Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 121. 2 years into her human rights fight: What no one tells you - Beth Wanner

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121. 2 years into her human rights fight: What no one tells you - Beth Wanner · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:05
  This is all figured out. I'm Andrea Barr.
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  I'm a career coach for parents, a mom of two, and I absolutely
• 0:11
  believe that you can continue to grow personally and
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  professionally while protecting family time.
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  We're about to figure out this work, life and parenting stuff
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  out together. Beth Warner, thank you for
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  coming back on the All Figured Out podcast.
• 0:35
  Thanks for having me. It's so good to meet you in
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  person. I know this is bizarre because
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  it feels like one. It does not feel like this is
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  the first time we've met in person.
• 0:44
  No. Yeah.
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  You're actually exactly. I always get people's heights
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  wrong, and you were exactly the height that I thought you were
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  going to be. You're the first person that
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  says that everybody thinks I should be taller.
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  And then they're very like, underwhelmed when they meet me
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  in person. But I take it as a compliment of
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  like, oh, I've got, like, tall girl energy.
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  Cool. Yeah.
• 1:00
  Can I be honest? Yes.
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  I thought you were gonna be even shorter.
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  OK, good. I was like, oh, she's just like
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  petite. Like, I just feel like you're
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  just like a petite little Spitfire.
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  Yes, Yeah, yeah, I like that. I'll take that.
• 1:11
  Description, Yes. OK.
• 1:13
  Well, it's wonderful to have you here.
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  Had you on the podcast just over a year.
• 1:17
  No, just under a year ago where we unpacked your fucking wild
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  ride. That is how you founded mother
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  cover out of a situation that it was absolutely bonkers.
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  For anyone who hasn't listened to that episode, you have to go
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  back and listen. It is one of our top performing
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  episodes of the stats matter. But just to go it just shows you
• 1:43
  that people are like, wait, what?
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  This can happen. This is a thing.
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  Employees aren't protected under all these employee rights and
• 1:52
  standards and whatever. And people were riveted by your
• 1:57
  story. I've had people reach out saying
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  this has happened to me. Thank you for sharing.
• 2:02
  Best story. I know that they've gotten in
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  touch with you from it and vice versa.
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  Just just wild. What has the experience since
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  the episode went live and you really shared in a very public,
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  very big way your entire story, not just snippets on LinkedIn?
• 2:17
  What was that experience like for you listening back?
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  Yeah, it was, I almost say like out of body, not to be like too
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  dramatic, but you had sent over the recording for me to listen
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  to in advance. And I listen to it with my
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  husband. And we held hands.
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  And it was like white knuckle listening to this story because
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  it really was the first time outside speaking to a lawyer
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  about really the end to end. Well, not end to end because
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  spoiler alert is not done. That really had going back
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  through trauma of what this was like and really listening to
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  this and thinking like this doesn't feel like I'm talking
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  about our lives and my husband feeling the same about that as
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  well too. Because just everything that has
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  happened has been one thing after another and not really
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  having time to sit with any of that because you have to deal
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  with the next thing that's coming.
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  So whether it was our journey through infertility and going
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  through IVF and anybody who knows and has gone through that
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  knows you are living month to month and you can be devastated
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  one week and then you have to decide right away that your
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  going forward again. And you're right back into like,
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  OK, my mind and body needs to be hopeful and going through the
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  next thing so you really don't have time to mourn.
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  And then the same was was true for losing my job not once but
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  twice. But it's like, OK, I need to
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  keep going forward getting information about my pregnancy,
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  not having risks to it having to be like, OK, what do I need to
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  do to protect myself and my daughter and yeah, all all
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  those, those things. So it really was the first time
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  that we got to reflect on really everything that we've been
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  through. And I would say that it was hard
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  to listen to, but at the same time, I'm like, I'm so fucking
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  proud of myself. Sorry, mother for for swearing,
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  but that's really how I felt. I was like, I can't believe this
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  is the resiliency that we've been through.
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  And and then again, cut to to where we're at now with with
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  starting mother cover and feeling such a sense of purpose
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  that's come out of this. Not to say that any of that I
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  would wish on anybody else and that it wasn't and isn't still
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  really hard to think about and navigate through.
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  But I never would have gotten to this place where I'm now able to
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  help others and tell the story. And like you said, others who
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  come forward to say like this happened to me, but we haven't
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  been sharing it or we don't feel like we know these stories.
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  That's the one of the biggest motivations of the fight that
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  I'm in is that these stories matter and we need to be talking
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  about. Them I've full body, like every
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  time you and I talk on air or in the many times in between when
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  we've had these updates, like I'm just filled with like full
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  body chills of and admiration for you.
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  You've just taken something so incredibly hard that you could
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  have said why me like and really felt like and and I bet of
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  humanly as a human, like, of course, I'm sure you had those
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  moments, but like you took it and you're like, OK, screw you.
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  Like what am I going to do about this?
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  What am I going to do about this for my family first and
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  foremost, and what I'm going to do about this for all the other
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  women who are silenced? Because like we talked about on
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  that first episode, they're signing the dotted line and
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  they're signing away their voice because they have to move
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  forward for financial reasons. They can't afford afford lawyer.
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  They don't want to fight for six years.
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  And you're like, no, no, like it would be easier to sign a piece
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  of paper. I do not fall to anybody who
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  does because this is hard. And there's been lots of times
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  over the last couple of years now too, where I was just like,
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  I want to give up. And if I feel that way,
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  everybody feels that way every that.
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  Yeah, yeah, it's just incredibly difficult and.
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  What about the merge? I know we touched on this in our
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  first episode, but like the marginalized populations, like
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  how do I know that there's legal services and there are some
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  supports, But like from a time perspective, someone working to
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  say 123 jobs who has kids who are like, how the hell are other
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  people doing it in marginalized populations?
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  Yeah, especially at the time like you are saying no to
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  usually some sort of severance offer when someone's like I need
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  that money at this time to have a giant question mark.
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  Will you ever see it or do you? You don't have to in Canada.
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  You don't have to have a lawyer to to go through a human rights
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  OK complaint. I do but and I could not imagine
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  not because it's still such a a difficult system to navigate and
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  their side absolutely has a lawyer so.
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  Like thinking of like Chad imagine like just chat TBT in
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  your way through it. Yeah, by yourself that a lawyer.
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  Aaron Brockovich in my way through this, right.
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  Just like I can do it and like it's part of me feels like I
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  could, I have a great lawyer. So thanks.
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  Yeah, for that as well, too. But yeah, I, yeah, I can't
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  imagine not having that support. But there's obviously a cost
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  that comes with that. And then it's just it is the
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  time and the emotional and stress that comes with that.
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  I can understand 1000% why somebody would say it is easier
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  to accept this and go on with my life.
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  Or for those who don't start companies out of it as well too.
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  Like you need to get that next job.
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  Like you can't. You just need to focus on on
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  that. Yeah.
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  What was it like for other people listening to the episode?
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  People, you know, loved ones, say your mom, say some friends.
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  What kind of feedback did you hear from them?
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  Having heard in a really focused way the entire story for an hour
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  end to end, what did you hear? A lot of people, like I said,
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  either that had been through through something similar and
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  felt like they were alone. That was probably the most
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  impactful that I would hear back from from others who just wanted
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  somebody to talk to and couldn't do it in in a public space from
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  family and friends. People who maybe thought like
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  they knew some of what was going on or kind of knew the the gist
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  of what I experienced really got to hear kind of the emotion
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  behind it. And I would say that's still
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  only the tip of the iceberg of like the emotion that's.
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  Legally, you're allowed to share.
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  Yeah, that allowed to to share or yeah, I yeah, it's a lot of
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  weight to carry that and there's a lot of details in between all
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  the details and all those things so.
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  Yeah, Oh my goodness. OK.
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  And what has life looked like for the past year?
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  It's, it's continued to be wild in terms of 1 I, I still do have
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  an ongoing human rights complaint.
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  So still navigating that and there's no light at the end of
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  the tunnel really to that. It'll probably be years more.
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  Years. Years if to to get to.
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  When are we all going to Ottawa to sit in the stands of the
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  courthouse? Like Supreme Court stuff only
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  happens in Ottawa, right? I don't know.
