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Breaking the Silence: Empowering Fertility Conversations in the Workplace · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
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• 0:29
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• 1:07
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• 1:10
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• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Today I am chatting with Natalie Silverman.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Natalie is I'm a big fangirl of Natalie because I used to listen to Natalie's podcast, the Fertility podcast, when I was going through my own fertility journey, so I am absolutely delighted to welcome Natalie onto the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Today, natalie is going to be talking all about the fertility podcast, but also about her new role as the co-founder and CCO of Fertility Matters at Work, which helps to educate organisations about how to support their employees going through fertility treatment.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, natalie.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Your voice is crazy because your voice used to be in my ears for like years, and you're like you're and you've got a lovely voice.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: It's very soon thank you, thank you, I appreciate it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's always really nice because, you know, that was where I started.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I used to be on the radio, that was my kind of background and you had such amazing relationships with listeners and you, you know you relationships with listeners and you, you know, you got to have people say to you, oh, I'd have you on my drive home or I'd listen to you in the morning or we'd have you on in the car, and that's what really led me into the podcast world, because I mean, I started it a decade ago when podcasts weren't what they are now.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: You know, half of my time was explaining to people it's not radio, but it's kind of radio.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a recorded program, but it's, you know, it's available here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Um, obviously the podcast world has exploded and so I don't have that battle, but, um, that experience of communicating through someone's ear holes and that relationship that you can have, especially when it's a sensitive topic, was, was my motivation really yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, I honestly you were there in my ears on the tube in the car, like you said you know when I was at home and you had some you know, brilliant, brilliant interviewer um people you brought on like real experts as well, and I felt you really got like the nitty-gritty and it definitely, you know, sometimes you I shouldn't even go through for treatment.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You can go down a rabbit hole, can't you, and end up seeing a lot of things you know.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Is this true?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Isn't this true?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And actually it felt like all the people you got on were really like authentic experts thank you.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: well, that was that was again my my aim, really, because I'd gone through treatment and you know we were.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: We were lucky in that it were a first time that's not the reality for most people and I had a best friend who had gone through it and she was the one that had been my rock, and so when I then went through it and was like, right, uh, where am I finding information?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I instantly went to see if there was any podcast type, because podcasts had started and there wasn't and I was thinking, well, hang on, is there something that I can do to use my skills, which were, you know, in broadcasting?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And I had the kit and I had the understanding of how to interview people.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I started reaching out to people saying, you know, would you talk to me?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: And I wanted it to be either people that I'd read their books or people who I'd been recommended by to have that credible info because, like you say, it's such a minefield and you know, now it's a totally different world in that there's an amazing Instagram community where people get support, and there's so much more on social media that people can find, but a decade ago it was, and is still, tidbill, unfortunately, even though many more people talk about it and it's featured in the media and it's written about in storylines, and we just had the film Joy come out.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I know, yeah, it's amazing, but I think being that authentic and trustworthy voice was something I really took seriously, like I say from my radio background, so I'm glad it helped that.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Really honestly, I can't you know, I can't tell you what it means it does, and I still remember, like the episodes.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I remember listening to what I think you did, one with Zita.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Is it Zita West?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: yeah, because she was one of the first books I read.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember, I remember going to her office because again, then it was before you know, yeah, I went and met her and like sat there with my kit and you know, getting to talk to these people and, I think, just trying to, sometimes when you're learning about these types of topics that are so life-changing and you know you've been through it's information overload at the point where you're trying to remember really important stuff, and so the way I saw it was if I could be another place that you could, you know, actually go.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: What do they mean about this level and that level and this test and that drug, and what does it mean about what I can do with my lifestyle?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And you know, and even from the male fertility perspective, because that was our diagnosis and there was nothing.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I remember doing you listened to one with Professor.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Was it Alan somebody?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Alan Pacey?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: yes, yeah, yeah, you did he used to be on on Twitter as it was.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: There's Dr Sperm, which I thought was hilarious, but exactly, just finding these people and getting them to just explain stuff in layman's terms, that was the, you know, the, the, the MO, really, of what the fertility podcast was all about.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And I, literally you know now there's so many cool names when you look at like the podcast world for anything but mine was what it said on the tin.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: You know, I was just like I'm just trying to you know, I found it from an seo perspective.