In this insightful episode, Priya and Paul welcome Subha Barry, President of Seramount, an organization that has been surveying companies since 1986 to identify those committed to retaining and advancing top talent through engagement strategies and fostering family-friendly workplace cultures. Subha discusses the evolving needs of employees, emphasizing the importance of openness about personal challenges and the balance between career and personal responsibilities. She highlights how individual experiences can shape corporate policies, such as extended healthcare benefits and gender-neutral parental leave. Companies that adapt to societal changes, support mental health, and offer innovative benefits like flexible parental leave arrangements are more attractive to employees. Barry also stresses the need for companies to prepare for future trends, particularly support for caregivers such as elder care. She concludes by encouraging employees to take initiative in shaping their workplace to better meet their needs. Companies must be willing to pivot and innovate, offering personalized support and leveraging technology to address diverse employee needs. These trends underscore the importance of creating inclusive, flexible, and supportive workplaces to attract and retain talent in the future.
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00:00:00
They listen to the feedback they get from their own employees to help shape and structure their policies and programs. And very often what that can do is give the employee the very powerful message that your voice matters.
00:00:19
Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Work Life Equation podcast where we explore strategies for balancing life in success and personal well-being. I am Priya Krishnan.
00:00:29
And I'm Paul Sullivan. Today we're honored to welcome Suba Barry, an experienced executive with over 30 years of leadership experience in wealth management, operations and corporate strategy.
00:00:40
As president of Seramount, Subha has driven significant growth supporting over 500 organizations on their path to excellence.
00:00:48
Beyond her corporate success, Suba is a six-time cancer survivor embodying resilience in her life and her work.
00:00:58
In this episode we'll discuss the challenges of balancing demanding careers with caregiving and explore strategies for success and fulfillment in both work and life.
00:01:10
Subha, first question. You know, you've built this incredible career while overcoming some significant obstacles. You know, I was reading this piece that you did with Rutgers where you were treated for cancer, and you talked about in that piece how you were always so open and honest as a leader. You're open and honest with what was going on. Obviously, some of it, you had no choice. You got tired. You got tired. I'd love to talk to you about how that openness and that honesty with what was going on with you personally informed your leadership and what impact it may have had on the people who were around you, who were reporting into you.
00:01:48
Thank you again for having me. And you know, that's such an interesting question. Part of it is I grew up always being pretty candid and open. Part of it may have come from the fact that as a non-white woman who had come to the United States, there wasn't much about me I could hide. The way I looked, my accent, even the way I thought about things culturally. Having grown up in India, there wasn't a lot. There was so many things about me that made me different and I couldn't hide it. So this notion of just being who I was just came naturally. And I figured it was a lot easier than trying to be someone else, whether it was putting on an accent or trying to get this frizzy hair straight. So this idea of when I got sick, sick, there was simply no thought given to how can I keep it quiet. I felt like I needed every hand on deck that I could get to be there to help me. And that meant family, that meant colleagues, that meant my manager and boss at work. So the idea that the more people that stepped up to support me, that became that community around me, enabled me to have an easier journey. And it informed so much of my approach to leadership. Because I got cancer in my early 30s. My son, who is now 30, was a year and a half old when I was first diagnosed. So I had young children. I had a daughter who was six years older. We didn't always have secure childcare. You know, it kind of the nannies came and went, the ebbs and flows. I hadn't really settled that around. So there was a lot of things that were uneven and uncertain in and around my life when I did get sick. But it was the community, whether it was friends that stepped in, my mother who moved in to live with us, my husband's family that supported us, my workplace colleagues that picked up calls and helped, all of that came into play. And it taught me some valuable lessons about what corporations can do. And I still remember a really crazy call I got from my then CEO, and his name was Dave Kamansky. So one day I'm at the office. He picked. I pick up the phone, and it's like, Dave Kamansky's office. And at that point in time, my brother, my younger brother, who was 10 years younger than me, would keep me amused by impersonating a whole variety of characters. And so I was convinced that it was him pulling my leg. And I keep saying to him, stop it. You know, don't do this. I'm busy now. And this poor guy goes, no, Subha, this is Dave Kamansky. I wanted to offer my support to you to let you know that we are here for you. And I remember thinking to myself, how incredible is it?
Obviously, it wasn't as though he was screening everybody who was sick and calling them. Somebody in leadership, somebody who was close to him, had told him, and he took the time to actually make that call and talk to me, to me. Those are leadership lessons. I took away and tried to bring that into the way I led. And I think it has served me well.
