a decade ago. And I think it’s, it is such a courageous thing, it’s such an important thing to found the center and to create the resources and the points of view that you put out there about what’s good, and what’s possible, and what should be the standards across different organizations. So I wonder, maybe where we go from there in the conversation is talking about what the organization’s been doing over the last 15 years? 

Amy Beacom  7:31  

Hmm, what? CPL center for parental leave, leadership has been doing? Oh, my goodness, everything. We’ve had to wear every hat imaginable. And so I welcome you to jump in to any of this. The what’s been really interesting is the first thing we had to do is create a language for this. I mean, as you noted, 15 years, 14 and a half years ago when my son was born, but even my daughter who just started sixth grade this week, we didn’t have smartphones, we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have any of those ways of communicating are starting to get that out there. So a lot of the early work was just in forming a language. When I first said that parental leave as a transition, people looked at me like I was crazy. So it was like, okay, no, this is a three phase transition over time. And these things happen in replicable ways over this timeframe. And then there’s infinite variability for each individual and their unique circumstance within that. But there are some mile markers that we can really walk through and know happen happen for everyone. So we’ve, what we, the way that it started was I shifted my doctoral research to create this field. And so I created the first evidence based framework for exec maternity coaching at the time. And then there wasn’t a market for it, or even awareness in the US. So we had to move into Australia to do some beta testing and making sure everything worked the way that we, you know, I thought that it would as part of my research, and so that was fascinating to get to do that in another country. And then by the time we got some really good evidence around that, I was starting to get calls from companies saying, Hey, we hear you’re doing this thing, parental leave coaching, maternity coaching, can you talk to us about that, what we’re starting to look at our paid leave policy. And, and that’s right when some of the bigger companies in the tech world started to do paid leave policies in in our country. So that’s in about the last seven years that shifted and then the last three, it’s really picked Steam. And I just want to say, because it’s so exciting and historic. Right now as we’re speaking today, there’s a paid leave bill that has just been moved out of the House Ways and Means Committee and may actually is being discussed as passing as part of the infrastructure bill. So it is a very real possibility for the first time ever, that we may have a national paid leave policy in this country. And we are the only one in the world that doesn’t. So it is a big step and a long overdue step.

Sue Campbell  10:35  

Yeah. And what  I found fascinating this as Sue coming in and starting to work with Amy, about seven or eight years ago, was her approach to going into this conversation, not as this is a mom’s problem to fix, or this is a parent’s job to deal with on the sidelines, which was very much the case. When I had my first child, right? It was like, You figure this out, and then you figure out how to come back to work and nobody wants to hear about it, right? Unless you know, a couple of your co workers want to see some pictures, that’s about it. And the experience that you have at home, during your parental leave is so hugely impacted by your work culture and the climate at your work. Right. So Amy, I was just like, you are brilliant for focusing on the company, right? How do we train the managers? In addition to coaching the parents? How do we train the managers? How do we help the company create a solid policy where none exists at a national level, because a lot of people sink or swim by the kind of boss that they have. So if you can change the culture of an entire organization, you’re gonna have a huge impact on those parents. And you’re going to reinforce the fact that this is not something that’s wrong with them. And it’s their problem to fix. And having a paid leave policy at a national level will be so helpful. But it really is just a starting point. Because we have big shifts in practice that need to happen, especially for a lot of employers who may have an attitude of like be grudging, right of like, this is, you know, something that’s going to get in my way, but the fact is, it will be a lot better for employers, because it’s not something they will have to come up with on their own in order to retain key talent, it’s like there will be a national policy, that will be you know, this cost sharing will be distributed, it will just be a much better model. But then once it’s sort of equalized across the board companies need to stand out by their culture, and how they treat people who are actually using the leaf, right? So I love that Amy has been working on this for so long, because we can now step in and be like, okay, paid leave doesn’t mean it’s over. It actually means there’s a lot of work that we have to do to implement it. Well.

