00:00:05 - Commercial
Welcome to The Work-Life Equation, hosted by Priya Krishnan and Paul Sullivan. During this episode, you will hear from working parents just like you who understand the daily struggles and triumphs while finding our unique work-life equation. Now, here are your hosts.
00:00:23 - Priya Krishnan
Hello everyone, and welcome to The Work-Life Equation podcast by Bright Horizons. I'm Priya Krishnan and I'm the Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at Bright Horizons.
00:00:32 - Paul Sullivan
And I'm Paul Sullivan, founder of The Company of Dads and your co-host.
00:00:37 - Priya Krishnan
Our guest today is Mita Mallick. A true change maker with an impressive track record for transforming culture and business, Mita is passionate about giving innovative, culturally resonant ideas a voice and serving customers and communities with purpose. Mita's book, Reimagining Inclusion, debunking 13 myths to transform your workspace, became a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. Her passion for inclusive storytelling led her to become a chief diversity officer, building end-to-end ecosystems across big and small organizations, and future proofing brands for today's dynamic environment. Mita has lent her talent and expertise to companies such as Carta, Unilever, Pfizer, Awon, Johnson and Johnson, and many more. Welcome to the show, Mita
00:01:26 - Mita Mallick
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation with both of you.
00:01:29 - Paul Sullivan
Let's go right into it with the book reimagine inclusion. 13 different things that you go through, but one I'd like to really focus on, given our audience, given the nature of this podcast, or what are some of the myths that hold back working parents in the office? What are some of the things that help both working moms and working dads from fulfilling their full potential in the office?
00:01:55 - Mita Mallick
Well, one of the myths I get into, Paul, is of course we support women. We just extended maternity leave. Right? Of course we support women. We just extended maternity leave. And oh, it's so much more than maternity leave. And even the language of maternity leave, it's parental leave, right? Exactly what you're saying. The future and the world of work for women cannot change without men and cannot change out. The conversations is what you do with your company without fathers and men being caregivers. And so that is often left out of the equation. I have worked with so many different companies in an advisor role, in my role as chief diversity officer and as a parent. And too often it is the check the box. It is the race to oh, we have this many days of maternity leave, parental leave, and even the fact that sometimes companies still separate that or we have 365 days. You can take a year off when you have your first child or you expand your family. Okay, but then what? What is the support system? And as we've talked about before, I'm really passionate about the ripple effect of that, particularly when you think about the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood premium. And so this idea of leave being important, but, oh, it's just the start. It's just the tip of the iceberg.
00:03:10 - Priya Krishnan
And as a working parent yourself, what kind of challenges have you faced as you navigated your career? And maybe you could talk through one of them. And I want to delve into the other one, which I found really fascinating, your 13th myth, which was remote work. So maybe you can cover your own, and then we can jump into your 13th myth.
00:03:33 - Mita Mallick
Well, how much time do we have to cover my own? I've got a lot of stories, but I will start with, you know, just this idea that at the end of my life, I will have wanted to have done many things well. And I think that's true for all of us. I want to be a great mother, a great leader, a great wife, partner, sister, cousin, daughter in law, daughter, all of these things. But why do we have to choose? And I feel like when I became a mother and started expanding my family in corporate America, I was completely unprepared for how people would view me differently. Of course, I changed, and my priorities might have shifted in terms of my family being, like, my number one priority, but it didn't mean that I wanted to decelerate my career. And so this idea, remember coming back from my first leave and second leave? I have two children. Well, if you're here, who's watching your children? You have a stranger raising your children. You're not going to go part time. Why aren't you going to go part time? You're back full time. You're already back. You didn't take more time off. How was vacation? Okay, to anyone who's birthed two children, adopted, surrogacy in any situation, it's not a vacation. There are highs and lows, right, of expanding your family and in some cases, raising little human beings. And so my husband never had those questions of him asked. Never. Never, never. Right. In terms of what I remember in our conversations, there was never a question of whether he was more committed to his career. And he was. And that's the fatherhood premium, right. The more kids we've had together, it's he's more dependable, more reliable. He's more ambitious. He needs to provide for his family. I know he just attracts money. While I became this disheveled mess or the stereotype of a disheveled mess, that I am less dependable, reliable and less interested in progressing my career. And then the ambition, the penalty ambition, I will say. If you say, well, no, I want to have a family and I also want to be successful in my career. But why? But why?