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It worked.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know the time they probably might not have been, because I started listening to it like 2015, 2016.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So, like you said, there might not have been a lot of podcasts.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, exactly, there wasn't very many.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: There's a whole load more, which is amazing.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: You know, it's amazing that A the podcast world has gone crazy but more people are sharing their experiences, because, you know, it's still overwhelming, but the more you know, everybody has a different experience.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: So if you can find someone that you can relate to whether you know you're a man and now there's some brilliant male fertility podcasts or if it's donor conception or if it's, you know, surrogacy all these different routes to parenthood, and there's now so many more people going, this is what we went through and this is what we're talking about it, and so it's like evolved from that so did you have to record them face to face?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: then did you, when you first started.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I did do at first.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I used to.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I was I'm living in Manchester now, but I was living in in.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I was living down south, so you know it was able.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I was able to go and visit people and I had my kit and I'd sit in, you know, and I got to do some amazing like trips around different clinics and I got to go in you know labs and meet all these fascinating embryologists.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I had a real like whistle stop education of of you know, the world of IVF yeah people.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: People were happy to talk yeah, and did you have your son at that point?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: yeah, so I started the podcast once I was pregnant, so I released my first episode.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: He was born March 2015 and I shared my first episode in like um for around fertility week in the 2024 uh sorry, the 2014 so it's been, it's been.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's its 10th anniversary this year and we're kind of winding it to a close now because I've been for the last couple of years.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I've been hosting it with um, a lovely lady that I met in this space called Kate Davis, who's an independent fertility nurse, because I also wanted to have a credible voice with me, because I was like I always talked about her being the science bit and I was like the patient and I felt that that was a really good way for her to be able to, because people were asking us questions and I couldn't answer them.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: So I needed I needed more, you know, credibility from that perspective.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So Kate came along and then for the last 18 months she's actually been at the helm because I've been doing the fertility matters at work, stuff which I know we'll talk about, but the two of us have just got so much on that we've decided at the end of this series, which will be just after Christmas or just before Christmas sorry, um, it's, it's.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: It's kind of coming to a close, but we've got other plans.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: We're just working out what what the next plans are, because it it's been such a lot of work over the last decade and there's so much there it would be a shame for it to just I was gonna say you're gonna keep it on though, aren't you?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: so if anyone's listening, it still exists.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, and that's the beauty of of the podcast world it's evergreen content.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: So it's still there in your favorite podcast app, um, and we're just working out, you know how to, I suppose, the awareness of what we've made to carry on helping people.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: You know if anyone's listening to this and is going through fertility treatment or knows somebody that's going through fertility treatment, that podcast, honestly, you know, I think, saved me and I loved it and I learned so much and I think it was just feeling, not feeling alone.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: He said go to it really sad.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I felt like he's the only person going through it as you know, a lot of people, I'm sure, do it and actually just having somebody in your ears that felt like they were on that journey with you, it's a real comfort and yeah, so, yeah, I think if anyone's listened to this, definitely check out that podcast and all the episodes.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Now I'm glad it could help because you know it's always one of those things that some people want to read, some people want to watch.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But if you know you like to listen.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: That's the beauty of of the podcast.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: What no one knows, because I always at the time, you know people were reading books more than just being on the phones the whole time when they were on the train or whatever, and so it was always that you know you can plug yourself in and nobody knows what you're listening to.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So absolutely so you did the podcast, and I mean obviously you've been doing the podcast.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: 10.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Well, it was quite an interesting evolution because the podcast then led me to be a bit more of a patient advocate in the fertility world and I was using my kind of presenting background and I was being involved in different events, you know, hosting conversations in different capacities, whether it was like a show, like the fertility show, or was chairing conversations a while back with the HFEA, which is the government regulator, a while back with the HFEA, which is the government regulator.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: And then I'd moved radio jobs from one I used to work for, heart, which is like a big kind of commercial station and that was global, and I moved to Bower and Bower actually owned Grazia magazine and they, whilst I was working there, had a whole internal kind of comms piece around their mental health kind of awareness, and so I'd emailed back to somebody.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: That'd emailed back to somebody that had emailed me to say have you ever talked about this?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And then they came back to me and said, would I like to write about it in Grazia?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So that Grazia's got the womb with a view um column.