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  Can I come? Yeah, for sure.
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  Yeah. Well, I just there there's I
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  think going to be a a life after this of advocacy of like our
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  system is so broken. It is not there to protect the
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  employee, the individual, just that at every turn it is a
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  lengthy process. It's a stressful process.
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  And thankfully now talking to a therapist about it, I've just
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  like, it is hard. Every time that something comes
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  up, I think I'm OK with it, but I actually can't let it go
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  either because I have to be so on.
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  Every detail has to be correct. I have to remember it.
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  And now we're talking about something that happened in July
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  of 2023 and all the events leading up to that.
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  So there was months ahead of that of when I first got the
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  this job. So having to remember all those
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  details means you can't let it go and you can't move forward.
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  And there's a lot of pressure to that.
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  Obviously, I put on myself as well to be like, I need to be
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  perfect because if I slip up, that is what they're looking
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  for. Even doing podcasts like this,
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  100% their side, their lawyer is listening to everything that I
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  say. So I need to make sure.
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  And it's easy when you're telling the truth and you
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  remember all these things. You don't have to remember, did
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  I say the right thing? But it's making sure that like I
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  remember all the details that as they happen and, and all those
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  sort of things. So you can't let it go.
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  So there's that part of it where you're just like, I will never
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  feel settled until it's done. But I believe so strongly in
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  that this is the right thing to do because of the people that I
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  hear from and and know that this should never be something that
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  people lose their voice to be able to talk about the things
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  that happen to them because they are so deeply impactful.
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  I think we talked about this last time.
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  It's not just about losing your job.
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  It's it's your career that you cared about, but also just the
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  injustice of what happens to a lot of women when we want to
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  pursue both things of our career and our our family and what our
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  society still really thinks about that.
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  What would you change if you could use?
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  Because I feel like you've probably gotten like a PhD in
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  the legal side of the human rights side of employment,
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  having gone through everything you've gone through now you know
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  so much. But if you were to dumb it down
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  to a first grader for us, well, what is it that you would hope
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  to change in the system to make it better for mothers
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  predominantly who are wronged in the workplace?
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  I think one, we need to follow a Europe's lead in some of the
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  advocacy that they're doing of you can't sign NDA's or
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  confidentiality when it has to do with discrimination or
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  anything of that nature. I think that that needs to be
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  step one. Wow, tell me more about that.
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  I don't Even so truly like if you have a claim or like you're
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  saying, OK, I've been discriminated against this
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  employee, like this employer has discriminated against me.
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  You're allowed to go on this podcast and.
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  Talk about it. It can never be part of your
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  fewer terms of a settlement to say that like you can't talk
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  about what happened to you. There might be confidentiality
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  still around say like the what you agreed to in your
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  settlement, but not to say that like this didn't happen to me,
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  that that gets wiped from from your story.
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  And and that's something that they've been advocating for for
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  a long time and things that have slowly changed.
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  A lot of that came out of the Me Too movement.
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  There's different things happening in the US to
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  particularly around sexual assault and those types of
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  cases, sexual harassment in the work spread extending that also
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  to to discrimination in those areas as.
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  Well, OK, so in those situations it would be we settle.
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  For instance, I do sign the dotted line saying OK, I
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  concede. I'm not concede, I settle.
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  I'm going to take this severance package.
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  Um, but I, but I can still wait. But I I'm not gonna wipe it from
• 13:43
  the world saying OK, as I sign this, I'm saying this didn't
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  happen. Yeah, that that settlement is is
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  basically used as as a carrot for you to not talk about that.
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  But then it doesn't solve what's at the root of our cultures,
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  corporates, corporate cultures, individuals who feel like it's
• 14:03
  almost like a pay to play, like I pay, yes, to continue doing
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  what I what I always do. Nothing is actually going to
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  change. It's actually having these
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  conversations out in the open knowing that these things still
• 14:16
  happen. Why do they still happen?
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  What's at the root of it? Why do we even feel that this is
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  what we should be doing? Yeah, as as as leaders who think
• 14:27
  that this is OK or is is a one off somehow they can explain
• 14:32
  their own actions away. If you knew that there was a
• 14:35
  chance that this was going to be public and you had to defend
• 14:38
  your actions in public, how would that change how you go
• 14:41
  about how you? Operate.
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  So if you were to sign, OK, so say you did sign the severance
• 14:49
  package which you did not say you signed that you're not that
• 14:54
  allowed to to go to do a human rights.
• 14:57
  No, you sign away your ability to file a human rights complaint
• 15:01
  or any type of legal action. That is OK.
• 15:05
  I know that. Like I knew that because again,
• 15:07
  people close to me have gone through this as well and we've
• 15:09
  talked about this. But like just hearing that again
• 15:12
  makes me so mad. So in Europe you could sign and
• 15:19
  then be like, and I'm going to still take your ass to court, or
• 15:21
  I'm still going to take your ass to the human rights like in a.
• 15:23
  Dumbed down way? Yeah, I don't want to.
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  But speak on behalf of Europe. Speak on behalf of Europe or or
• 15:29
  get into rooms where like I am not a a lawyer.
• 15:32
  I know my experience through it, but I believe there's would be
• 15:37
  more about like even part of some.
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  So it could be a severance OfferUp front that somebody does
• 15:41
  have it just can't have that like that you can't talk about.
• 15:44
  It wiping the slate. Yeah.
• 15:47
  Geez Louise. So what is next for you in this
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  case? Like what?
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  So you said potentially years ahead, what is to come?
• 15:54
  I know you've had mediation, which we can't talk about the
• 15:57
  details of the mediation, even though, God, I want to just ask
• 16:00
  you like work. I want to ask you if it was like
• 16:03
  Suits was there this camera pointing at you?
• 16:06
  Like, I want to ask all those things, but I won't because we
• 16:10
  have to send this to your lawyer again.
• 16:13
  But what is next? I know there was an
• 16:15
  investigation that happened. So an investigator comes and
• 16:18
  they're checking out all the details.
• 16:19
  Yeah, like a year later. Whatever.
• 16:21
  So now you're waiting on this investigator to write a report?
• 16:25
  Yes. So the investigator is through
• 16:28
  the Human Rights Commission, you give them all of your kind of
• 16:31
  supporting materials for for your case.
• 16:34
  They review that, then they interview you, they ask the same
• 16:38
  of the other party. They get any materials that they
• 16:40
  have and they interview them as well.
• 16:43
  So we've gone through that where we've given everything that we
• 16:45
  have, we've done the interview sort of thing and now we're
• 16:47
  waiting on them be like, do they need anything else?
• 16:50
  Is there anybody else that they need to interview?
• 16:52
  And then that report, which to my understanding basically just
• 16:55
  goes to the higher ups that the Commission to say, yes, this
• 16:59
  case has standing or no, it doesn't and should move forward.
• 17:03
  So that's two years in. That's where we're at of just
• 17:07
  does this have standing or not? And so if they said this doesn't
• 17:11
  have standing, then you're done. That would be, yeah.
• 17:14
  So that's the risk that you take of like in mediation.
• 17:17
  You could settle and then you'd be done or you can push to to
• 17:22
  move forward. And that's the risk.
• 17:23
  Any stage of that they can say like there isn't enough merit
• 17:26
  here. I feel very strongly that that
• 17:28
  could not happen in this case. But never say never I.
• 17:31
  Guess and when we say materials, are we?
• 17:34
  Is this another reason why we all always say and give advice
• 17:38
  that we have to get? Everything right?
• 17:39
  Everything, yes. OK, I have a really based on,
• 17:43
  again, this is like two people who aren't lawyers talking about
• 17:46
  some like legal stuff. But from what you understand,
• 17:49
  say I'm an employee and I'm starting to get, let's just use
• 17:52
  bullying as an example because that's something that whoever's
• 17:55
  listening like might have experienced, probably has
• 17:57
  experienced some form of bullying in the workplace.
• 18:00
  What does documentation of that look like?
• 18:02
  Is that documenting it to yourself, sending your like
• 18:05
  sending yourself an e-mail saying this happened today.
• 18:08
  And does that stand on its own legs?
• 18:10
  Because I know I hate this part of the argument.