Lisa Lewis Miller  12:55  

It’s such such an important point. And it’s funny that it’s 2021. And we’re having this conversation in the United States. And it’s also, you know, a sigh of relief. And thank goodness, it’s 2021. And we are finally having this conversation in the United States. And so Sue, I want to come back to you because I feel like you just teed up a really juicy conversation, which is about the baseline, and what should parents expect to be able to have access to? And then you also sort of tease this other piece of the, the above and beyond. And I’m curious, if you were advising someone on how to select an organization to go to next, if they wanted to be a parent, maybe they were already pregnant, but they didn’t really like that parental leave policy at their current organization. what’s what’s the baseline that someone should be looking for and should be expecting from an organization?

Sue Campbell  13:52  

Well, the truth is you there’s no way you can expect anything, you have to look at each individual organization at this point. So don’t assume that everyone is meeting a certain baseline and you’re looking for the places with gravy, right? You need to carefully examine each potential employer and look at what their actual policy is. A lot of that you can get off their website, if they’re doing a really good job of it. Generally, their PR team is bragging about it at some point. So you can find maybe a news story when they release their policy. You can see if they have you know, asked about sort of the you know, the extracurriculars of work what groups do you have for employees to engage in, you don’t even have to necessarily tip them off that you’re thinking about parenting specifically. But have them show you the list of you know, oh, this team of volunteers does, you know work in the community and look to see if they have a parent group, right? They call them Parent Resource Group sometimes or er G’s. That’s generally a good sign. You’re looking for a policy that goes beyond anything that’s mandated by the state. There are what nine states in DC or is it more now Amy that have a state policy or in the process of implementing a state policy so you do want to look for companies that are going even a little bit beyond that. Look for any sort of extra you know, the perk perks, right? Do they offer milk stork, if you have to travel and you’re breastfeeding? Do they offer like a daycare stipend, diaper stipend, depending on your industry, some industries are further along in what they offer than others. So if you’re in the tech industry, you will find some companies with some serious perks, if you’re in some other industries, you may or may not, but it’s really important for you to go in not expect that somebody has at least something because there are companies that do not have anything. So it’s up to you to really evaluate that. Anything to add to that, Amy.

Amy Beacom  15:50  

I just want to underscore it. I mean, there’s only 20%, roughly 20% of people in the US have access to either one day of paid leave. So if you think about that, that’s, you know, 80% don’t so I think I would also add, look as much as you can for people who work there and what they’re saying about it. So Glassdoor review or something like that, because you really want to get at the culture, do they have that policy, but then all the managers make it difficult to take it? You know, is it is it all talk and and windowed dressing? Yeah.

Lisa Lewis Miller  16:36  

Amy, I think that’s such a good point. And I think that I, I’m feeling embarrassed because I can’t remember the names of any of the other places that offer this off the top of my head, but there are some women specific employer review websites online, where you can actually see what does this employer give as maternity leave? Right, so they think about it through a more woman focus lens. Yeah, they rate you know how well this organization actually support women in their career growth, how well does organizations support women in taking parental leave?

Amy Beacom  17:14  

our favorites are a pre and fairy god boss that do that really well. Those are

Sue Campbell  17:21  

Also another important things to think about. If you are a woman in you know, hetero relationship, or even in a, you know, female female relationship, you want to look at what your partner has available to based on your status. Because having your partner home with you, if you are the one who’s carrying the child, having a partner home with you, for a good chunk of time, and having them have parental leave will really increase your chances of feeling like your parental leave was enjoyable and successful. So don’t underestimate looking at you know, if you’re, if your partner’s also job seeking, make sure that they have benefits. Often if you are a female female couple, but you’re not the, you know, primary parent, they’ll make you you know, some of our policies are still quite backward. So even companies that are offering something, they’re trying to couch it and not have to pay as much. So they’re only going to offer someone with a lead parent status, right. So if your partner is not the one carrying the child or is not so called the lead parent, which is ridiculous concept to begin with. You may not have that level of support, or they may not have paternity leave that men are eligible for, you know, male male couples have even more challenges to face with a lot of these policies because they were sort of put in place and never thought about the impact and the ripple effect that they have on all types of family formations.