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: So I was like, yeah, actually, and I hadn't really done anything directly in the media.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I'd obviously been doing my own podcasty type stuff and there'd been some a bit of press about it, but I hadn't necessarily given my story, so I just talked about how I didn't want to talk about it at work and how I didn't feel I could and how, you know, I was in a role where I'd been in the same job for five years but I was a freelancer, so I had no idea about speaking to HR.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Nobody had ever really talked me through what that whole process was, and I had to pick up the phone and try and work out what I was saying to someone I'd never met about what I was going to say at work, because you've been through it.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Like the nature of fertility treatment means you have to be out of work to attend appointments, and I didn't know how to say it and I didn't know.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: You know, doing a live radio show, you have to be there and it's very hard to hand over to someone else.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And so their advice was well, you need to say something or they'll think you're looking for another job, which wasn't the most practical advice.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: And so I'd done this piece in Grazia, and then I was actually asked by an organisation who were doing a big like D&I day about different topics, to go in and do a talk about it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: So I did that and then I started to reach out to a couple of people that I knew, like the Fertility Charity and some other organisations, just to see whether anybody was actively talking about this, and there was a few bits and bobs happening.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: But then, as it happened, one of one of my friends had introduced me to one of my co-founders, becky, who had been blogging as Defining Mum.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: So Becky's got three children through egg donation and Becky had been a guest on my podcast about her story and she'd started to talk in the media as well about her experience at work.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: And then this friend introduced me to another friend, uh, claire, who is our third co-founder, and Claire had set up her kind of Instagram handle called IVF at work and she'd started to share her experience of not having support at work.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And both Becky and Claire are HR professionals.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So they were both a bit flummoxed as HR professionals at how nobody had ever come to them in their roles and how they both had experienced a lack of support.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: So quite a long story short, because we launched just before the pandemic.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So we're in our third year of training.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Because we launched our kind of membership in in 2021 to help organizations.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: But the three of us got together and we were like right, what do we need to do?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: We need to make sure people are trained in terms of managers.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: We need to make sure that there's some policy or guidance of sorts, and that was you know where their expertise from the HR side came from.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: We need to make sure that there's resources that people can trust, that they can use.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Um, we also want to encourage this element of peer support, because we'd all been sharing our stories and almost being that peer support in a virtual capacity.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I'd done it with the podcast and they both had their kind of social media platforms.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: We were like, if we can get this into the workplace.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: So we literally mapped it out on post-it notes at this pub in the Peak District, which is where we meet every year for our Christmas get together.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, we were like we can do something here.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: We're sure we can.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And then we launched fertility matters at work.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: As it's a social enterprise, so it's a non-profit and the the aim is is to get the conversation happening in the workplace, and so we've we've created what's like an accreditation.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: So I know there's a lot of them now um and there's.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: There's still much more I don't know many accreditations for this, though no, not for, but just that organisations can have to show they're this or they're that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: So we felt we wanted there to be that accountability piece and we launched in November 2021 with, you know, our kind of membership, and so we've been literally growing since then and banging the drum and doing as much as we can, talking, you know, on in the media, and we've been doing all sorts of awareness raising activities that that we also, then, are doing within organizations.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: So we're working with with a whole range of companies, from like UK to global companies, where they bring us in and we, we raise awareness and that we we literally spell out what the issue and the impact is.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: But we also so my kind of radio backgrounds come into its element, because we do a lot of storytelling, so we encourage people to share their stories and we hold the space for that to happen.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And then we've got all these other resources for organizations to to put in essence a support pathway in place, both for managers to know well how do I talk about this and how do I encourage someone to talk, and then for employees to feel confident to talk, but also colleagues to know that you and I said at the start, when we were just chatting.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: If you got that email whilst you're at work to say that somebody's having a baby and you know crushes you and so trying to help people, be mindful of just how much of a you know a huge mental health toll this is is because it's still not talked about and we know that there's a lot of mental health conversations in the workplace.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: But people realizing that this too could be why such and such is a bit down, you know.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: You don't quite know what's wrong.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: She doesn't look ill and you know, but all of a sudden she's snappy, or they're snappy, or they're taking time off, or you know they're not really doing what you'd expect and what we don't want, because we've heard so many times people leaving their jobs.