00:05:16
My God, that is so. I have goosebumps from listening to you, Subha. But that is such an inspirational story and such a special moment. And these things matter, and it matters how you make people feel. And it's incredible that the levity and the fact that you thought it was Sundar and then the fact that he took the time to call you is pretty amazing. But many professionals really struggle with this balancing act of career aspirations and personal responsibilities based on your journey and what kind of advice would you give people? It is always a struggle. It is a balancing act. But what advice would you give to people who are overwhelmed by both?
00:06:01
An interesting way to understand that in life, in any given moment, we usually rise up to address what it is that demands our greatest attention. So if you are driving, you have to navigate the traffic and assume that you're on a call. You know what takes priority in a given moment. If something rushes across the road, the driving takes the priority. I always try to use those analogies in explaining to people how you're going to have ebbs and flows. And I wish I could tell you that they will come at the exact appropriate moments when you are best equipped to deal with them. The answer is that's not the case. So sometimes the focus is on work, sometimes the focus is on home. And sometimes you don't choose very wisely. You prioritize the wrong thing, you make a mistake. I still remember scheduling my time in a way that didn't allow me to get to my daughter's school's Mother's Day celebration where they had cooked and baked and, you know, done this play and set up tables with flowers. And I literally got there at the very end of it, having missed most of it, sat myself in a seat and thought to myself, I should. I prioritized wrong today. This particular moment in third or fourth. Third grade, I think it was a second grade is not going to come back again for this child. And I know that her eyes were looking in the audience to see if her mom arrived. It wasn't a big school, so she knew that her mom was not there. And those are the sorts of moments I would encourage people to not miss. And you'll make missteps. I have made plenty of them. And I have to tell you, in the long run, the things that you will not get a second chance at are the ones that you should prioritize. And nine out of 10 times, they usually have to do with family, not with work, because there's always something that you can substitute for at work, but at home and in family, you can't. My advice to people is look back, whether it's on a weekly or monthly or yearly basis, look back at decisions you made and allow that to be the guide for how you will plan going forward.
00:08:43
You know, we're only on the third question here, Subha, and I'm already starting to tear up a little bit because I know exactly, you know, My daughters are 7, 12 and 15. And what you're saying, it's like, if you were to look at my calendar, it's all color coded so that we know what we have to be to and what we're kind of moving around. And not too long ago, my oldest daughter had this biology presentation. And I went. My wife went. My dad, otherwise known as Grampy, he went. And my daughter's like, nobody else has three people. Everybody else only has one. And, like, yes. And both my wife and I said, but we. Not to, like, offend my dad, but we both know what it's like to have none. And so we want it to be there. You know, when you're talking about things that have helped you, you know, that Dave Kamansky story is remarkable. Cause as most people know, I began my career as a business journalist, and I knew David Kamansky. He was this sort of legend. And the idea of him calling you up, just picking up the phone, I would have doubted. I don't know your brother, but I would have doubted that it was really him. It just didn't. How is. That's what you remember. And you've gone through in some more detail about how Marilla at the time, helped you tactically through your own health journey. We always remember the leaders. We always remember the managers, both good and bad. But when you think about leaders today, companies, executives, what are those things that they can best do to help their employees, either in a moment of need or just day to day, around childcare, around managing life, those really tactical things that may not stay in your deep memory, the same way a call from Dave Kamansky does, or arriving late at this crucial thing for your daughter. But those tactical things, each and every day, that make their lives a little bit better and maybe make them a little bit more loyal or less likely to leave that job.