00:05:42 - Paul Sullivan
One of the things you touch on instead of our first question and that second question is the difference between the, the structure that companies can put in place. Here's 20 weeks of parental leave, or as you joked, here's 365 days of parental leave versus some of the things that managers say. As you know me, I'm a glass half full guy. Let's assume it's inadvertent, even though they're completely buffoonish things to say. How was your vacation? All that. How do you manage the two? Because companies can spend tons of money creating an amazing parental leave plan, but it only takes a couple of managers to make these comments that would make a working parent start to question his or her decisions around mixing work and parenting. How can you help those two work together more seamlessly?
00:06:34 - Mita Mallick
That's a great question. It's about upskilling leaders to be more inclusive. And that's my life's work. It is that you have this policy in place, but what are you doing to then upskill individuals? So I'm on Paul's team and I'm going out on leave. Is he going to sit down with me before I go out on leave to talk about my performance to date so that we're very clear on what I've achieved before going out on leave and what my career ambitions are when I come back. Right. And again, I always say, no one gave you permission to slow down my career too many times coming back from leave, where it's like, well, you don't need that promotion. Why are you so anxious to get promoted? You have a baby at home. Why don't you wait another year? Why don't you take that job? That's going to be easier. But this is the way in which we interrupt bias, because a lot of what I'm talking about is I have cultural stereotypes. I was raised with, I'm the proud daughter of indian immigrant parents and I'm raising children now. And I think about the language that I use or even when you, the inadvertent comment. If you're going to ask me how was your vacation, or you're having a stranger raise your children, would you ask that of a man? Would you ask that of a husband or a father? And that's the way in which we can interrupt bias. But, you know, in many organizations, and I've done this in my past, creating welcome to Parenthood guides for teams. A lot of leaders just don't know the language to use. Like, when I tell you I'm expecting, your response should be, congratulations. That's it. Not, are you serious? The business is on fire. You're really going out in June. What? That's not the, so it's like training people to be like, okay, you might have that thought in your head because this is what I love. I mean, the robots can't read my brain yet, right? No one can read what's in my head. And I have a lot of bias. We all do. But I can hold that thought in my head and say, okay, I have that thought, but I'm not going to say it because I'm going to interrupt the bias and just say, congratulations.
00:08:31 - Priya Krishnan
And that's practical advice, which is, you know, how do you make sure people at least have a consistent operating style as they deal with these things? I'm going to bring you back to the 13th myth because that was really interesting for me, and I think it's certainly relevant as a lot of parents. And we're seeing this dichotomy, right. Employers want employees back in the workplace. Employees are saying, hey, I think I like the balance. I don't want to do the 90 minutes commute into work. And we're seeing this as a tussle between two groups who are very important and depend on each other. So how are you talking about this with both sides of the equation, employers as well as employees. And what are you seeing as trends there?