Lisa Lewis Miller  18:49  

That’s such a great point. I, one of the things that I’m curious about his what are the gold standards, when you’re looking at organizations that are just blowing you away, and helping you to set what the recommendations ought to be for what organizations can offer to really support parents in this time of transition? What are some of those awesome, almost unheard of perks, you know, things you would have never expected or dreamt of 10 years ago, but now, depending on where you look are available.

Amy Beacom  19:26  

I have to start with just coaching. Our parental leave coaching, I would just because I’ve been banging my head against the wall for 15 years on this one. The it is the number one thing that will help this transition for an individual who’s going through it. It is it is the number one thing and we’ve seen research over the last 10 years of our work showing that over and over. But it’s expensive and so companies will do anything possible to avoid it. So they may do which means very few companies in the US offer a parental leave coaching benefit for moms, dads and managers. And they shouldn’t they should rethink that not just because I’m invested in it happening, but because it’s, it will pay for itself many, many, many times over. So that’s the gold standard that you have a minimum. So I am about to say 12 weeks, but it makes me even, I’m so annoyed with that, I think a minimum should be 20 weeks. as a as a baseline standard, you at 12 weeks, you’re barely healing if you’ve been a birthing parent, you’re just starting to get your sea legs and you’re instantly and you’re asked to leave a child with a different caregiver. You know, it’s just, it’s it’s painful, heartbreaking and ridiculous. So 20 weeks minimum coaching support, and we do all of our retained certified coaches are also changed in perinatal mental health support. So we offer the first perinatal mental health screening to be used in a workplace setting. And what that does is it gives someone another point of contact, keeping an eye on them so that their perinatal mental health and wellness is really considered and tracked with them. So that is, that is key to you want to pop in with any

Sue Campbell  21:32  

flexibility is just really important. Let that parent drive the train on if they want to come back intermittently, if they want to come back half time, if they want to come back, you know, full time, but then take another two weeks off later, we just give them the flexibility to do what is right for them. Because that reduces so much stress on the part of the parent and they are able to come back in a way that is so much stronger, and that goodwill is there and the energy level is there. So giving them the flexibility to decide how they re enter and what their schedule may look like is really really huge. Also look for leadership at the top leading by example. Right so are the leaders and managers of that company actually taking leave and modeling that is okay to do. And that is encouraged to use this benefit is another huge one. And just having that manager trained in how to support that person, right managers are just left on their own to figure it out. And the reason a lot of them don’t say anything, is because they’re terrified of saying the wrong thing. Right, they may have great intentions, and they just do not want to stick their foot in it. So if they have a little bit of support, then they can manage well. And that’s a chance for that whole team to improve. You can improve team communication, there can be succession planning happening while that parent is out, you can be training up and cross training your team. Amy, one of the things that pulled me in when we started working together because it was true for me in my experience is that parental leave is the most overlooked leadership development opportunity for your employers, right? Like your heart grows three sizes, your multitasking ability grows three sizes, like it is just a huge burst of growth that employers can take advantage of, but they actually choose to ignore or suppress. And it’s ridiculous.

Lisa Lewis Miller  23:34  

It’s a great point. And, you know, I think that hearing you talk about that, so often a manager wants to be supportive, but doesn’t know how and is terrified of saying the wrong thing. You know, I think about so many different protected classes at work, or so many underrepresented groups at work. And they all could be described with that same, that same lens of a well meaning but fearful and under equipped manager supporting an employee through a gender transition at work, or supporting an employee who is part of the LGBTQ community and needs to access benefits differently. Mm hmm. So I think that that manager development both on the part of the the person who is managing the parent, before and during and after the leave, you know, in addition to the parent themselves, there’s there’s so many opportunities for leadership development in there.