• 18:13
  Like you could make it up, right?
• 18:15
  You could make something up and document it, but how does that
• 18:19
  stand? Yeah.
• 18:22
  Do you know what I? Mean that I don't know like how?
• 18:24
  Well, like if you wrote it. To yourself, other than you're
• 18:29
  almost creating a diary for yourself because what's going to
• 18:31
  be important is timelines when conversations happen, what like
• 18:35
  there is the he said, she said part of it.
• 18:37
  So you're going to want to really remember that from your
• 18:40
  perspective. So the more that you feel
• 18:42
  confident in that, because the part about this that is I feel
• 18:46
  like really stressful and traumatizing as I know that
• 18:51
  their job is to discredit me. Their job is to paint me as not
• 18:57
  a competent professional. And for somebody who cares a lot
• 19:00
  about their professional reputation, it is very hard to
• 19:05
  hear even when you know what's wrong, even when you know what
• 19:08
  they're putting forward. So I was like, I need to control
• 19:10
  my stress levels when I hear what they say, even though I was
• 19:14
  like, I know that that's wrong and here's why.
• 19:16
  But knowing that I have the here's why yes is helpful where
• 19:20
  it's not just, he said, she said.
• 19:22
  But not to compare, but draw, I guess, the analogy between what
• 19:30
  we see a lot in national coverage of sexual assault cases
• 19:37
  and how traumatizing that is to victims is.
• 19:41
  They get questioned about their credibility.
• 19:45
  What are they a believable witness?
• 19:47
  Did they ask for it in in some way?
• 19:50
  Did they drink too much? All of those, sort of.
• 19:52
  Things talkative in nature, yes. So you're provocative?
• 19:56
  You know, why would anybody put themselves up for that?
• 19:58
  So there is a flavor of that that I know I'm putting myself
• 20:02
  up for where they're going to try to be like she is not
• 20:05
  credible or XYZ or look at this. And I have to brace myself for
• 20:10
  that. So wanting to make sure that I
• 20:12
  have all my ducks in a row. And like I said, that puts the
• 20:15
  making sure that I know. My story and I can confidently
• 20:19
  speak to it so. Documenting, so maybe
• 20:20
  documenting it on your own side in a Google Doc and just keeping
• 20:24
  track of the timelines and conversations, of course,
• 20:27
  emails, text messages, whatever. And then is it also things like,
• 20:30
  OK, I went to HR on this day and I reported this.
• 20:33
  I said, OK, there's been some bullying happening and boom,
• 20:35
  that was told, you know that was happening, OK, and you're going
• 20:38
  forward that way. Think, think of the reverse,
• 20:41
  because this is what employers do rightfully on there, like if
• 20:46
  if they were wanting to deal with performance issues is
• 20:50
  they're going to document performance reviews, those sort
• 20:53
  of things. So think of like the flip side
• 20:55
  of you wanting to document almost the performance of
• 20:57
  totally your manager or whoever you're dealing with in in that
• 21:01
  type of situation. Yeah, there's like.
• 21:06
  Makes you feel like. Stressed.
• 21:07
  Yes, it does. OK.
• 21:10
  And, and I know you can, you have to be careful of what you
• 21:12
  share around this. But have you had those moments?
• 21:14
  Maybe this could just be yes or no, but have you had those
• 21:16
  moments so far where you've gotten wind or say in a
• 21:19
  mediation or in a conversation where you're starting to see a
• 21:23
  bit about what their argument is?
• 21:25
  Have you started to already hear bits of pieces of how they're
• 21:28
  trying to discredit you? Yes, you get a little bit of it.
• 21:32
  When I first filed my case I was glad to have like a one pager.
• 21:37
  This is my story. They get to provide their
• 21:40
  version back to that. So you start to see a little bit
• 21:43
  of what they're going to argue back in.
• 21:47
  We knew this. So I I was terminated before the
• 21:50
  end of my probation. So them being able to say like,
• 21:52
  well, this was then probation, but also we believe it was
• 21:56
  performance related and on bases on this sort of basis.
• 22:00
  So you know that that's going to happen.
• 22:01
  But anything else that that they bring up?
• 22:04
  So you just kind of have to be prepared for it.
• 22:07
  Gosh. I I am continuing to cheer you
• 22:12
  on until that final day when there's that party that happens.
• 22:16
  Like I'm putting it, I'm putting it out there.
• 22:18
  Join me in this, join me in this vision.
• 22:20
  Like when you win and there's that party, whatever winning
• 22:24
  looks like for you. Who knows how far it gets, where
• 22:26
  it gets. But like I am so here for you
• 22:29
  and I can't wait to pull clips from our episodes.
• 22:33
  The many more to come to that are documenting this.
• 22:36
  I feel like we're like doing like a documentary series, auto
• 22:39
  documentary to like, I don't know, how can we add to this
• 22:43
  conversation in a really productive way?
• 22:45
  And you are you are doing that. And like I want to thank you for
• 22:48
  coming on here and sharing your story so that we can like we can
• 22:51
  be documenting this so that we can eventually be pulling some
• 22:55
  of these clips and be like, look at this journey.
• 22:58
  Like this wasn't OK. Yeah.
• 23:00
  How have you stayed in the fight?
• 23:03
  So I know that there has been moment, there have been moments
• 23:05
  where there's been, you know, the questions.
• 23:08
  I think you said you said it on the last episode where people
• 23:10
  were like, so Are you sure you want to do this?
• 23:13
  It could be up to six years and like the fear longer.
• 23:16
  Not fear mongering reality setting.
• 23:18
  Yeah. But like at every turn, it feels
• 23:21
  like these are my words, not yours.
• 23:22
  It feels like at every turn it's made to try to push you out of
• 23:27
  the game of continuing on with this.
• 23:29
  Case yeah, almost everybody that you talk to on your side or not
• 23:34
  is like, wouldn't it just be easier to to end?
• 23:38
  Don't you want to move on? Of course I I do, but like it is
• 23:44
  like I said that bigger motivation of one like I don't
• 23:48
  think I will mentally be OK to not see this through.
• 23:56
  Just because you sign a a an offer agreement or anything to
• 24:03
  make it go, it does not actually make it go away.
• 24:06
  So like that being said of like this is a negative thing.
• 24:08
  Don't you just want to move on? That's easier said than done for
• 24:13
  for anybody else on kind of the other side of it, of course you
• 24:16
  want to move on and continue doing what you're you're doing.
• 24:20
  But for me, this impacted my life in a very profound way that
• 24:25
  I, like I said, I'm going through therapy now just to be
• 24:28
  able to to unravel and deal with that experience.
• 24:32
  But on the other side of it, I think what keeps me going more
• 24:35
  so now, like when I feel tired of my own case and being like,
• 24:40
  I'm so energized by what's going on with mother cover and the
• 24:44
  positivity on that side. And then when something comes
• 24:47
  up, whether it's an e-mail from a lawyer or this next step or
• 24:49
  sort of thing, I was like, oh, right, I'm dragged back into
• 24:52
  that space. Or even seeing this person's
• 24:56
  face pop up on LinkedIn or when I have to, uh, join, um,
• 25:04
  mediation and see them knowing that I will have to do that if
• 25:09
  this gets to a case, I really recognizing how that feels and
• 25:15
  not really, um, knowing how to navigate.
• 25:20
  I guess that's where you think like this really was trauma
• 25:24
  where like that feels to almost hyperbolic to say or when you
• 25:30
  think of like what trauma means in in other sort of context.
• 25:33
  Whereas like, well, this, I guess I don't know what I'm
• 25:38
  trying to say in in that way. I've just like.
• 25:41
  It's. Minimizing your thing, you're
• 25:43
  like this war another what trauma actually means.
• 25:46
  But to be like that visceral feeling that I feel like when I
• 25:50
  have to go back through my timeline and have to remember
• 25:53
  everything again, I was like, no, this was fucking awful.
• 25:57
  Yes. And it still feels that way.
• 26:00
  And I need a resolution to that. And I'm glad that I have mother
• 26:06
  cover to funnel positive energy from this experience.
• 26:12
  But then hearing from other women who are still going
• 26:16
  through this or have been silenced in that way, that's the
• 26:20
  energy that keeps me going now where it's like it's not just
• 26:22
  about me because I can feel selfish for like I'm taking my
• 26:26
  family through this still. Like we could move on.