00:09:14 - Mita Mallick
Well, I'll start with the employee lens, which is as soon as the power is back in the hands of the employees, and it's a strange market right now. Interest rates are still really high. We have in us presidential election going on, a pretty significant war happening in the world. There's so many things happening that are impacting people's mental health, livelihoods, their communities, but also work and the economy. And so for me, as soon as I have the choice, I will vote with my feet and I will go to employer, an employer who supports flexibility. And I think that's all what we want. We want to be treated like adults. Right. We want to know that it's not about FaceTime anymore. It's about the impact you're making. It's not that I'm sitting in front of you and you can watch me work and micromanaging. Right. And you could call me into the conference room and call me out and I, you know, I had a boss who would just terrorize me and want me in at 07:00 a.m. for no good reason, or sometimes 630, but there was really no good reason for it. It was just so that the individual could have the people around them. And, you know, some of these jobs, like, my job is not life or death. I'm not a 911 operator. I don't work in an ER situation. Like, there are some jobs where I understand that the construct of how you work is different. For people like me, that's not the case. Right. So for employers, it's, you want to be a company that attracts talent and attracts the best of the best to help you drive your business forward. And if you have so many constraints on how people can work, as soon as the market shifts, people will make a different choice. And I think that we are in this place right now where many people are feeling unhappy, because when you are going into the office, you want to connect and collaborate, but we're all sitting on Zoom calls, talking to people at different places, or the connection and collaboration isn't there. And part of it is we just kind of fell into this way of working, and nobody's really taught us or trained us on how to lead a hybrid workforce for the future.
00:11:15 - Paul Sullivan
You know, Mita, we're obviously all kindred spirits here. We're talking about something that we care deeply about. But when you see companies that are pushing back against some of these policies that allow parents to work differently, to allow parents to have a high quality early childhood education as part of their benefits package, do things that allow them to work, what are the reasons that companies or individuals within those companies push back against something that in this group here, we obviously see as a net.
00:11:50 - Mita Mallick
Positive benefit, I think potentially one. It's not their lived experience. I talk a lot about empathy. We're all on a journey to be more inclusive, empathetic leaders. I don't know what it's like to have walked and lived in your shoes. And so it's easy for me to deem things as not important when I haven't experienced it. And so if you haven't ever experienced that, that could be why you're trying to put these really strict policies in place, or quite frankly, take away benefits that people felt like they had gotten from the pandemic. The second might be that, hey, this is how I was brought up in corporate America. This is how I did it. So you have to do it too. You have to come in five days a week. I know best. I can't think of a different way of working. And then I think the last is the world of work and power dynamics are shifting this idea. I was raised in a corporate America where I would get a corner office, maybe there'd be a fridge and a couch in there, and I would have all of my team sitting out, right? And I would have, like, an executive assistant. Like, these are the things that I was raised to. Like, that's what you aspire to. And that paradigm is totally demolished. And so then it's like, okay, now I am a president or a CEO, and I can't see everybody. They're not around me constantly. So what does that mean for my role? And how do I value myself and the role that I'm in? And so that's what I think I'm seeing shift. And some people just are still operating in an old way of working.
00:13:19 - Priya Krishnan
And so moving back to working parents and how companies are supporting them. In your experience as the Chief Diversity Officer and as you're helping all of these organizations, what have you seen are some of the things that organizations are getting intentional about in terms of supporting working parents and what is the advice you're giving them?
00:13:40 - Mita Mallick
I do think policies matter. I joked earlier about 365 days. That's great. But policies without upskilling and an understanding, like, you write a policy and put it out and no one ever sees it or knows about it until someone uses it. And everyone. I didn't know we had 365 days off a year. What? That's ridiculous, right? That's not the right way to do it. You have to upskill and have buy in on these policies. I mean, there are so many things, particularly in my time doing this work, really encouraging managers and individuals who are going out on parental leave to sit down and have the conversation on their performance. Because I have one time in my career, very painfully, been given a very low rating when I was on parental leave and I had been out for six months and I was trying to understand the rationale, and they said to me, well, the business tanked when you were gone. I was gone. The business tanked. I wasn't working here. Especially for companies who are doing a bell curve, right? You do the one to five performance review cycles, and everyone thinks they're making the right decision on their own team. And in the aggregate, you then see, wow, all the women who went on leave got the lowest rating. How did that happen? And so those are the things. And that's how the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood premium, those are the moments where you think about how do we have this huge gender pay gap? It's like this huge thing and we don't know how to do it. These are the moments that add to that. Right. Because if I'm penalized each time I go on leave, that's actually another thing that's adding to the gap. Right. And so imagine how that can happen on the whole. So milk stork, you know, anything where you're supporting women who are coming back from leave and those moments of like shipping breast milk and things like that, having like nursing room. So important. And then, you know, really thinking about what we talked about at the start of the conversation of the world of work for women can't change without men is that parental leave and making sure that fathers are being encouraged to take it and that there's role modeling in place and that people are seeing more and more men taking this. And when I worked with Dubman plus care, they had an amazing parental leave pledge where they were trying to get more companies to sign on to say, you know, you can have this amazing parental leave policy six months, but none of the men are using it. So to actually look at the data and say, if you look at who's using it, the utilization rate for men is quite low. And so how are you going to increase that?