00:10:42
What's interesting is that you have broad based company programs, policies, initiatives, things that companies do. But you can always trace it back to individual experiences. And I'll share one particular experience with you. I believe it was the early mid-80s. We had a leader at Merrill lynch who was a gay man. At that time, gay marriage was not legal. Merrill did not offer coverage for domestic partners. So this man's partner was obviously not covered. And Merrill also had a very Christian leadership team at that time, so quite conservative in terms of their religious views, et cetera. So this man was traveling to the Far east, and his partner suffered some debilitating illness for which there wasn't coverage. And normally, if it had been a Merrill employee traveling on business with their spouse, they would have been medevaced back to the US for treatment. The company covered that. And for this individual, obviously the coverage was not there. They changed. Bill Schreier, a devout Catholic man very close to the Vatican, changed Merrill's policy to cover domestic partners, enabled this person to be brought back and covered. It gives you an example of how individual experiences can actually shape policy. Another example, when I had my stem cell transplant, Merrill was self-insured. So we had a million dollars coverage per person, at the end of which you then start to pay your own bills. At that time, I got a call from Merrill lynch, not the CEO, but somebody in the benefits group to say to me, we have you covered. Senior leadership has already said that since you've hit your limit in June or July and you have the rest of the year to get through, we have you. So policies and programs and benefits and other such things evolve because the experience of one helps to inform what could be broadly supportive for the organization. So I would say to you, in so many cases, we have examples where individual experiences, and usually that takes a manager that notices that and steps up to elevate it, to bring it to a level, whether now it's a corporate policy around it, and there are, you know, whether it's around menopause awareness, whether it's around coverage for children with special needs, whether it is. I could go on and on about the various small and big things that have become standard corporate policies that started out with some individual experiencing it, some organization leader noticing it, elevating it, and then moving up. Then you have, of course, the more broad gathering of data, information, the way we at Seramount do that actually informs companies about other best practices. So companies begin to realize that. I can actually look at the data that shows that companies with the policies are able to attract, retain more of their talent and that reduced turnover costs can be obviously quantified so easily. All of those things have ultimately led to an understanding that good corporate programs, policies, et cetera, can actually deliver outsized results for companies.
00:14:47
Yeah, I'm glad that you Talked about Seramount’s 35 years in this space and the data that you're analyzing constantly, what core markers, according to you, help employees identify companies? So given the trend that you spoke about, it's an individual, it's a leader who identifies that specific need, and it becomes a policy. So what would be markers that employees should look at to say, this is an employer that is truly supporting working families and caregivers in the workplace?
00:15:23
So when you really think about what are the kinds of things that have impact on your talent, I would say to use strong policies like gender neutral paid parental leave. Our 100 best companies have an average of 12 weeks. But many companies offer as much as 20 weeks of paid parental leave. Parental leave, not maternity and paternity separately for each, but parental leave support for employees dealing with fertility issues, miscarriage, menopause. This is specific, specifically targeted towards women. Child care, adult care, all of these have become standard markers for what employees look for when they want to go work for a company.
00:16:13
Piggybacking off that question, Subha, when you think about that list of the top 100 companies, a few of them have been on there for almost the entire time. At least one has been on there for the entire time. Many of them have been on for 5, 10, 15 years. Obviously when you get on that list, you don't want to fall off that list. You've told stories about some individual leaders and managers who were wildly instrumental. But if you're on that list for 10, 20, 30 years, you've had many leaders cycle through. When you think about those companies on the macro level, what are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things that distinguishes those top companies as it relates to the benefits they provide employees with those who haven't cracked the top hundred and may never crack the top hundred.
00:17:05
It's a great question. 88% of our 100 best companies offer fully paid caregiving leave. Now, everyone offers parental leave, but caregiving leave, which is a little differentiated caring for an elderly family member or a sick child, 80% promote menopause awareness. So you're talking about 80 out of 100 companies that really actually dedicate resources towards not just promoting the awareness, but offering support for people struggling with it. More and more. What you're starting to see is a better awareness and support for mental illness, children with autism. Miscarriage is the new thing. You know, do you provide leave for women who have experienced a miscarriage? So some of these, in my opinion are, you know, gender neutral. Parental leave is become a standard. Everybody does it, 100% of them. I also remember when, and it was Johnson and Johnson. I'll call them out by name because, because I was struck by the fact that they were one of the first to do this sick childcare coverage. So if you have to come into work, they actually offered care for that child, one on one care for that child in their facilities, in the office. The ideal one would be to say, yes, you have that day off, you can go help take care of that child. But if you're not able to, they had backup Childcare, because usually childcare organizations like Bright Horizons are not going to take sick children normally. But the ability to be able to offer something like that was something that differentiated J & J from other companies.
00:19:02
And it's companies like that that also allow companies like us to continue to innovate. What differentiates these top 100 companies? How do they stay on top of trends? Workplace trends change, family definitions have changed over time. The number of generations in the workforce has changed. What do you see as the key differentiator that keeps these companies ahead of the curve and how do they keep track of staying on top?
00:19:30
So there's several different ways they can do that. I think they do look at the data they submit to a Seramount and they compare themselves against companies in their industry, their geography, their size, et cetera. That is one. But they also listen internally to their own employees. And this is where the employee resource groups have become such an important element of Support. For example, 77% of our companies have a resource group for working parents whose issues and challenges may be unique. 65% have an ERG for caregivers. Again, something that and the caregiving can be for a disabled child or for elderly family members, et cetera. They listen to the feedback they get from their own employees to help shape and structure their policies and programs. And very often what that can do is give the employee the very powerful message that your voice matters, that we care about you, to listen to you, not just look at an average number that we get from a data point, from a survey, et cetera, to say, well, this is what the average is for my industry. Let me offer that they actually customize it based on what they are hearing from their own employees. And that is a powerful affirmation that each employee matters and that they care about them. And I think that that has worked for all these companies in terms of being able to hold on to their best talent.