• 26:28
  There could have been a settlement, which would be money
• 26:32
  in a bank account right now. And and selfishly being like,
• 26:35
  no, I need, I need to retain my voice on this and it's not
• 26:40
  again, it just for myself. So that's a big part of it.
• 26:44
  But for all of those who who can't, um, this matters.
• 26:48
  What does success look like at the end of this?
• 26:50
  If you're 80 years old and you're looking back on this
• 26:52
  period of this hellish period of time for you, and you look to
• 26:56
  the end of the case and beyond, and even like 20 years in the
• 26:59
  future when things in this system have shifted, what does
• 27:03
  the success of it all look like for?
• 27:06
  You. I'd say at the beginning I would
• 27:08
  have thought it looked like this person or others that knew this
• 27:13
  was happening and maybe didn't step in or tried to.
• 27:17
  I hope they try to, uh, reaching out to say I learned something
• 27:24
  from this or more, more or like, I'm really sorry that this, I
• 27:28
  used to be that. I don't think I'm ever going to
• 27:32
  get that. I'm not going to hold out for,
• 27:34
  for that. So it's more about the impact
• 27:37
  that I hope to drive through mother cover up.
• 27:40
  I'm not going to what we're building and doing with mother.
• 27:43
  However, I don't think I'm going to be able to solve the extreme
• 27:45
  cases. If somebody wants to
• 27:47
  discriminate against a caregiver, against a parent,
• 27:49
  against a woman, that's something deeply flawed within
• 27:53
  that that person that I can't solve.
• 27:56
  But those who are in the middle, those who who want to do the
• 28:00
  right thing, but maybe just don't know how or or are really
• 28:04
  thinking like is it about the logistical challenge that come
• 28:08
  with anybody taking leave from from work.
• 28:11
  They're thinking about like, how do I balance my business?
• 28:13
  How do I keep things going forward to be able to reach
• 28:17
  those ones and give them a system and a process so that
• 28:21
  they can do what they wanted, the right thing that they want
• 28:24
  to do in supporting their employee, but also not have to
• 28:26
  sacrifice their goals in company and the things that they're
• 28:31
  wanting to do that we will reduce or eliminate description
• 28:36
  discrimination in in those cases where they can, they can be that
• 28:40
  environment that they want to be.
• 28:43
  So that's what success would look like out of of this is
• 28:47
  knowing that we've protected people's jobs because we've
• 28:50
  gotten rid of that feeling that me supporting my employee is
• 28:55
  going to harm my business. That is so beautiful.
• 28:58
  I really love that. And what I love about that is
• 29:00
  that you're taking a situation and you've created a solution
• 29:04
  and we're going, we're going to get right into mother cover
• 29:06
  because, you know, I'm your biggest fan.
• 29:09
  But what you've done is you've created a solution to a problem
• 29:13
  at the grassroots level of saying, OK, employee, employers
• 29:18
  are feeling challenged because they have people going on leave.
• 29:21
  Whether or not they, you know, should be allowed to feel it is
• 29:23
  a challenge. It's a logistical challenge.
• 29:25
  And if we don't acknowledge that, we can't solve it.
• 29:27
  So like, yeah, right, advocate constantly, that policy alone
• 29:32
  won't do it. Exactly, clients are American
• 29:36
  and our mind blown when I say that I'm Canadian or was fired
• 29:39
  at 8 months pregnant cause they're like well but you've got
• 29:42
  the laws and all of that in place.
• 29:46
  Laws are great, we need them, we absolutely do.
• 29:49
  And the US needs longer protected leave, longer paid
• 29:53
  leave, absolutely. But that does not change
• 29:55
  corporate culture. And until we're able to make
• 29:59
  leave feel safe, having those policies in place don't equate
• 30:03
  to practice, Yes. So what Mother Cover is trying
• 30:06
  to do is play a small role in how we can start implementing
• 30:10
  practice so it feels safe to go forward with these policies.
• 30:15
  It's safe for everybody. It feels safer for the
• 30:18
  organization, for the manager, feels safer for the CEO to be
• 30:22
  like, we've got a we've got a way that we handle leaves.
• 30:26
  Yeah, we have a way of doing things, and it's a beautiful way
• 30:29
  of doing it because we've got. Like, no, we get to just let
• 30:32
  somebody take time off, which God, it's not time off, but to
• 30:37
  say like, I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart and
• 30:39
  which means I'm sacrificing my business.
• 30:40
  Like, no, you don't have to do that.
• 30:42
  We just have to look at workforce planning differently.
• 30:45
  It was what we're doing now is designed in the 19, 60s and 70s
• 30:50
  when women weren't a huge parts of the workforce or that we
• 30:53
  didn't. We always had one caregiver at
• 30:55
  home. That's just not the reality one
• 30:58
  for what a lot of women want. We care about our careers and we
• 31:03
  want to be able to do that, but we also won't care about our our
• 31:06
  families and then the reality of we live in an economy that
• 31:11
  requires dual incomes. That old chestnut.
• 31:17
  Yeah. So like it's yeah, there's
• 31:19
  multiple sides to this, that if this is the society that we want
• 31:25
  and we want to be able to support the choice of either
• 31:29
  parent that both of them being in the workforce or one of them,
• 31:33
  not like we just need the infrastructure around it.
• 31:37
  That policy alone is not enough for.
• 31:38
  Yeah, I mean, maybe another time we go into like how daycares are
• 31:44
  9 to 5 and workplaces now return to work policies, return to
• 31:48
  office policies are now also bum in seat 9 to 5.
• 31:52
  Like none of it actually makes. Sense.
• 31:55
  No, it doesn't. Like from the from the
• 31:59
  beginning. Yeah of it.
• 32:00
  So you're sneaking around. I'm obsessed with that.
• 32:02
  Like just like that sneaky, sneaky.
• 32:03
  It's like, why is anybody sneaking?
• 32:06
  Why is anybody sneaking? Why?
• 32:07
  Like, why is it dad sneaking out?
• 32:09
  Why is a mom sneaking out? Why are we?
• 32:10
  And then we got to apologize for it.
• 32:12
  I'm so sorry. I'll be right back.
• 32:13
  I'll be online later. I'll stay online till midnight
• 32:15
  to make up for the half an hour that I went to pick up my child.
• 32:17
  Yeah, something he said. You talked about workforce
• 32:20
  planning. I think that's such an
• 32:21
  interesting take on this. Having worked in corporate, the
• 32:25
  retail fashion industry, We were, we were on a very cyclical
• 32:31
  workforce planning cycle. So holidays come, Black Friday
• 32:35
  comes back to school comes and we're like boom, staff up and
• 32:39
  then staff down or not staff down, but people, you know,
• 32:41
  attrition happens or whatever. But we staff up in a really big
• 32:44
  way where we would staff up in a really big way over the
• 32:46
  holidays. We needed like all hands on
• 32:48
  deck. We would hire hundreds of
• 32:49
  additional people because we just knew that that was part of
• 32:52
  the cycle. Then there's the economy, OK,
• 32:54
  we're having, you know, a tricky year.
• 32:56
  What does that mean for our workforce planning?
• 32:57
  And it's no one bats an eye at that.
• 33:00
  These cycles and these things that are just a reality of doing
• 33:02
  business, why is it that the realities of women having
• 33:06
  children is like mind blowing? Yeah, that is nothing new.
• 33:11
  And but we treat it like a scramble every time it happens
• 33:14
  often talk about, I'm talking to others about the oh shit moment.
• 33:19
  So like when somebody comes and says, I I'm pregnant and
• 33:23
  hopefully at a supportive company, they say
• 33:25
  congratulations, but the door shuts and everybody goes, oh
• 33:28
  shit. Like how do we handle this?
• 33:29
  And that happens every time. And again, whether they're like,
• 33:32
  we, we do have good intentions. We want to support those
• 33:34
  employee. But as soon as you get the
• 33:36
  congratulations out your mouth, your mind is immediately going
• 33:39
  to like, how are we going to staff this?
• 33:41
  How are we going to handle their projects?