00:16:10 - Paul Sullivan
We talk about this a lot, that if I have three daughters, if my wife were to have taken 20 weeks with each child and I decided that I was only going to take one week, there's a 57 week delta there between what you would have taken and what I would have taken, and magnify that across the company, it has an impact. I know a couple companies. There's one financial services company that comes to mind that they really force the men to take parental leave. And if those guys cheat, if they try to log in, they cut them off. I know another technology company, not Carter, don't worry, not Carter. Another technology company that has looked and said what we gave 20 weeks to men and 20 weeks to women, but on average, men are only taking twelve weeks. We should reduce their leave. Instead of asking the other question, why are the men only taking twelve weeks? How is it being modeled and supported? So you say that the future is men being more involved. Obviously, I agree with that statement. But when you think of specifics that what we would call lead dad. But what men in the workplace can do to help create a more equitable future as it comes to parenting for both, you know, mothers and fathers, what are some things that managers and leaders could look to do?
00:17:20 - Mita Mallick
We'll start with what we just said, role modeling. If you are about to be a father or going to be a father for a second 3rd time, as you're expanding your family, taking that parental leave and being vocal about it, and role modeling is so important, it's such an underutilized moment. People don't really think about that. And if you're doing it in secret and quiet, then what does that mean? You're taking the lead, but you don't want anyone to know you're taking the leave. That's interesting. And then second, going back to when you hear bias about working mothers, and I don't even like that language anymore, mothers, because we all are working either inside the home or outside the home. When you hear bias language about mothers in the workplace, stop and interrupt. One of the classic examples. I've sat through many performance review cycles where let's say Mita's about to be up for a big promotion. She just came back from leave and someone says, well, Mita has a small baby at home and this role requires a lot of travel. I don't think this is a job for her. Okay, again, who gave you the right to make decisions for my career? And who in that room is going to say, could be a woman or a man? It could be anyone to say, well, have we asked Mita what she wants? Like, why are we making assumptions about who her ecosystem is and how she raises her family? Why is that for us to judge? Because if Mita was a man, that conversation likely would never come up. And so I think those moments of when you see something, say something, I sound like the New York City subway, right? It's hard to interrupt bias in the moment, but you can ask open ended questions. Have we asked Mita, how should that. You don't have to use language like, this is sexist, this is racist. And of course we use that language when it's occurring. I'm not saying that, but I'm also saying thinking about ways to help people interrupt their bias using open ended questions, I think is a really useful tool.
00:19:14 - Paul Sullivan
You listen to the Bright Horizons Work-Life Equation podcast with Priya and Paul. Our guest today is Mita Mallick. We're going to take a quick break and be right back.
00:19:34 - Commercial
What's more magical than a childhood filled with days of play, learning, exploration and discovery? At Bright Horizons, we think of childcare as a chance to help a child experience it all. Our teachers go beyond the usual ensuring your child has an enriching, satisfying day. They take the time to listen, engage, encourage, and celebrate the wins big and small. At Bright Horizons, we put the care in childcare. Visit brighthorizons.com to find a center near you. Welcome back to The Work-Life Equation with Priya Krishnan and Paul Sullivan. We hope you're enjoying this episode and are finding the stories empowering and inspirational. Now back to the show.