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: We've had people you know being pushed out of jobs.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: We've heard awful stories of NDAs being put in place and settlements being reached because people have been pushed out, because you know they've been trying to have treatment and it's not worked and you know it has affected their performance at work work.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: So we're trying to change the culture around the the conversation and we're also trying to lobby parliament for it to be a statutory right for paid time off to go to these appointments because any other medical treatment, you'd be able to say, whereas people aren't.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: They're hiding this in sick leave and and you know they go in on annual leave and you know this is no holiday, is it?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So you want to be able to say that this is the thing and that and and what we're seeing.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: More organizations is saying we're giving this amount of time off for these appointments or for tests, or, you know, also for partners, because for a lot of people, they want to go through it if they are in a couple with the person and if that person, you know, if you have to go to all those appointments on your own and you're getting bad news it makes me.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It makes some bad situation even more miserable, doesn't it?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: exactly, exactly.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a mission, but we are on a mission.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: We want to change the workplace with what we're doing so I know you've obviously touched on something, but what's like the issue?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Like you know, for somebody maybe that's listening to this and they don't have, you know, never experienced fertility um problems themselves what is like the issue and what is the cost, I guess, to individuals and to workplaces?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: well, the cost to individual can vary and the reality in the UK is that we've got what's called a postcode lottery.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, there is NHS funding for fertility treatment, but it's very much dependent on where you live, it's very much dependent on your circumstance.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: So what is your diagnosis?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And there's things like your age, your bmi, whatever the if there has been some issue with you, like becky who I mentioned, she was diagnosed with early menopause at 28, yet she wasn't eligible for funding so ultimately had to, you know, fund her treatment and it's very hard to put a cost on it because it can be anything from five thousand to a hundred thousand pounds.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: You we've heard awful stories of people saying you know they've had to remortgage their house.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: They've not been able to.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: You know, do this, do that, go on holiday.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: They've had to go into debt for this, that.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So it's a huge emotional, physical and financial toll and in terms of what is the treatment like?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: It could be that even before you know you've got a problem, you've been trying or you've been having really painful periods, for example.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: That's another thing.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: We heard just recently in the media that in the UK the waiting list for gynecological kind of checkups and stuff is huge, and so, unfortunately, women are being dismissed when they go and see their GP, and so fertility treatment, fertility sorry challenges aren't really being identified till later.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: We've also got, you know, obviously more women working, so that decision to think about having a baby might be later.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But there's also issues with our education at school that we're all taught on how not to get pregnant we never really said that yeah, exactly so it's.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It's quite a big answer to what you asked me.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Um, but what we tried to say to the workplace is there's a huge emotional, financial and physical toll.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: So we're not saying as an organization, we're not a fertility benefits provider.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: So we're not saying you have to pay for people's treatments.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: There are more, more and more organizations who are putting that financial support in place, which is, again, amazing if you can access it through, you know, your PMI or there's some other benefits in place.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: What we're saying is understand the issue and understand the stress that it takes on somebody, and if we can at least have that paid time off to go to the appointments, then people aren't having to take sick leave and annual leave.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So yeah, in terms of the cost to the organization, because we know like 36% of people talked about leaving their jobs I mean 18 percent did leave their jobs and so if you think of the cost, you know you work in recruitment replacing that person.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thousands and thousands more, a lot more than a single fertility treatment actually, and a lot more than our membership.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to have an understanding and we've got all sorts of resources about what the issue is, so that you can educate your managers and you can educate HR and we guide HR into what policy looks like.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we want the policy to acknowledge the situation, but also acknowledge that everybody's different and that if you're in in a same-sex relationship, then your experience is different.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So that's where we talk about, like the language.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We don't want it to just be talking about heterosexual couples.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: You know we have to understand that it's actually a people topic.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So it's not just women, it's not just women's health, it's all people who might want to be parents.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So when you're thinking about what this means to your workplace, there's a lot of different.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: It's one in six you know the stats worldwide of people that are struggling to become parents.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So it's a lot of people do you think it might become um much more, you know, focused on as an issue with the declining popular, you know, birth rate?