• 33:43
  What does this mean? Does this mean extra work on me
• 33:45
  now I got to figure this out? And instead of just being able
• 33:48
  to purely be happy for your employee, you have those wheels
• 33:52
  start turning in your mind. And then why I say it's about
• 33:56
  workforce planning is I don't want this to just be, yes, it's
• 34:00
  inspired by women in my story, but we all have important things
• 34:04
  that matter in our lives. So whether it's more dads
• 34:08
  wanting to take parental leave or its caregivers that we have
• 34:14
  aging parents that we're we're caring for, it's mental health
• 34:17
  leave, it's medical leave. We all have these things in our
• 34:21
  lives and we should plan for those that there'll be times and
• 34:27
  seasons where you come in and out of work, but it shouldn't
• 34:29
  mean that you have to choose between, do I give up my career
• 34:33
  because I've had this happen in a season of my life?
• 34:37
  But how do we build the infrastructure so companies know
• 34:40
  that? Like, this is how I can slot
• 34:41
  somebody in for that and it can be really seamless.
• 34:44
  And then my employee, my valuable employee, can come back
• 34:46
  and probably be more engaged than they were before because
• 34:50
  you recognize them as a human being.
• 34:52
  Yeah, it should just be say no more either.
• 34:55
  Congratulations. Or I'm sorry for the sake of
• 34:57
  circumstances of your leave, whatever kind of leave it is,
• 35:00
  we've got you. Yeah.
• 35:01
  And I just, I don't know. I know it's easier said than
• 35:04
  done, but I just have such a belief that if it's an oh, shit
• 35:08
  moment every time, I'm sorry you're not running a good
• 35:12
  business. Like that's actually not good
• 35:14
  business. If you can't afford to have any
• 35:17
  of your workforce step out for a week, a day, a year, and you
• 35:21
  have no other plans because everything was riding on that
• 35:24
  one person, you don't have proper standard operating
• 35:26
  procedures going on. You don't.
• 35:28
  Have like succession planning all the time anyway, we think
• 35:31
  about that for our senior leadership positions, but
• 35:34
  thinking of that more in in a fluid way instead of like, well,
• 35:38
  this is just when somebody yeah, retires, yeah, yeah, like.
• 35:41
  You're playing with Jenga like that's not good business.
• 35:43
  Yeah. And more of our companies,
• 35:45
  because unfortunately there's been so much downsizing and
• 35:48
  layoffs is that teams are leaner than they've ever been.
• 35:52
  So there really just isn't that flux that maybe used to exist,
• 35:58
  which I'd say for a lot of companies didn't really exist
• 36:00
  then either, But that's true for and getting a lot of U.S.
• 36:04
  companies don't backfill at all when they have somebody stepping
• 36:07
  into a lead they have, they more so disperse that amongst the
• 36:10
  existing team, but that's a really negative impact for them
• 36:14
  too. If everybody's at 115% already,
• 36:17
  now I have to take on the responsibilities of somebody
• 36:19
  else's job. The person going on leave feels
• 36:22
  that burden of like, I know what I'm asking my team members to
• 36:25
  step in for me. So they're trying to do
• 36:28
  Herculean efforts to make sure that like they don't feel any
• 36:31
  burden while they're away. So just it's not a good
• 36:33
  experience for anybody. Everybody feels that oh shit,
• 36:37
  kind of instead of being like, this is amazing.
• 36:39
  What is your take or what would be your response?
• 36:41
  Say some, you know, corporate as I say, corporate bro, that's not
• 36:45
  fair. Not all Bros are, you know,
• 36:47
  corporate Bros are mean. But let's just say some somebody
• 36:49
  who says, OK, but Beth, I work for this big corporation.
• 36:53
  I am doubling down on D and I I'm doubling down on leave top
• 36:58
  UPS. You know, we're paying our
• 37:00
  employees pretty well their full salary for six months.
• 37:02
  We can't afford to then bring in someone like a mother cover
• 37:05
  because now we're actually paying more in this is what do
• 37:09
  you say to that person who's like fighting against you with
• 37:12
  this idea? Yeah, one, there's, there's lots
• 37:16
  of different formulas and you can reach out to me for this
• 37:18
  cause I, I'm actually putting together a little bit of a
• 37:21
  playbook around this, but I've how to budget for leaves.
• 37:24
  But a really quick high level version of it is take 1% of your
• 37:29
  salary and put that aside into a leave coverage.
• 37:33
  That's really all you need. So it's a small fraction of your
• 37:37
  overall compensation budget, but has a huge impact when you start
• 37:43
  then looking at attrition from leaves.
• 37:46
  And there's a stat out there, matern in Canada, apparently in
• 37:51
  the US that talks about 1/3 of women leave their jobs within 18
• 37:56
  months of returning from a parental leave.
• 37:59
  And a lot of that is because they did not feel supported
• 38:02
  during their leaves. So look at the cost of that,
• 38:06
  especially if you say you're, you're investing in your CDI
• 38:10
  initiatives, that's where you're losing your most talented women.
• 38:14
  And we're like that glass ceiling really comes into play
• 38:18
  where you're like, well, I can't return back to this leadership
• 38:20
  position because I wasn't supported.
• 38:23
  So I'm going to go off to to another company and start fresh
• 38:26
  again. Look at the turnover of the team
• 38:29
  as well too. Is that something where you
• 38:31
  think like, well, I'm just doing this for maybe only 5% of my
• 38:34
  workforce is actually going to go on parental leave, but it
• 38:37
  impacts a lot more within your company.
• 38:40
  We've had scenarios where people have talked about clients turn
• 38:44
  churning because they didn't have the, the proper support
• 38:47
  when they were an account manager that their accounts
• 38:50
  weren't looked after when they left.
• 38:51
  So there's a real financial impact of the company, whether
• 38:54
  it's missed goals, lost productivity, turnover, you can
• 38:58
  put together the the business case for that 1% of of your
• 39:02
  salary line items. Cool.
• 39:04
  Yeah. Well, yeah, reach out to Beth on
• 39:06
  this playbook. That sounds so interesting.
• 39:09
  Yeah, that's such a good idea. And coming from this is also
• 39:11
  coming from somebody who is a former or is an executive.
• 39:14
  You're a business owner now, former executive.
• 39:16
  So you are very intimate with understanding and understanding
• 39:20
  costs and expenses and overhead. I mean, yeah, you know, all the
• 39:23
  things. All those things.
• 39:26
  All the money, all the money. Now, for those who have gotten
• 39:29
  this far in the episode, who actually haven't listened to the
• 39:32
  first one, can you, as you would describe it today, introduce us
• 39:36
  to Mother Cover? So Mother Cover is an agency
• 39:41
  that specializes In interim and fractional support for parental
• 39:45
  lease, really any type of temporary event, again founded
• 39:48
  around the idea for for parental leave and it is all we do.
• 39:53
  So we don't do other types of fractional or consulting
• 39:57
  engagements. So it's really wrapped around
• 40:01
  what it's like to step in for somebody versus taking on a
• 40:05
  vacant role or or a project, say so.
• 40:09
  You're not a. Recruiter.
• 40:10
  Not a not a recruiter. The other thing I'll just
• 40:14
  colours like we're not like a staffing agency or recruitment
• 40:17
  firm where we play somebody and then we're gone.
• 40:18
  We're involved the entire way. We've built up a roster of over
• 40:23
  100 what we call leave partners and they are professionals
• 40:28
  without a minimum of 10 plus years of experience across
• 40:32
  whether it's HR, finance, operations, marketing, sales.
• 40:37
  And they are experts also in being able to to step in on
• 40:42
  short term contracts so they can get the lay of the land quickly
• 40:46
  hit the ground running. So again, if we're talking about
• 40:48
  a US leave and it's a three month leave, you don't have a
• 40:52
  month to spend ramping somebody up.
• 40:54
  So when I talk about this is all that we do, We've built
• 40:57
  processes around what does a good transition period look
• 41:00
  like? How do you onboard a leave
• 41:02
  partner? What does that leave itself
• 41:04
  actually look like? How are we documenting things
• 41:07
  and creating bread crumbs for that parent that's going to come
• 41:09
  back so they get the context of what they missed out on.