00:21:08
This next question is about expectations and listening to your story. When you were a commodities trader, having your daughter, I don't know if the company even offered maternity leave, but if they did, your expectation would have been that your fellow commodities traders would have cannibalized your book of business and stolen all of your clients. Then by the time you got to Merrill for when your son was born, you had maternity leave and they had a real policy in place. Now nobody would go work at a company today if they didn't at the very least have a maternity policy. Most people are looking to go to work for a company that has a parental leave. Policy. The question really is how have expectations changed for the better, hopefully, or for the worse? How have the expectations changed over the years? How are companies meeting the expectations that their employees have now for benefits? And it's perfectly fair for part of this answer for you to say where companies may be maybe pushing back a bit, but it's really about how those expectations have evolved and how companies are meeting their employees today.
00:22:13
What's really interesting was before COVID and before this, working remotely was not as common as before. One of the big things was, oh, my company has dry cleaning services at the office. So bring your red bag with your name tag on it to the office. They will take it and bring it back to you. So that's one less trip you have to make around it. Now, you know, with the greater flexibility that has become commonplace, that sort of thing has gone away. But you know, there were so many things that we hide. Mental illness being sort of top of the list in my opinion, where people, whether it's their own or a close family member's mental health and wellness were issues that were so sensitive that you just did not feel comfortable being able to be public about it. This is where societal change, and I credit Gen Z and even the Millennials with, you know, so much for allowing that to come out into the open. Having children with autism, going through a cancer diagnosis, menopause, miscarriage, I could go on and on about all of those things that we hid and that no longer need to be hidden. Quite the same way. It doesn't come easy, especially with things like depression or ADD, ADHD, bipolar disease, et cetera, and other mental health issues. I would tell you that people still struggle to be able to understand, but there is an openness now that wasn't there even 10 years ago. I can't think of a company that doesn't offer the Calm Meditation app as a resource for someone that is going through stress. But they are doing it in other ways too. Seramount has a platform called Forge, which is a online job simulation platform which allows you to actually go experience what being a entry level investment bank or at a company is like. And if you come from a background where your parents didn't come from, financial services background, or even a white-collar background, it affords you the opportunity to experience something before you go in on that interview itself. It helps somebody who has so much anxiety around interviewing. It helps people who have processing delays and disorders who may be really smart and sharp. Technology has become also a big enabler and companies are beginning to offer that which in my opinion, it shows an adaptiveness and agility, a willingness to pivot and to be more open and inclusive in terms of either, saying, well, this is who I want. If they don't have the capability for it spot on, on the job in the moment, then I don't want them. That has changed. That mentality and mindset has changed.
00:25:15
Yeah, and you're right in terms of both employee expectations or even employer willingness to adapt and change over time. That's what your hundred top companies demonstrate. But let's switch to the companies who actually fall off that list. You spoke about the fact that there is a megaphone microphone effect, which is you listen to employees and then you say, I'm responding back to your needs. What do companies that get off the list, what are some common missteps from them? How would you advise employers to look out for them? And how do you give employees the advice that look out for these signs? These are not companies who sustain these policies.
00:25:57
So you can listen to your employees. But another one is you should look at your competition. You should look at the marketplace. And I'll give you one very specific example. A company that offered eight weeks of parental leave 10 years ago, that's two months of leave was considered cutting edge. Guess what? Today it's a minimum of 12 weeks. But many companies offering as much as 20 weeks of leave, and what is interesting is the phase back piece. So they're innovating even within that. The way parents are taking leave right now is they stagger it. You know, both of them take the first week or 10 days off. Then typically the mother takes the full, you know, if it's 20 weeks, 20 weeks off, and then the other parent steps in and takes the rest of it. So the child essentially is covered for almost 39 weeks or 38 weeks. That is the kind of creativity and innovation that is important. And when companies get stuck and stay dug in on things that they put in a while ago and don't evolve with either the marketplace or the competition, typically they fall off the list.
