These policies are supported by training programs for employees and managers.
“We listen and respond to what our people are telling us. Our enhanced policies were implemented from listening to feedback and working to develop and improve the experience of our working parents,” he said.
Ogilvy U.K.’s head of people, Gemma Davies—who has also recently implemented similar enhanced policies—agreed listening was key as well as supporting flexible working arrangements.
She continued: “Aside from the impact on engagement for not doing this, employees will ultimately vote with their feet. Since the pandemic, people are no longer satisfied with accepting terms that don’t work for them or their personal lives.”
That works for me
Jessica Heagren, founder of flexible working platform That Works For Me, has been there and done that when it comes to striking a balance between a successful career and a young family.
Her digital business connects skilled mothers with businesses looking for flexible workers. It recently ran a study of 1,000 moms around careers after babies, and the findings underscore the work all industries, advertising included, must do to support women caregivers in particular.
Aside from the impact on engagement for not doing this, employees will ultimately vote with their feet.
Gemma Davies, Ogilvy U.K.
Seventy-five percent of women who returned to a different job in the same business post-baby reported falling out of the workplace. Thirty-two percent said they’d lost their management job on return from maternity leave. While many countries have laws protecting women’s roles upon return to work for a limited period, 80% of British women in director and C-suite roles returned six months or less after birth to protect the role they held prior to parenthood.
“What that tells you is that women in leadership roles are falling out of the workforce because employers are refusing them flexibility,” she argued.
Heagren noted more interest in partnerships from “big brands” looking to tap into the flexible working market, but companies were still lagging when it came to accommodating women post-maternity leave.
She is looking to introduce an accreditation or certification with different tiers that brands could use to signify how progressive and flexible they are.
“There are some businesses that are great at this stuff. Being able to showcase those would be really worthwhile,” she said. “Brands have come to us, having read our data and matched it with their internal data on returners. They want help. Hopefully, we’ll see more of that.”
To stem a talent drain, Adland must act quickly to understand and improve caregivers’, and in particular women’s, lived experiences. Support plans will need to be tailored to the cultural nuances and employment conditions in each market, but the common threads to pull are flexibility, concrete policies and—perhaps most importantly—listening to what people want.