00:20:25 - Paul Sullivan
Welcome back to The Work-Life Equation podcast with Paul and Priya. Our guest today is Mita Mallick.
00:20:33 - Priya Krishnan
Mita, you know, given your, you said that you were a, you were born into a family with Indian immigrant parents. What about your culture and your heritage and your upbringing has influenced how you think about things and then how you're taking that into raising two children, a son and a daughter, to think about the world more equitably? Because I think all of this starts at home. So talk to us both about how your parents, what your family has influenced, and how you're thinking about this for your own family.
00:21:06 - Mita Mallick
Really funny that you mentioned this, because I just did a talk on this. I didn't know you were going to ask me this question. That's why I was leaning in to pull this piece of paper that's been sitting in my bag. So I thought about all the wonderful values my parents had given me that have not served me well in corporate America. So I'll read you my list of seven children are to be seen, not to be heard. So I thought it was really interesting when I went to college and people said they debated at family dinners and had conversations. We didn't do that in our family. I was like, what? I don't understand. To always respect adults in authority. Everyone's an auntie or an uncle or mister or misses miss. And so how does that show up when you're in corporate? Because you're deferred authority, which leads to the third one, which is never a question authority. Never question authority. Don't challenge people in positions of power. So it wasn't until I met my husband that I actually negotiated offers because I thought, I trust the system. I never would be disrespectful and asked for more because this is the offer. Four, always be humble. Five, keep your head down, work hard, stay out of trouble. I don't know why my dad added stay out of trouble. I wasn't a troublemaker, but I always waited for my fairy godmother to come and put me in my cubicle. That wasn't going to happen. I didn't advocate for my own career. Six, hard work speaks for itself, and seven, put others comfort ahead of your own. That also, I think, speaks to, like, hospitality culturally. Like, if you showed up at my house today and I had plans, I would cancel them and not tell you I had plans because you came and I would do everything I could to make you feel welcome. But it also meant that I put everyone else before me. And so what did that mean for my career in corporate? And so that's funny that you asked me that question, because I just was reflecting on. On those lessons.
00:22:50 - Priya Krishnan
And how does that influence how you're raising your children and what are you doing differently?
00:22:54 - Mita Mallick
Yeah, I mean, I want them to be bold and have opinions, and I want them to be. Have a powerful voice. And also, I think about the difference between having a boy and a girl, and there should be no difference. Right. But I was raised with a difference. Right. If my son is loud, why can't my daughter be loud? If my son is bossy, why can't my daughter be bossy? If my son wants to be a firefighter, why can't my daughter be. Or if my daughter wants to wear pink, why can't my son wear pink? Right? So all these things that I am unlearning, but all of these things that we were raised with, we bring with us to the workplace, whether we realize it or not, the role and expectations we think women should play at home versus work. And if we're not careful, we bring these with us to work. And we're human, and we were raised with it, and it's buried deep inside us, but it comes up in moments that really matter at work.
00:23:53 - Paul Sullivan
You know, one of the things I'm always aware of is that no matter how much I talk, and you both know me well, I love to talk. My kids aren't listening. They're only watching what I do. And so the classic example, if I say, you know, you know, you know, make sure you thank somebody if they do something nice to you, and then I thank, and I don't do it, and I'm a jerk, they'll see that in a second. You know, you're obviously made up, you know, a model for the world that you want your, your children to move into as they grow up. But when you think of your partnership with your husband coming from. From two different backgrounds, how have you worked so that both of you, both you and your husband are modeling the behavior at home and in the workplace that you hope your children and their friends today will embrace when they get older?