00:27:18
We're still in this liminal state. We're working differently, we're living differently than we did five, six years ago. But we haven't really cemented ourselves into what that new pattern is going to be. That next pattern. When you look at companies that are really investing in helping their employees figure out that work life equation that they're trying to calculate right now, what are the best companies doing? What are they doing that their competitors aren't doing because they think this isn't Just good for these employees today or this year. This is going to be good for these employees four, five, six years down the road and ultimately good for the company because we're going to retain these great, smart people.
00:28:02
I'll share several categories I think that are important to think about. The first one is self-care. If Covid taught us something, it taught us about the impact of isolation and the ability for us to help our talent develop. Your ability to be able to withstand all of the different things that are happening around us, that's one. The second one is going to be around elder care, senior care. That obligation is continuing to multiply and the ability for companies to appreciate and understand that is going to grow and not recede and it is here to stay. And the obligation that you can just take someone and put them in some place and have somebody else take care of them. I think both this generation and the generation before it is really committed to being involved and engaged in that elder care. And if that is what they want to do, then your company's policies must enable and help support that. The third part is around if an increasing number of young people, I'll throw out a data point. Gen Z, 50% of them are multiracial. So that issues of race, et cetera, are now here to stay. They're not going away. We talk about the overall population of the United States becoming minority majority in another 10 years. Gen Z is already there. They are going to be there in our midst. How do you help to work with it and deal with it? That is going to become core part of what companies will need to know to do. Which means it's not just about the individual themselves, it is about everybody around them. The third one is they are, I believe, 22% LGBTQ. And that includes individuals that are non-binary, that are gender fluid, that are trans. You talk about the medical piece of it. That is the smallest part of it, the larger part of it is really dealing with who they are, how they feel about themselves, how they fit in into the workplace. These are things that I really believe companies will need to grapple and have to deal with and prepare for. And that is about not just knowing the data and the numbers, but also then how do you then treat each person as an individual when they come in? Anybody with any kind of disability or disadvantage has a corresponding advantage that they come with, a strength that they come with. How do you tap into that to benefit your organization? That's where companies will need to go in the future.
00:31:03
Yeah, I guess that's why it's you know, it's no longer called a disability. It's called being differently abled because you bring strengths to the table.
00:31:13
Thank you so much for your wisdom over the course of this conversation. We have so much to chew on. Shubha, there was one key takeaway from this conversation that you would want our audience to remember. What would that be?
00:31:28
I always think every employee thinks that my employer has the responsibility to do A, B, C, D. I agree with that. But I think each one of us has a responsibility towards ourselves and towards each other as colleagues. The question I would ask you to go think about is what is your role? What is your voice? What is your unique differentiated viewpoint guidance suggestion that you would bring to your company to make the overall experience better? You'd like to think that there is some sort of master brain sitting there that looks at all this and figures out what to do and how to move the chess pieces. But I would say to you, it's incumbent on each one of us to do our part. So as somebody who went through cancer, what have I done to help create better support for other people going through that? How can I guide my company to do that better? All right, I have a child with a special need. How do I take that and not just say, this is for me, but also broadly, how can I become that advisor guide to my company? We always expect someone else to do it. And I'm going to ask for individual ownership and responsibility in helping make this broader ecosystem better. If each one of us did that, there would be less train wrecks, there would be less people left behind and not addressed. I would challenge anybody in our audience listening to it to think about their role in it. What would I do, what could I do and how do I do it? That is part of developing your own leadership voice. And I, you know, I often say, even if it's the, the only person you're leading is yourself. You're a leader. Where each leaders and I would really like for people to think about their role as a leader in helping shape the future of the world they want to live in and the company they want to work in and the society they want to be a part of.
00:33:42
That is such a good lesson in taking initiative. Thank you so much, Shubha. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing your insights with us. Not only your leadership, but your resilience and just your can do attitude. Your whole notion of saying, I can move on, I will make the world a better place is so inspiring to all of us. We're trying to Seek these answers of what this work life equation could be. Thank you very much.
00:34:10
I'm always impressed when we talk to her about how open and honest she is about everything and how that is such a key trait for a leader. She talked very specifically about her own cancer journey, but then she talked about the people who helped her. But we also know that was inspiring all these other people to be more open and honest about what's going on. And, yes, she's helping companies get benefits, but the true leadership comes in how you implement those benefits. And she remembers those individuals who helped her but also helped other people. And that always impresses me about her.