Sue Campbell  24:34  

Right and your question earlier about, you know, what should a parent sort of expect as a baseline, the one thing most parents should expect is that you’re going to have to leave your leave, right? You’re going to have to manage up a little bit. In almost every case, even with a manager who has great intentions you’re going to have to manage up when I had my first child again almost 14 years ago because Amy and I met because our kids started school together when When I went on leave the first time, and I was not a super young mom, I think it was about 30. And I was just waiting for everyone to tell me like how this was all gonna work, right? Like, here’s how much leave you get. And here’s how you plan to go out. And here’s how you’ll come back. And like just I expected someone to just hand it to me, right? I worked in a bureaucracy, I worked for a city government, I’m like, surely someone has thought of this and done this before. And it wasn’t the case at all. And so I was in a very reactive position of responding to things that were happening, not knowing that I could ask for what I wanted, right, that that actually left me room to make the case and advocate for myself. So after that, and I started working with Amy and I had another child, like, almost eight years after my first one, and that lead was completely different, because I took on that leadership role for my leave, and it made a huge, huge difference.

Lisa Lewis Miller  25:54  

Well, Sue, I love that point about being the leader in your own leave, not because it’s the hand that we’re dealt, and were sort of forced to play, but because in so many areas of life, if you’re taking initiative and taking charge of an experience that you have, it’s so much more likely you’re gonna get the outcome that you want. Exactly. Well said. So Amy, let me actually bring this question over to you. When you’re supporting someone and thinking about how to take charge of their parental leave experience, and what they asked for and how long they take and how they advocate for themselves and the right way to advocate for themselves? What are some of the considerations that you and your team of coaches bring to the forefront?

Amy Beacom  26:38  

There’s a lot of ways to answer that. I think one of the most important things we do is we bring that process to them. So we have what’s called a 10, a transition touchpoints model that we use that the book is based around. And the first a is announcement. And each a announcement, the next is act, assess action plan, acknowledge the transition to parenthood. So we’re having them really think through these different things that happen at the different phases of their transition. And just having that roadmap is such an enormous relief for so many. And it’s done in a way that’s, that’s thoughtful to the transition process. So we don’t say start with action planning, we don’t say plan your lead plan first, you know, we say, hey, let’s think about how you want to set the tone for this. And you do that through your announcement, do you that’s where you get to choose to lead your leave, by the way that you present it and and then on the flip side, all of our work is aligned training with managers and employees. So on the flip side, that manager how they respond to that announcement is what they’ll be learning about, do you say, Oh, crap, you can’t be you know, or do you welcome that and, and congratulate them. So starting with that, and then moving into assessment, both of you, we have a system called the success system for transition success, and it the SS I’m sorry, a lot of acronyms or letters and things, but it’s not as confusing as I may be making it sound. But what that what those are, are you looking at your situation around you, you’re looking at yourself, you’re looking at your strategies that you may go, you know, your go to coping mechanisms, you’re looking at your sabotages, both internally and externally. And, you know, six, six different things. And what that allows that new parent to do right off the bat, is get a really good handle on where their assets and their liabilities are in their transition. And we have the parental leave transition assessment report. So they literally take a survey as part of their work and get a report back that says, Here’s your assets, here’s your liabilities, here’s your pivot points, you know, where you may be able to go one way or the other. And here’s your risk score, you know, here’s your calculated risk score of your transition success. And then each step of the way we’re giving feedback and guidance along that so they can take that information and that reflection and build that into their leads plan and their action plan. So what they’re really building when they’re preparing for leave is something that will bolster their success but also grow their skills, grow their leadership, grow their self awareness, all of those different pieces and when that is done well they can really enjoy the experience and not be stressing about work and you know is so and so gonna give me back this piece of my job. When I come back. Do I even want to go back they’ve really done that. They’ve pre loaded all that questioning and that work

Lisa Lewis Miller  30:04  

on a me it’s funny to hear you talk about enjoying your leave because I know it is completely possible objectively right as a person to be blessed with with children over here. I know objectively it’s possible to have a really joyful presence present parental leave experience. And, Amy, I think this even makes your point further, there are parental leaves that are not so easy. If you had complications come up in the birthing process, if your child had complications come up, if there are parts about care that are just requiring much more intensive support, or much more intensive care than what you were mentally and emotionally prepared for that leave can be a scarier or a harder transition just off the bat. And so thinking about how do you prepare to go into that? And what are the contingencies? And how do you prepare for possible saboteur moments? Sounds like such a way to equip yourself so that no matter what happens in your leave, if your leave feels like a cakewalk, or if your leave feels like the biggest challenge of your life so far, that you’ve done everything in your power to set it up for success and to make the transition back as smooth and painless as it can be.