• 41:11
  And then what does that re onboarding period look like,
• 41:14
  which is a huge part that's often overlooked.
• 41:16
  We all think about like, how do we document everything and get
• 41:18
  that person ready to leave and hand it over to somebody,
• 41:21
  whether it's external or internal, that's taking over the
• 41:24
  responsibilities. And we really dropped the ball
• 41:27
  on that person returning and, and reintegrating essentially
• 41:31
  back into their team. So that's what we all think
• 41:34
  about, what our lead partner, there's partners think about and
• 41:38
  being able to, to step in seamlessly to, to companies so
• 41:42
  that they don't have to have that oh shit moment.
• 41:43
  They're like, great, you're going on leave.
• 41:46
  We have somebody that that can step in really care for the
• 41:50
  person who's going on leave because it's their strategy and
• 41:53
  it's their professional reputation that they're they're
• 41:56
  carrying forward. So that gives the Peace of Mind
• 41:59
  to the parent going on leave. But again, it doesn't feel like
• 42:01
  charity from the company's side because they still get a senior
• 42:04
  operator that's able to take things forward.
• 42:07
  It's not like a pause. It's like as if you were still
• 42:10
  in seat, your projects, your strategy is everything is still
• 42:13
  moving forward and it's like a button being held, handed back
• 42:16
  to you when you are ready to return.
• 42:20
  And how many of us have seen that moment of someone goes on
• 42:23
  leave and they're like, you know what?
• 42:24
  We can't afford to replace those person for 12 months.
• 42:27
  We can't find that person at this mid to senior level.
• 42:30
  Let's bring in an intern or a coordinator and you're like,
• 42:33
  that actually does nothing for anybody.
• 42:35
  OK, sure, maybe it alleviates some of the work to like your
• 42:38
  managers who can take on. It's just that's messy and
• 42:41
  that's not smart. No.
• 42:43
  And and one of the things that so we talk about fractional
• 42:48
  leaves. So for anybody who's not
• 42:49
  familiar with the fractional term is essentially you're
• 42:52
  getting a fraction of somebody's time.
• 42:54
  And we do do leaves up to full time, but it is more common for
• 42:57
  us to do fractional and that's for a few reasons.
• 43:01
  The type of individuals who are on our leave rest roster are,
• 43:05
  um, portfolio career type folks. They're, they are fractional.
• 43:09
  So they deal with multiple clients.
• 43:11
  And they do that because maybe they've gone through layoffs or
• 43:17
  different things in their career and they've stumbled into
• 43:20
  contract and fractional work, but now really enjoy it because
• 43:23
  maybe they are parents themselves and that's just the
• 43:26
  flexibility and control they're looking for.
• 43:28
  Or are we have individuals who are 2025 thirty years into their
• 43:32
  career and they're like, I've just earned this flexibility and
• 43:34
  I'm able to to do this kind of on on my own.
• 43:37
  So they do that by nature, which is a good almost security of
• 43:43
  when you bring somebody into a contract role for a leave.
• 43:47
  And again, now putting more on that the Canadian side of a 12
• 43:51
  to 18 month leave, that's risky because that person is most
• 43:55
  often looking for a full time job.
• 43:57
  So is it either a foot in the door in that company, which
• 44:00
  feels threatening to the parent going on leave, is this person
• 44:03
  actually going to take my job or are they a flight risk because
• 44:08
  they're going to take a permanent job as it comes up.
• 44:11
  So if it's 12 or 18 month leave, they might leave before it's
• 44:15
  done. So us recommending A fractional
• 44:18
  professionals, they're fractional by choice.
• 44:20
  They're not looking for a permanent job.
• 44:21
  And those who are on our leave roster have come because they
• 44:25
  feel a personal connection to what we're trying to do as well.
• 44:28
  So they understand the importance and responsibility
• 44:32
  and the weight of stepping in for somebody again, versus just
• 44:35
  taking on a vacancy or project work.
• 44:38
  And then the other is budget as we were talking about.
• 44:42
  So yeah, I always recommend that you should over hire for that
• 44:46
  role. You want to go more senior than
• 44:48
  say if you were permanently hiring for that role because it
• 44:52
  wasn't a role you were expecting to hire, train and onboard for.
• 44:56
  So having somebody more senior who knows how to step in can be
• 45:00
  ingrained in your team, but doesn't need a lot of extra hand
• 45:03
  holding. That just goes so much further.
• 45:07
  But you maybe couldn't afford them full time, but you can
• 45:09
  afford them 30 hours or 25 or 20 or whatever it happens to be in
• 45:15
  that can have a really outsized impact on on their team.
• 45:18
  But we've seen it a lot too, where you think that you need
• 45:21
  one thing, so you go more junior for that and you're like, I I've
• 45:25
  maybe saved some money or I was able to attract for that role.
• 45:28
  But then in our fast moving environment, lots of things
• 45:31
  change or you need somebody who's able to not just carry
• 45:35
  forward a strategy, but react if something changed, whether it's
• 45:39
  in the team, in the market, that sort of thing.
• 45:40
  So having somebody senior that can handle that and you're not
• 45:45
  left kind of scrambling. I've seen time and time again be
• 45:48
  so valuable that we have somebody our senior in that role
• 45:51
  than what they thought maybe they needed.
• 45:53
  Yeah, because the winds changed and the person's like, OK, like
• 45:56
  just with experience and time and, you know, having seen more
• 46:00
  stuff because they are more senior, it it won't rattle the
• 46:03
  mismatch. No.
• 46:03
  Yeah. And also, yeah.
• 46:05
  You know what I loved about I have to call out like one of the
• 46:09
  insights that you had for founding Mother Cover that has
• 46:12
  stuck with me. And then I tell everybody about
• 46:13
  what I'm talking about Mother Cover, which is probably weekly,
• 46:17
  is the fact that the person, the parent, the person also person
• 46:21
  going on leave their strategy and their work is there's a
• 46:26
  follow through to it, which I think is so cool and so unique.
• 46:31
  It is not something that's talked about enough that when a
• 46:34
  person goes on a leave, whether medical, parental leave, what
• 46:37
  have you, it's like great everything unless I like
• 46:41
  completely got that, you know, strategy plan done, dusted and
• 46:46
  started like it's actually like being put to work.
• 46:49
  It's probably just going to get rewritten.
• 46:51
  It's going to throw in the garbage.
• 46:52
  It's never going to see the light of day.
• 46:53
  And I just worked, you know, for the past two years, I'm pushing
• 46:56
  this thing forward and now other agendas coming in, taking over
• 46:59
  and steamrolling what I've done. But what I love about mother
• 47:02
  cover is that you're like, no, we hold sacred the work that
• 47:06
  the, the leave that the person was doing who's gone on leave.
• 47:09
  And we are putting a person in place who has no, for the,
• 47:13
  there's no skin in the game. Like there's no ego attached to
• 47:16
  it. They're like, I'm going to go do
• 47:18
  the best possible work in my area of expertise possible.
• 47:21
  I'm going to take the strategy unless there's something
• 47:24
  fundamentally wrong that they overlooked or whatever.
• 47:26
  And they're like, and I'm just going to see this through for
• 47:28
  them. And then that person is going to
• 47:29
  come back. And I can only imagine those.
• 47:31
  I'm sure there's conversations happen in that transition back.
• 47:34
  And how cool would that be for that fractional person to be
• 47:38
  like, welcome back, like, OK, here's what we were working on.
• 47:41
  And it's a senior leader who knows what they're talking
• 47:44
  about. And they're like, here's how I
• 47:45
  covered you in this past year, you know, or however long, like,
• 47:48
  go ghetto. Yeah.
• 47:49
  How nice is that? Yeah, and and to not feel like
• 47:52
  I've talked to to so many women who just, yeah, you still have
• 47:56
  that underlying fear of yeah, somebody's coming in just to
• 47:59
  carry forward my my work. But like I said, they are they
• 48:03
  going to outshine me? Are they going to change things?
• 48:07
  Am I going to get my role rescoped when I come back?
• 48:12
  But we have a leave partner manifesto.
• 48:15
  So and I'll leave partner takes on a, a, a contract for us.
• 48:20
  This is basically like, this is how you're expected to carry
• 48:23
  yourself And one of those things, and you already said
• 48:26
  this yourself, ego has to be left at the door.