00:24:41 - Mita Mallick
I love that there's no gender specific tasks, which is how I was raised. Right. My mother worked inside the home until she became a teacher. When we were older, my father worked outside the home, but love my father, rest in peace. He didn't cook, he didn't clean. He didn't do any of the things that he wasn't expected to do. He didn't grow up that way. And so for me, it's like we're all taking out the trash, we're doing the laundry, we're taking meals, we're doing the doctor's appointments, we're driving kids back and forth from school. We're doing it together in partnership, based on our work schedules. And what's going to work for this person versus that person? Because I don't want my children growing up thinking there are gender specific tasks in the home. There aren't. It's for everybody. And now that they're older, it's like, well, no, you're going to put your bowl in the sink. This is not a restaurant, right? This is your home as well. You're going to help take out the trash and things that I wasn't. Wasn't raised that way. It was just. It was a different time. And culturally, the expectations were different.
00:25:42 - Paul Sullivan
So I love that example of putting it in the sink, because as they get older, it gets closer and closer to the sink, and then it gets over to the island, then it makes it from the island to right next to the sink, then it gets in the sink. And we're still. My oldest is 14. I'm still getting to the point where, like. And turn the water on, dump the stuff, turn the water on, and then.
00:26:00 - Mita Mallick
Put it in the dishwasher.
00:26:01 - Paul Sullivan
No, no, no. That's a step too far. I'm nothing.
00:26:05 - Mita Mallick
You know, this is gonna sound a little. I'm a little harsh, but I was like, you're not gonna get another meal if you continue to do this. Like, there's no magical fairy that comes and cleans up after ourselves. This is our home, and so you, you know, the next meal. I don't know what's gonna be the next meal if you don't put the stuff away close to the sink, as you say, as close as you can.
00:26:26 - Paul Sullivan
As close as you can to get it into the sink.
00:26:28 - Mita Mallick
Effort counts. Effort counts.
00:26:29 - Paul Sullivan
Yeah.
00:26:30 - Priya Krishnan
Every little step counts as. And at bright horizons. One of the things that we do is we try and get employers to think about an inclusive workplace and how to benefit support people. I come from a personal belief that for you to have an equitable workforce. You need inequity and benefits and supports for employees. Again, as you're navigating this as a chief diversity officer, one is inclusion and language and in how people present themselves at work. How do you think supports play a role in this? And how are you thinking about this in your role as a chief diversity officer, but also, as you advise other organizations?
00:27:10 - Mita Mallick
Well, I want to give a shout out to bright horizons. I used your backup daycare I don't know how many times, and in home daycare when my children were younger, and that was an invaluable benefit. The conversation I'd like to have is given this diversity, equity, and inclusion backlash, that's real. It is a scary time right now, and these are the benefits and things that are being cut. No one's really talking about that. But if we're. I'm on a mission to build fair and equitable workplaces for all. I wish we were at that destination. We're not. And the conversation we're having right now is that we know that women pay a different cost for expanding their families versus men. It is what it is. The statistics are there. If we don't, if we no longer believe that and cut back all the support, the benefits, the policies, all this thing, where is the workforce going to be over the next several years? And that's another conversation that no one's really having, really. Like, how is the impact on the DEI backlash going to affect women? And of course, women are not a monolith, but particularly if you think about women who are working outside the home, and then, of course, all kinds of intersectionality, we all identify in different ways.
00:28:22 - Paul Sullivan
In your book, Mita, you talk about something called the curb cut effect as it applies to a lot of the different policies. Can you describe for the listener what exactly is the curb cut effect and how might it apply to the working parents we've been talking about on this podcast today?