Sue Campbell  31:32  

Yes, and it’s important to remember that enjoyable does not equal easy as well. I always, always like to tell people, even if everything quote unquote, goes or right, it’s still a challenging time, doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. Right? And I don’t know anyone who’s had like the like cakewalk, there’s no, you know, curveballs or complications does not happen, as far as I can tell, right?

Amy Beacom  32:00  

But it looks like it on Instagram, it looks like

Sue Campbell  32:04  

it on Instagram, but how do you set it up so you can be as resilient in the face of those challenges as you can be?

Lisa Lewis Miller  32:13  

So let me ask you a question. Because the word resilience really struck a chord for me. We’ve talked a lot about how an individual who’s preparing to become a parent can set themselves up with a plan and learn resilience skills in advance. What about teaching employers resilience, and how to manage when they have an employee out on leave? How to support the employee and coming back how to manage how to redistribute a workload or to fill a staffing gap if needed. What what are some of the practices around? Either those of us as individuals, teaching employers, or sort of at a systems level teaching employers?

Sue Campbell  33:04  

Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. And that’s one of the reasons Amy built this so that it is not just the employee, the manager is going through this coaching engagement as well, or it’s built into the policy. So this 10, a framework that Amy was talking about. There’s a mirror manager version of each of these 10 touch points, right, where they’re thinking about, as Amy said, How do I respond to the announcement, they’ve got their own action plan, right? They’re working with that employee on their action plan, but in their head as a manager, they’re like, well, what are my assets and liabilities on my team given this? And then how do we make an action plan for that, so the manager should be doing all of those same activities. And one of the underlying fundamental principles that we try to bring is, this is not a problem, right? Like having someone go on parental leave is not a problem, it is an opportunity, it’s an opportunity for you to grow as a manager, for you to create a true loyalty with that employee, for you to demonstrate to your team, how we all support each other, and how we can use this opportunity to improve our communication and to keep growing. It’s not a problem. And Amy has said to you know, I picked this timeframe, because it’s like the first one and almost everyone experiences it. But as you you know, get further in your career. And as you age, you’re going to have similar transitions that you will have learned from your parental leave experience of how to handle those transitions. So similarly, for managers. If someone on your team has gone through a parental leave, it’s going to be easier for you to know what to do when someone goes out on a, you know, a personal medical leave or someone has to leave to be a caregiver for an aging parent or even if you just offer company sabbaticals, right. How do you To cover for all of those circumstances. So it’s super important to think of it as an opportunity for the organization. And it’s something that if you get it right, it doesn’t just strengthen your support for working parents, it strengthens your organization as a whole.

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:16  

So that’s such a mic drop moment. I love that. Amy, let me come back to you. So let’s say that an individual found your book and the Center for parental leave leadership on their own, and they are going through your resources, and they are just enamored. And they realize their organization and or their manager is not set up to provide the kind of care and support and programs and systems that would set this individual up for success in becoming a parent and managing that transition and coming back with with grace and with ease. What What can individuals do if they find themselves in a situation where they like their employer well enough, but the employer does not have the benefits that they’re going to need to make this transition work? Well?