• 48:29
  This is a low ego 0 ego type of of environment.
• 48:33
  And that's where it's been so rewarding to have everybody
• 48:39
  who's who's become a leave partner has found us because
• 48:42
  they really care about this this type of work.
• 48:44
  So again, whether they are 20 or 30 years into their career, but
• 48:47
  taking on a senior individual contributor type role, they're
• 48:50
  like, I don't care if I was as CMO, I am doing this role
• 48:54
  because it's in service of this person.
• 48:57
  And that just feels so good all the way around.
• 48:59
  Like it's. Win, win, win.
• 49:00
  They're making and they're making money to the fractional
• 49:02
  person is making a great income from doing this and they're
• 49:07
  helping the company and the companies helping every like
• 49:10
  every single party wins. Yes, yeah, and yeah.
• 49:13
  And the parent that's we we talk about like keeping their name
• 49:17
  spoken in the rooms that they're not in.
• 49:20
  I remember feeling even in before I was pregnant of trying
• 49:23
  to think like how will I navigate any any time away and
• 49:27
  not necessarily being worried about the because I was naive to
• 49:31
  the extremes of discrimination. I just thought I was like, well,
• 49:33
  how am I going to be what felt like invisible for any amount of
• 49:39
  time within my career? But to think that like
• 49:42
  somebody's coming in to make sure that they're like, no, this
• 49:44
  is Beth strategy. And we also talk about that.
• 49:47
  We're not just seat fillers or or benchwarmers.
• 49:50
  We're bringing our level of expertise into it.
• 49:53
  So like, say I had gone on leave and somebody took over my
• 49:57
  position for me. If he said something came up in
• 49:59
  the market or something changed or they had a good idea, we
• 50:02
  absolutely want them to bring their their good ideas and that
• 50:05
  expertise that they're bringing to the table.
• 50:07
  But you do it in a way that's so respectful and honoring the
• 50:10
  person that's on leave. So maybe there was a flaw in my
• 50:13
  plan, but they wouldn't say, oh, they shouldn't, doesn't make
• 50:17
  sense. They might say Ben had this
• 50:19
  great plan. It actually made me think of
• 50:22
  XYZ. Can we add that on on top of it?
• 50:25
  So just the care in the way that you're doing that because you
• 50:29
  know, this is not your job. This is not your role.
• 50:32
  You are a caretaker of it for somebody else.
• 50:35
  Let's pull that clip. Let's pull that clip out.
• 50:38
  What is one of the most surprising or some of the most
• 50:40
  surprising things or just things that you hadn't expected to come
• 50:45
  to fruition in this past year? Congratulations first of all, on
• 50:48
  one year Mother Cover. Feels like you've been at it
• 50:50
  forever. Crazy.
• 50:52
  What is What has surprised you in what you've learned, who
• 50:55
  you've encountered, the conversations with the the
• 50:58
  businesses, the clients, corporations, the leaf partners?
• 51:02
  What comes to mind? The first thing that comes to
• 51:04
  mind was I, I don't know why I didn't think of this, but I get
• 51:10
  a lot of baby photos from our clients and I was like, Oh, I
• 51:15
  just like, what a bizarre, like coming from again, never
• 51:18
  thinking that my career was ever going to leave tech, that I was
• 51:21
  ever going to be an entrepreneur, do anything, let
• 51:24
  alone be in some sort of realm where like that's part of my job
• 51:27
  is like, I'll get an e-mail of somebody's newborn photos and
• 51:31
  like, just, Oh, the first time that happened, I was just like,
• 51:33
  Oh my God, like I can't believe this is my job now and, and
• 51:38
  such. And it also underscored the
• 51:45
  gravity of the role that we're playing.
• 51:47
  Um, that's where it's, we're coming in at a very personal
• 51:51
  time for, for somebody. And we may have almost
• 51:54
  guaranteed that we have not met this person in, in person
• 51:59
  because almost all the, the work that we do is remote.
• 52:02
  Um, but yeah, that, that, that you almost create that bond with
• 52:08
  them, that they're wanting to show you their baby photos, even
• 52:10
  though you've never met them. And you're like, this is
• 52:12
  amazing. So that is something I never
• 52:15
  imagined. And I used to not think of
• 52:18
  myself as such a softy, but oh man that that was the best part.
• 52:25
  What do you see is next for Mother Cover?
• 52:29
  No, not so much. I want to get to that, but I
• 52:31
  want to actually ask about like for lack of a better word,
• 52:34
  trends. What are you seeing as being
• 52:37
  important to organizations as it pertains to parental leaves?
• 52:41
  Is it continuing to add to top UPS?
• 52:43
  Is there, are there greater conversations?
• 52:45
  Like, what's the narrative out there since you're so embedded
• 52:48
  in? This I think and again, because
• 52:51
  most of our our clients are are US, it is leaves getting longer,
• 52:57
  which is great like if still painfully slow, but you're
• 53:02
  seeing for for those who don't know, it's most common in I
• 53:07
  would say knowledge worker and professional fields 12 weeks.
• 53:11
  Now we're seeing 16 weeks, 20 weeks, which I know still feels
• 53:15
  very slow, very, very low compared to 12 to eating.
• 53:20
  For that long, yeah. Can I say yeah?
• 53:25
  It's. True.
• 53:26
  Right, Yeah, I yes, it's. OK anyways, but getting longer.
• 53:32
  Getting longer and I think that's bringing this to to more
• 53:36
  of the forefront of like we can't just get away with
• 53:39
  dispersing work amongst the existing team and not bringing
• 53:43
  that we need to think about again workforce planning in a
• 53:45
  different way. And yeah, budgeting for for that
• 53:50
  like we budget for anything else.
• 53:52
  Planning for that like we budget plan for for anything else.
• 53:56
  And then on the Canadian side, and we're talking about like
• 53:59
  yes, maybe we've got the policies more advanced, but our
• 54:02
  corporate culture is still not there.
• 54:05
  We still, especially with women in leadership positions, it's
• 54:09
  almost like a test of loyalty. Yes, you can take 12 to 18
• 54:14
  months, but are you will? You that makes me want to poke
• 54:20
  my eyes out vomit at the same time.
• 54:22
  And I wouldn't have, I'm sure I wouldn't have, I would have been
• 54:24
  like, no, I'm coming back after X number of months or I'll come
• 54:29
  back part time or, or something like I wanted to be able to show
• 54:32
  like, no, I'm, I'm this is still important to me.
• 54:34
  I haven't changed a pack, but I yes, so I think that's, that's
• 54:41
  still very much a thing. But I think that again, the ones
• 54:44
  the companies who are starting to to recognize that there's
• 54:47
  more conversations still needed to be had around a good leave
• 54:51
  experience and what people are feeling internally because we're
• 54:53
  having more of these conversations of I still feel
• 54:56
  really stressed when somebody steps in for me or I felt like
• 55:00
  my re onboarding was really bumbled or I didn't have the
• 55:04
  communication that I needed or I didn't have conversations about
• 55:06
  flexibility when I returned. So just bringing more of those
• 55:10
  conversations to the forefront for for companies you just
• 55:14
  didn't realize all the other layers of complexity beyond just
• 55:17
  did I have protected leave and did I have paid leave where
• 55:21
  those conversations need to to go now on both sides of the
• 55:25
  border, I feel like that's happening more.
• 55:28
  OK, I like this. Oh, there's so much.
• 55:35
  There's so much to unpack. If we were to record when we are
• 55:40
  to record again in a year. You're back here in Vancouver in
• 55:43
  person. What do you hope to share with
• 55:47
  me that has happened in the past year?
• 55:50
  Oh, I would love to say that I don't know.
• 55:54
  Our human rights commissioner heard this and was like, oh, we
• 55:56
  need to speed this up and we get to, I get to end.
• 56:00
  We get to Ottawa. And we get to Ottawa and I've
• 56:05
  retained my story and that we can, we can show, show how there
• 56:10
  is a, a playbook for keeping our our, our voices and doing the
• 56:14
  right things and, and making that almost like a case study
• 56:16
  for other companies to be like this is this is how you can
• 56:19
  really go sideways on these things.