00:28:41 - Mita Mallick
It's a fantastic example that I stumbled across, and it was really a historical moment in the city of San Francisco as they're looking at how to design the city and they wanted to make the sidewalks and streets accessible for individuals with disabilities, particularly, let's say, if I was using a wheelchair. And so the curb cut effect is how you think of a curb and the cut when it meets the road. So anyone who's waiting to cross the street or you're looking at the traffic light pedestrian walkway, it's that cut. And so what was so fascinating about this example is that, of course, it helped individuals who were utilizing a wheelchair. It helped people who were riding a bicycle, helped people who were pushing groceries or a cart, helped the skateboarder, helped somebody who was using crutches. Right. And so think about. You think about our own lives and, you know, about pulling a suitcase. I think about all the times I've used that, the curb cut effect, and what an analogy for the workplace. And so a policy that you think when it comes to flexibility, you think that's only something that women need or women who are mothers need. Oh, but everyone needs it in some way or form. And so if we start to think about how policies can have a ripple effect on not just one individual, one community, but many communities, and also how it can positively impact your work culture.
00:30:11 - Priya Krishnan
Yeah. And I think I was reading about the Kirpatrick effect, and I was thinking about the notion of equitable policies across the board and how simple things like saying it's not maternity leave, it's parental leave, it is just the extension of the existing policy to include a broader group of people so that you are impacting a set of a broader range of people. But when I think about this from our clients perspectives for a minute, they have these multiple generations in the workforce. They're trying to get a. And I'm saying this even as, you know, as us as an employer, we have people who are Gen X through to now, millennials and Gen Z. And trying to create policies that feel equitable across the board is sometimes difficult. So, again, as you're thinking about navigating this, I would say this again from an employee lens. How do employees seek this and say, hey, how do you make me relevant in this group that you're thinking about? Because it's not a monolithic group. It's a wide range of people that employers are dealing with now, I would.
00:31:23 - Mita Mallick
Say our voices matter. So express what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, what you need from your employer, whether it's to your manager, your chief people officer, your chief diversity officer. And also, I will say, I'm exhausted sometimes of speaking up. Right. So sometimes it's not just the employees, but the leaders, the CEO, the CHRO. What are you seeing? Are you looking at how, as you're saying, the demographics are shifting, generations are coming in. Are you thinking about how your policies are fair and equitable? What if I don't want to become a mother or expand my family? Do I have access to leave? Is there a sabbatical or something I can be taking? Or given the sandwich generation and many of us who have elderly parents, relatives, like, is there an opportunity to use that, leave for that? And so thinking about what life stage people are in and how that could be used for another situation and to be open to that. And I always say our employees are a forgotten consumer. I spent many years as a marketer. We spend so much time thinking how much you're going to sell, what to whom, where, why, and we forget that our employees are one of our most important consumers. And so if you're not listening to their voices, if you're not asking them what they want and need, you should be doing that regularly. I shouldn't actually have to be the one as an employee to be like, this is what I need. It's great when I do. But you should have a pulse, as you're saying, on how your organization is changing, and be proactive on how you're changing your policies, benefits, expanding them, making them more fair and equitable.
00:32:53 - Paul Sullivan
You know, whether we like it or not, you know, Covid, was this before and after moment, and you've worked through it. You think of, like, where policies were in 2019, you know, then we have the sort of working at home policies around how people are going to work, parents are going to work, and then as companies have tried to sort it out, and some seem to be being very progressive and leaning into thinking differently about how working parents can fit into the work culture, others less so. What of all of the things that you've seen over the past four or five years? What are some of the trends that you think will persist around working moms and dads in the workplace, both the good and the Badland?
00:33:40 - Mita Mallick
I think that the good and the bad is the flexibility battle. I don't want to go back to a two hour commute each way. I won't do it anymore. I'm not going to rush home to have, you know, be late for my caregiver or miss a child's play or we're just. People don't want to do that anymore. And I think that's going to be the biggest battle that's going to continue over the next ten to 15 years. And you are going to lose talent. You're going to lose great parents who can be contributing to your workforce, making meaningful impact, helping drive revenue. You're going to lose them to other employers. Right. Inclusion is a competitive advantage, full stop. And for the companies that don't see that, they're going to be left behind, because as we all know, it's a small world, whether it's LinkedIn or Glassdoor. If you have the policies, if you don't, if people aren't having great experiences there, word starts to get around and people will say, oh, I'm not sure if that's a place I would consider, actually, you should consider coming, working here, because I've been here five years. I've been able to get promoted. I also have a family here. All the things that are happening that are great for me. And so I think we also underestimate word of mouth and the power of our current and former employees on the stories they tell of what they experienced in our workplaces.