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Do you think?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: It may um you know focus politician might end the postcode lottery.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You never know.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Hopefully you never know I mean it's it's now a global issue that fertility rates in high income countries are on the decline.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So if we want to support and enable the growth of our population, then we need to understand more about all the people that are impacted by fertility challenges and from the workplace perspective, if we want to attract talent because we also know that it's like 47 percent of gen z are looking at organizations that are talking about these types of family building like issues where they want to go and you know, sometimes there's conversations where people are saying about egg freezing and how you know that shouldn't be a perk.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: But what we're always saying is these are brilliant educational programs as to what could be done, but they need to also be done with the right kind of understanding that just because you can feed your eggs, that's not a guarantee to have a baby.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: That's a way to future-proof, but it also needs to come with the understanding of what that means and the cost attached.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Susan did a.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I did a panel conversation the other day with a lady who had frozen her eggs and she hadn't known the full extent of a.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: That wouldn't work first time, so she had to have the treatment more than once and you know it was really invasive and it really affected her mental health.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: And you know you're almost going through an IVF cycle, so you're taking hormones and so that can make you bloated and that can affect how you are at work and affected her performance.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: You bloated and that can affect how you are at work and affected her performance.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: But then she ended up having to relocate to a different country and she'd not received the correspondence about the storage costs, because once you've frozen your eggs you've got to pay for the storage to keep them in the freezer.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And she came back with a massive bill because she'd not been getting the correspondence.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: You know there's all these like horror stories that you want everybody to be totally aware.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So what we always say is you've got to have the education.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And that's where we come in to say, look, have you thought of this?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Have you made sure people understand this?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Are you talking about this?
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: And also, when you're talking about family building, what you really need to always remember is that there's a whole community of people who have tried to become parents and haven't, haven't had success, and that's the childless not by choice community, and it's different to child free, and obviously we have to think about everybody's situation, but when we're talking about flexible working or parental leave and we're seeing more and more conversations you know about, about workplaces being family friendly and having, you know, amazing parental leave, that's really saying to all those people and it's growing as well it's like I think it's one in four women and one in five men that a child is not by choice.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: This is what you're not, and so we all, we also want to say, yeah, it's really hard yeah exactly this is for you, whatever your family setup looks like, if we call it family, because even that word can be triggering.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: So it is difficult, but it does need thought and it does need support yeah, yeah, it's really hard, isn't it?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I said I've done a few posts like this, that I said that the time I was, my career was much more affected trying for a baby and not being able to have a baby than it was having a baby, Because actually, once you have a baby, you can feel much more open about it and be like oh, I can't attend this meeting because I've got childcare or whatever.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Whereas people understand yeah, they understand it and we talk about even not asking do you have kids?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: And one of our big like awareness pieces around what to say and what not to say and just that conversation that we all ask all the time.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So do you have kids?
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Why do we ask that?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Why can't we say what you like to do out of work, like, what else can we?