• 56:24
  Yeah, I know that was a little bit of you can cut that part.
• 56:27
  No, we're not cutting. That's beautiful.
• 56:29
  I love that. Yeah.
• 56:31
  Let's do this. Can we send this clip?
• 56:33
  Can we send this YouTube video to the Human Rights
• 56:35
  Commissioner? Sure.
• 56:38
  Yeah, something does he do they? I just said he yeah.
• 56:42
  Do they have an e-mail address that you know so there could I
• 56:46
  look it? Up there's human rights
• 56:48
  commissions in each province, so we each have our own Human
• 56:51
  Rights Commission and then there's a federal body as well
• 56:55
  too. But I think there's probably
• 56:58
  another whole segment we I just want to do on maybe helping
• 57:02
  people navigate the human rights process and bringing more
• 57:06
  attention to what's not working in that process.
• 57:12
  One other very much underfunded and you, I don't know if you
• 57:16
  look province by province, but I live in a conservative province.
• 57:19
  I believe that that's related of why our Human Rights Commission
• 57:24
  is underfunded. So there isn't the staffing to
• 57:27
  to make sure that like we can hear cases and move things
• 57:29
  forward in a, in a timely manner.
• 57:31
  But that's, like I said, also at the companies benefit of they
• 57:34
  can keep kicking it down the road and there's no teeth for
• 57:37
  it. So really shining a light and
• 57:41
  education around what that does to victims of discrimination or
• 57:45
  any types of, of, of human rights complaints, what that
• 57:48
  really feels like. It doesn't feel like a human
• 57:52
  process, which is ironic for a human rights complaint.
• 57:56
  I think there should be mandated counseling within that is as
• 58:01
  well. There has, that has not been my
• 58:05
  experience so far at any point of being treated like a human
• 58:08
  going through this. It's very clinical almost.
• 58:13
  Yeah, it's not great, not great, but on the more positive.
• 58:16
  So yes, I that would be not thinking that that's going to
• 58:20
  happen in a year. Like I said, I think that's
• 58:22
  several years down the road, but that would be a wonderful
• 58:25
  surprise if I could tell you that this came to to a good
• 58:28
  resolution within a year. But more importantly, I think
• 58:31
  it's going to be the growth of Mother cover, more case studies,
• 58:35
  more stories that we can show about companies doing it right,
• 58:39
  because I'd rather tell those stories than this one.
• 58:42
  Mic drop. But of course I have one more
• 58:45
  question. Well, I have two more questions.
• 58:46
  OK, number one, what is one of your favorite?
• 58:49
  Just off the top of your head, what is one of your favorite
• 58:51
  stories that you have had or success stories that's happened
• 58:56
  over the past year? Um, I'd say my favorite is that
• 59:03
  one leave that I actually did my myself ended up getting extended
• 59:08
  as that person was returning to to help with their, their re
• 59:13
  onboarding. And I just said, like we became
• 59:15
  friends and I we talked a lot about when we would have our,
• 59:19
  our weekly one on ones. We were talking about marketing
• 59:22
  strategy, but then we're also just talking about motherhood.
• 59:24
  And I was just like, everybody deserves this.
• 59:26
  And I know that this is what you do, but almost being able to
• 59:30
  have like that coach for both things of talking about like,
• 59:34
  yes, this is how you figure out your pumping and breastfeeding
• 59:37
  schedule around your meetings and all those sort of things
• 59:40
  because that's part of it. But then like also let's get
• 59:43
  into, like I said, the, the marketing strategy side of
• 59:46
  things. And then that is a company that
• 59:49
  we also did a, a case study with and we, we actually just had
• 59:53
  them be part of an interviewer, an HR publication interviewed
• 59:58
  all the, the leader of that team, the person who went on
• 1:00:03
  leave and myself up at listening to them describe their
• 1:00:07
  experience. It was almost as if I could have
• 1:00:09
  written it for them of like this is what I hope that somebody,
• 1:00:13
  both the company and the individual, are going on leave.
• 1:00:16
  Experiences and to have them say that in their own words without
• 1:00:20
  being scripted was a really full circle moment where I was just
• 1:00:24
  like, oh, this is that's like this is real.
• 1:00:28
  And this really did have the impact that I hoped it would
• 1:00:31
  have. And now I just hope that that
• 1:00:32
  scales. Wow, congratulations.
• 1:00:36
  And how has motherhood been in the past year of growing a
• 1:00:40
  business and a toddler? Yeah, so I know.
• 1:00:43
  Going with Ruby. 2 year old toddler and she is amazing and
• 1:00:50
  funny and challenging and bossy in all the best ways that I hope
• 1:00:56
  very young a woman to to grow into.
• 1:00:58
  So I'm so honored to to be her mom.
• 1:01:01
  And there's so many pinch me moments of again going through
• 1:01:04
  infertility. That's like, I can't believe
• 1:01:06
  you're here. I can't believe this is what
• 1:01:09
  life is like now. But she also just pooped
• 1:01:14
  everywhere before I got here. So like you get humbled real
• 1:01:16
  quick and easily. But that is, that is motherhood.
• 1:01:20
  You, you were still on time. You texted me saying running
• 1:01:22
  behind there was a poop explosion.
• 1:01:24
  And I thought, if that's not just the perfect epitome of
• 1:01:29
  working motherhood now going to some fancy studio, Yes, the
• 1:01:34
  podcast. Like I'm doing this podcasting
• 1:01:36
  this big deal day. And then she's like, I'm going
• 1:01:39
  to, I'm gonna, yeah, give you a little curveball this.
• 1:01:41
  Is gonna go everywhere and we're not in our home.
• 1:01:44
  You're in someone else's home. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:47
  Yeah, shout out to our family that we just left them with a
• 1:01:50
  poo explosion and ran out the door.
• 1:01:53
  Yep, yeah. What is something that you would
• 1:01:56
  say you're still trying to figure out right now?
• 1:01:59
  Right now we're on the topic of my daughter.
• 1:02:03
  These last couple days while I have been in Vancouver, I'm
• 1:02:06
  working as well too and she's at home with our our family.
• 1:02:11
  Normally she's at at daycare. So I don't think she's now that
• 1:02:14
  she's getting older, she's more aware.
• 1:02:15
  So we would normally take her to daycare and then I start my work
• 1:02:19
  day. Now she because we've been here,
• 1:02:21
  she I say I'm going to to work and she's staying home and I am
• 1:02:26
  kind of sneaking away to to an office to do some work.
• 1:02:29
  And the last few days she was like, mommies working.
• 1:02:33
  And that really, actually made me feel really sad.
• 1:02:35
  And I was like, oh, why do I feel that way?
• 1:02:39
  Where I, and then I make some sort of joke of like, well,
• 1:02:41
  somebody's got to pay for your diapers.
• 1:02:43
  And now I need, I, I'm just was thinking about this.
• 1:02:46
  Even on the drive over, I was like, I can't make that joke.
• 1:02:50
  I need her to see that like I'm doing something that's really
• 1:02:53
  important to me that she's my #1.
• 1:02:56
  But I'm also have things that I'm really passionate about.
• 1:02:59
  I'm really proud of the work that I do.
• 1:03:01
  So I shouldn't joke of like, I'm doing this because like we have
• 1:03:04
  to. I'm doing this because I really
• 1:03:06
  want to and I'm really proud of and I hope that you're really
• 1:03:08
  proud of me. It's so beautiful.
• 1:03:11
  There's so much we could say on that.
• 1:03:13
  Yeah. But I want to leave it there
• 1:03:14
  because that's beautiful. Thank you for once again sharing
• 1:03:17
  your story, sharing your updates.
• 1:03:19
  I love this. Like, where are they now?
• 1:03:21
  Episode year later? Where is Beth?
• 1:03:25
  What's happening? What's going on in her case?
• 1:03:27
  Well, hopefully it won't. Feel less like a crime scene
• 1:03:29
  drama that we're following Ben. No.
• 1:03:31
  Yeah. A bit of a legal drama.
• 1:03:33
  Though, Yes, yeah, little bit of a little crime scene.
• 1:03:36
  Yeah, that's on the ground. Thank you, my friend.
• 1:03:39
  Thank you.