00:34:56 - Priya Krishnan
You spoke about this, the notion of employees being an internal customer. I certainly have been one of the biggest believers in that. I think the space that we operate in, happy employees means happy children and happy children means happy parents, and they go on to have happy employers themselves. Right, sure. But how do you message this? And given your marketing career, how have you communicated a multicultural environment? I think that is missed out quite often. You're not who you often who you see. You need to see people in positions having similar lives to you. How do you encourage companies to both think about this in terms of how they're messaging out, inclusion in their communications, and how they're bringing people into the organization as well? It starts from acquisition, right?
00:35:51 - Mita Mallick
Yeah. I'll start with the two parter. I'll start with, the first part is we all can smell diversity washing. You're going to sign a pledge to close the gender pay gap, or you're going to sign a pledge to have an equitable workplace for parents. And that's not the experience of your parents in the workforce internally. Right. And so I think companies have to be careful too often are very quick to sign pledges or put something on Instagram. It's this heritage month. It's this moment. Let's celebrate. And then the employee at their desk is like, that's not my experience. Like, I can't believe they're talking about that. So that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be making external movement and that you shouldn't be working externally with partners. You just have to make sure that you're also not leaving behind the internal workforce. And that's where employee resource groups are great. I say they're not. Your d and I strategy don't force the individuals from historically marginalized communities. It's not their burden to educate people. But if there are moments that you want to partner with women's resource group, parents resource group, men as allies groups, which I've started at many companies, it's a wonderful opportunity to get their partnership and their insights to do the work. I think that's just so important. Yeah.
00:37:04 - Priya Krishnan
And I think ERG groups are certainly becoming a really interesting way for bringing people together. And it's important for us to have folks who are not from that community, to your point, to talk about the and to be curious about saying, okay, what does this mean? How does language matter? What should I be talking about? And certainly we are seeing more and more organizations get intentional about ergs, but they're not the only strategy, as you've outlined several times in your book. We end this the conversation with three questions for all of our guests. This is the one that is graded, and we know you're competitive, so we're.
00:37:41 - Mita Mallick
Going to buckle up.
00:37:45 - Priya Krishnan
In your own words. Would you define work-life balance?
00:37:49 - Mita Mallick
There's no work life-balance. It's work life integration. I don't believe in work-life balance.
00:37:54 - Paul Sullivan
Number two, Mita, what is your go to way? Just you, no spouse, no kids, no work, no podcast. What is your go to? Way to unwind.
00:38:10 - Mita Mallick
I love people. Ask me, what's your productivity tool? Productivity tool. I love an old school journal, a beautiful journal and a pen. And I just like to write. Write my thoughts. Doodle.. doodle, coloring. That's my way to decompress.
00:38:26 - Priya Krishnan
They say that it calms you and it anchors you. So that's good. What empowering advice would you give mothers? I won't use the term working mothers. What advice would you give mothers? Listening to the podcast, seeking to balance work and being successful at home.
00:38:42 - Mita Mallick
Be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself and show yourself grace. And it is about the balance of your life. Today might be a day I give more to work and less to my family. Tomorrow might be a day I give more to my family, less to my work. And so it's about did I overall, at the end of my life, did all the things I wanted to do well? And so be kind to yourself because it's nothing. Sprint. It's a marathon. It's a long, long life long race and run.
00:39:12 - Paul Sullivan
Thank you, Mita, for joining us today on Bright Horizons’ The Work-Life equation podcast with Paul and Priya. We've thoroughly enjoyed talking to you.
00:39:21 - Mita Mallick
Thank you so much. Thank you.
00:39:23 - Commercial
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