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: say to learn more about them and we say so, do you have kids?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Because that's what we've said for years and that just seems like an innocent question.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: We don't say it in malice, but if you're struggling and you're not in a position to say I've just lost a baby or we're trying, we're going through ivf, I you know, I'm in a place where I have one child and I'm able to say I have one child and if anybody says to me, why, why do you have any more?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I had to get to that place where I had to say, well, we have to treatment and we weren't able to grow our family anymore.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: But that took me time and that's me a decade in this space.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: So if you're going through it and someone innocently and especially we, you know, you and I speaking at the start of December, we're heading into Christmas.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: If you go into all these parties, you're not drinking.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: There's questions about that.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Then there's family gatherings oh, we're.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Next there's Christmas and it's another time that you're not a parent.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It really does affect people so much and so we're just trying to get people thinking oh god, I never, never thought of that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Actually, I never thought oh, do you have kids?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I could have something else.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I know, yeah, I remember that being.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And also do you want kids?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want kids?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: and that's.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: That's almost better.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: In some respects it's not, do you?
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know like it still means that you've got to be prepared for what your answer is going to be, if it's not a yes or no yes, I always find if you actually, if you ask somebody enough questions that's not about kids, just like, what do you like to do?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: people have kids they'll just naturally drop it into the conversation.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I'll take the kids wherever they do at the weekend so you can get.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I think you can get whether someone has kids in a roundabout way anyway yeah, exactly, but it is a very early conversation starter, which, um, you know, and at the same time, we want people to be able to just ask questions.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: But surely there's more than just that yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously you've been into a lot of organizations and you've helped organizations.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: What does good?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Have you know?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been into an organization or you've helped an organization thought that's really nice.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I would have loved that to be my employer, and I really like how they support their employees that are going through fertility treatment yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So we, like, are seeing amazing work being done in terms of peer support.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: So, like using employee resource groups to have other colleagues who, like you've got like mental health first aiders or you've got menopause champions.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: We talk about having either fertility advocates or fertility champions, encouraging people to share their stories and they're being that place, whether it's blog posts that are shared or whether some organizations are having, like you know, get togethers.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: So either virtual or in person, like fertility cafes, where there's other people that have got that lived experience.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: So, if you're just starting out, we've had people say, you know, I didn't even realize that my colleague two desks away was going through it until, you know, I'd kept it to myself forever and then I told them and then they could give me recommendations on clinics or how to have the conversation with the manager.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: So that peer support piece is, you know, it's so important.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But the other thing is having guidance or policy, whatever it looks like, because we know that people, if they're going through this, they go and look on their you know internal system to see what they're entitled to, and unfortunately, we've seen fertility treatment being lumped in with maternity leave or sometimes it's compared to elective procedures like Invisalign or cosmetic surgery, and so it's again educating that it's not an elective procedure.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's, it's something that you have a choice to do, but we always talk about it through circumstance rather than choice.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: That it's a necessity for you to be able to we can say that about any medical treatment.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: To be honest, you know, it's your choice to go get treated yeah, or anything exactly.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: But we also highlight that infertility is classed by the world health organization as a disease yeah so it's the the, I suppose, the severity of the issue that people don't understand.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: There's still that perception that it's like designer babies, you know, and it's it's not that um, so that guidance, but the training of managers.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: So we hear a lot people say I was lucky, had a supportive manager.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't want it to be luck of managers.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So we hear a lot people say I was lucky, had a supportive manager.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't want it to be luck of the draw, we want it to be a cultural shift, that this is a topic that we understand and this is a topic that we want to support you with.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And this is how we're doing it.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: So it's again, awareness raising activity.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So we either do like virtual or in-person awareness raising events and we talk about the issue and we, we, we, like I say before we we hold the space for people to share their stories and when people see colleagues feeling comfortable and confident to talk about it, then they it's like a kind of domino effect people we always have feedback and people say so many people have come forward to say thank you for talking about this, and it can be anything from you menstrual health and endometriosis to pregnancy and baby loss and even with that.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: You know, this October was pregnancy and baby loss awareness month and we did quite a lot of work with the male voice.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: We had an organization that wanted to have men talk about it and the men were saying you know, we're always asked how's your partner If you're, you know if you're in a heterosexual relationship?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: And this guy was like you know, I had a manager saying to me how are you doing?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: And he was like that was like a game changer.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: He actually asked me and I was able to say I'm not doing well, I was invested in that, as my partner was, but everybody just says how's your partner coping?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And it's that male mental health piece as well.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I know that everyone's different, but if someone's listening to this and is going through fertility treatment or is struggling to have a baby, have you got any tips, even if it's just from your own experience or speaking to others, how to navigate, particularly the workplace?