Amy Beacom  36:09  

Well, I think the first thing I would ask them to do is take the long view, and to be to think of themselves as an activist. There’s that what, what they’re experiencing May, and what they can do about it may not impact them in this first leave, but they may have another one down the road, they may have a friend who has one. So the first thing to really realize is you have power as an employee in that organization. And we have seen every single company we’ve worked with, and I Sue’s Tell me if I’m wrong here, every single one. They have really embraced this idea. It’s very few people who are saying, Oh, I, that’s ridiculous. We’re not going to do anything around parental leave, it’s more of, Oh, I didn’t realize or they have that aha moment, in the same way you were talking about the beginning of the podcast, like, Oh, of course, we should be doing something there. What can we do, and they often don’t know what that is. So if you’re coming to them with the ideas and the tools and the resources and saying something like this, let’s do this, let’s start an employee research resource group, let’s build a Slack channel community of care for new parents, let’s what you know, whatever those little things are, don’t just think of yourself as a passive part of your organization. Think of yourself as someone who gets to contribute to it. I think that is the most important thing. And I’ll just say one last thing. On that in we, I, we wrote this book to be a coach in your hand to walk you through these things. Because, as I said before, coaching is, is very rare so far in our country, and it needs to hurry up. So this was like, Okay, this way, we can at least get it into their hands. And then we made the decision to take the bulk of our tools and resources, our action plans, our reflection workbooks, our checklist, all of the things that we have historically licensed to companies to use and make them free as part of this book. So that people really can use them for themselves. And then our hope is that they will then reach out, we can customize them for their organization, or they can pass that along to their colleague who needs it, but that it really starts to get out there so that everyone has a common language, a common process and a strong foundation for how to do this well, because right now, we don’t have that in this country. And honestly, in terms of practice, we don’t have it in in many countries in that part.

Lisa Lewis Miller  39:01  

I love that it Amy and Sue, the two of you are doing such important work, arguably probably pretty underappreciated work. And I’ll be half of my listeners. And I want to say thank you to you for doing what you do, and creating these resources and making them available to people who get their hands on your book because it it’s such an act of generosity. And it’s such an act of empowerment that it feels like it could be the beginning of a turning of the tides, at least in the United States to make parental leave. Just like you were talking about su not considered to be a problem anymore. considered to be a natural, expected delightful part of life that we should be encouraging our employees to be able to take advantage of as part of supporting them and their holistic well being and I’ve been thinking about it from company’s perspective as part of a robust retention strategy and a robust accessibility and diversity and inclusion strategy. So I love the work that you two are doing. And I am wishing you all the best of success and leverage in your success. And I’m wondering you, you’re so welcome. I’m wondering for anybody who’s listening to this, who is also just eating out of the palm of your hands right now and wants to learn more about the book and the center and the impact that you’re having. Where can listeners go to learn more?

Sue Campbell  40:33  

Well, the book is called the parental leave playbook, and you can get it wherever books are sold. And if you want more details on the book, you can go to si p l leadership.com, forward slash book,

Lisa Lewis Miller  40:49  

we will definitely put that into the show notes. If you’re listening to this, and you didn’t catch that and write it down, definitely go check out our show notes, we’ll have links to everything. I’m excited to pick up a copy of your book myself. So

Amy Beacom  41:02  

to that point, please. And knowing that you mentioned that you are not yet a parent. One of the things that we’ve grappled with with this is in the book, everyone thinks, oh, it’s about parental leave, I don’t need that I’m maybe we’ll have children in 10 years, or, you know, they’re down the road. And what we’re actually finding is this is information that people need, at the very beginning of when they’re thinking about their career. So to your point earlier, how do we find companies that will be family supportive in the future? What are we looking for? There’s a lot of information here that gets at that and gets you thinking about career paths? And how do you create a care career path that’s aligned with your values? And how do you how do you navigate that? How do you understand yourself better, so you don’t find yourself trying to create a family when you have a job that you hate, and that, you know, it can just the real so quickly. So buy it for like a graduation from high school, college, a wedding present, you know, those are the moments where people need to have it. And of course, also when they’re going through the parental leave transition, because they really, that’s when it comes alive in their experience in that moment.

Lisa Lewis Miller  42:22  

Amazing. Well, thank you to the two of you for the work that you do and for being guests on the Career Clarity Show today. 

Amy Beacom  42:30  

Thanks so much for having us, Lisa. It was a pleasure. That’s 

Sue Campbell  42:32  

Such a pleasure. Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa Lewis Miller  42:42  

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