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's finding that allyship and finding, if there is, you know, someone you can talk to at work.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And if you do feel you can talk to your manager, it's almost going to them with a plan, because it's very hard to say exactly the dates that it might be happening yes, but if you can say to your manager, look, I've got this period of time where this is going to be happening, so if I can work from home, if I can have some flexibility, you know, if there's big deadlines looming, or if there's presentations and they aren't feeling great because there's all sorts of side effects that you can feel from from the hormones that you're having to take, you know, are you able to have that kind of conversation with your manager.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: If you're a partner supporting someone, are you also able to say that we're going through this and so can I have that flex and we also talk about.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It's not like you need the whole day, because sometimes you know the appointments are first thing in the morning and so, if you can, just because people talk about how, if they were coming and going for appointments, getting those comments from people going, oh, nice of you to turn up, you know, and it's having that kind of mindfulness and, like you said, about the announcements baby announcements, if there's.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: If there's, you know, maternity collections or there's just comms going out about Mother's day, father's day it's thinking about that type of thing.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: But I think if you're going through it, it's it's seeing if there's people that you can talk to.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: If you don't feel it's your manager, is it hr?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Um, we've got kind of resources on our website that you can download on how to have the conversation, um, but then it's also trying to reach out that you know there's an amazing community on Instagram with the hashtag TTC which is trying to conceive and there's lots of people sharing.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: That can also be a bit of a rabbit hole at times of you know people like if you're going through the actual treatment, symptom spotting and that type of thing.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: So it is finding some support.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: But it's also knowing how to talk about it with family and friends if you don't want to, because sometimes there's that whole.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: You don't want the pity from people and you don't want people like constantly asking you so it is a fine line.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: You don't want them asking every, so it's almost having the, I suppose, the boundaries to say look, I'll, we'll tell you as and when.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Please don't keep asking us because, especially if you've gone through failed cycles and you're having to do it again, um.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: But then another like layer is that kind of if you've experienced loss, it's having that time to grieve and acknowledging that it is a it is a loss and and asking work for that time off.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Because, unfortunately, because we talk about how like loss, when it's pregnancy loss or even if it's a failed cycle, it's like a disenfranchised grief.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: You can't see it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: So too many people say to us I just didn't give myself the time I needed to recover because I didn't really know how to, I didn't know the language, so it's, it's kind of giving yourself that time and and asking at work and saying, look, I've been through this, even if you don't want to go in the detail, say if you feel you can say something and and and seek, you know, counselling support.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: There's amazing, um, you know fertility specialist supports, and this is the other thing we say to workplaces if you can link people to EAP and not health and and signpost them to that to get that support.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: You know, because it's, it's hugely, you know, um, hugely takes its toll on on your, on your, on your mental health yeah, it really does.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: And how can you be a good friend or colleague, do you think, to somebody that's going through this?
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: you think don't offer kind of um unwanted advice, like just because you might know someone that's been through it or you know you might have been through it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: It's knowing that everybody's different, so it's let the person leave be really aware of the language they use.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: So we often say if somebody's said they've had a miscarriage, use that word.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: If somebody says they've lost their baby, you know, use so mirror that language, but also just acknowledging it must be really hard for them and say what do you need?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: They might just want you to check in and give them a hug every now and again, or they might want nothing, you know.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: But don't ignore the person.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Say you know, I'm so sorry to hear that.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: What can I do?
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Rather than if somebody's lost a baby, well, at least it was early, or at least you could get pregnant or it's.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: It's not making those comments that you know.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Oh well, you know, at least you can have a lie in, or you know, or have one of mine.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Those types of comments that aren't helpful.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: So it's thinking before you speak, but really just holding that space for the person, um, I think is one of the best bits of advice I can give what's next for fertility matters at?
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: So we've just had this November like our first big in-person event, which was called the F Word at Work Live, which was the based on the podcast, and the podcast, the F Word at Work, is really trying to get that conversation out there, and we had like an afternoon summit where we had amazing panel conversations and we had lots of different workplaces come and talk to us, and that was in London.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Then we did another event in Manchester and so we're doing a lot more kind of, I suppose, events and awareness raising activity.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: But we're just keen to to spread the word.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: So we've got some really interesting conversations going in different territories because we already work with countries in, with companies in different countries.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: We've been very busy lobbying Parliament.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: So we had the first reading of a bill for that statutory right for pay time off with the previous government and it was due at second reading.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: So obviously we've had a change of government but we're still there trying to knock on the door and get fertility treatment and access to this pay time off on the agenda.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of that lobbying work going on in the background to knock on the door and get fertility treatment and access to this pay time off on the agenda.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of that lobbying work going on in the background, um, and it's just really trying to encourage more organizations to talk about this, because our kind of mission is that we see the workplace as fertility friendly.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: So I think, if you're listening and you know it's, it's a conversation that you think could be useful in your workplace.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: It's encouraging people to think about this, because we know there's a lot on the workplace well-being agenda and we're trying to highlight that this isn't just um and like a nice to have.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: This is actually a key element when we're thinking about attracting good talent and and holding on to to good people.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: You know, because we we want to make somebody's time at work as ultimately as stress-free as we can, and so, if we understand this is another topic that could be affecting them day to day.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Hopefully, we can be there with them when it's hard, and so you know there's that loyalty there as well.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: If someone's listening to this and they would love to introduce their organisation to you, how can they get in touch with you?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Where's the best places to find you?
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: So the website is just fertilitymattersatworkcom.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: We've got loads of resources there.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: We've got like a couple of white papers that are really good business cases for why this issue, um, is relevant in the workplace.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: And there's other resources.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: We've got our managers um kind of 101, so you can give it to your managers.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: We've got fertility guidance document sorry, a policy guidance document that you can give to HR.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So do have a look at our resources.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: The podcast is there too, and there's loads of detail about what our kind of accreditation is and you can see who we work with so you can see if there's like similar organizations.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: But it's really just highlighting that this is an issue.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's not going anywhere, it is impacting the workplace and so it really should be talked about.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: You know, alongside and I know it's a personal topic and that's you know the kickback that we originally had people like what's this got to do with the workplace and so it really should be talked about.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: You know, alongside and I know it's a personal topic and that's you know the kickback that we originally had people like what's this got to do with the workplace and we're like because people of working age who are trying to have families are struggling, so yeah, it'll probably work for you.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: There'll probably be at least one person, exactly if you've got six people.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: There's going to be one person in your organization.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah and I guess as well, just to remind, remind, obviously your old podcast and you're retiring it, but the Fertility podcast is a really good listen if anybody's going through fertility treatment, where can people contact you, Natalie.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Where's the best places for them to contact you?
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: So I'm on LinkedIn, Natalie Silverman, or I'm at Fertility Poddy on Instagram or at Fert at work is our Instagram handle.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: So whatever your social media of choice is, hopefully you'll find me thank you so much, natalie, for joining me today.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: It's been a real pleasure oh, thank you for having me.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: It's been lovely to chat thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: It like a mum podcast.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at elizabethwillett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.