00:34:42
Yeah, I love her openness and honesty, but for me, she undermines the fact that she's so comfortable in her own skin. That's not easy to come by. Right. You want the fact that she said that I embraced who I was. That's not easy. And openness, honesty, embracing your own self and normalizing those conversations. Right. Is, I think, what is so inspiring about her. The other element that I just absolutely love and I wish, you know, and I'll take this away into my. Into my daily life, is that positivity can get you very far. Like, she came at life as saying, it is. You know, I'm dealing with it one step at a time. The fact that 30 years into remission, she smiles and she's thankful for everything is pretty amazing. So, you know, when you have a positive outlook, I think that can impact life. Pretty meaningful.
00:35:39
Yeah. But to add on what you said about being super comfortable in her skin, like, when you're around somebody like that, it makes you more comfortable, and you can't fake that. Just as when you're around insecure people, you start to wonder, you know, is the ground shifting under my feet? And so that really allows her to sort of, you know, talk the talk and walk the walk. And when she's, you know, she's in there with these companies saying, yeah, these are the benefits. This is what other people have. And you believe her because she's very comfortable in who she is.
00:36:05
And to our listeners and viewers, thank you so much for tuning in. And stay tuned for the next episode, where we'll continue exploring strategies for thriving in work and life.
00:36:15
And today, you joined us on The Work Life Equation podcast, brought to you by Bright Horizons. Take care. And with Shubha's words, be kind to yourself.
They listen to the feedback they get from their own employees to help shape and structure their policies and programs. And very often what that can do is give the employee the very powerful message that your voice matters.
00:00:19
Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Work Life Equation podcast where we explore strategies for balancing life in success and personal well-being. I am Priya Krishnan.
00:00:29
And I'm Paul Sullivan. Today we're honored to welcome Suba Barry, an experienced executive with over 30 years of leadership experience in wealth management, operations and corporate strategy.
00:00:40
As president of Seramount, Subha has driven significant growth supporting over 500 organizations on their path to excellence.
00:00:48
Beyond her corporate success, Suba is a six-time cancer survivor embodying resilience in her life and her work.
00:00:58
In this episode we'll discuss the challenges of balancing demanding careers with caregiving and explore strategies for success and fulfillment in both work and life.
00:01:10
Subha, first question. You know, you've built this incredible career while overcoming some significant obstacles. You know, I was reading this piece that you did with Rutgers where you were treated for cancer, and you talked about in that piece how you were always so open and honest as a leader. You're open and honest with what was going on. Obviously, some of it, you had no choice. You got tired. You got tired. I'd love to talk to you about how that openness and that honesty with what was going on with you personally informed your leadership and what impact it may have had on the people who were around you, who were reporting into you.
00:01:48
Thank you again for having me. And you know, that's such an interesting question. Part of it is I grew up always being pretty candid and open. Part of it may have come from the fact that as a non-white woman who had come to the United States, there wasn't much about me I could hide. The way I looked, my accent, even the way I thought about things culturally. Having grown up in India, there wasn't a lot. There was so many things about me that made me different and I couldn't hide it. So this notion of just being who I was just came naturally. And I figured it was a lot easier than trying to be someone else, whether it was putting on an accent or trying to get this frizzy hair straight. So this idea of when I got sick, sick, there was simply no thought given to how can I keep it quiet. I felt like I needed every hand on deck that I could get to be there to help me. And that meant family, that meant colleagues, that meant my manager and boss at work. So the idea that the more people that stepped up to support me, that became that community around me, enabled me to have an easier journey. And it informed so much of my approach to leadership. Because I got cancer in my early 30s. My son, who is now 30, was a year and a half old when I was first diagnosed. So I had young children. I had a daughter who was six years older. We didn't always have secure childcare. You know, it kind of the nannies came and went, the ebbs and flows. I hadn't really settled that around. So there was a lot of things that were uneven and uncertain in and around my life when I did get sick. But it was the community, whether it was friends that stepped in, my mother who moved in to live with us, my husband's family that supported us, my workplace colleagues that picked up calls and helped, all of that came into play. And it taught me some valuable lessons about what corporations can do. And I still remember a really crazy call I got from my then CEO, and his name was Dave Kamansky. So one day I'm at the office. He picked. I pick up the phone, and it's like, Dave Kamansky's office. And at that point in time, my brother, my younger brother, who was 10 years younger than me, would keep me amused by impersonating a whole variety of characters. And so I was convinced that it was him pulling my leg. And I keep saying to him, stop it. You know, don't do this. I'm busy now. And this poor guy goes, no, Subha, this is Dave Kamansky. I wanted to offer my support to you to let you know that we are here for you. And I remember thinking to myself, how incredible is it?
Obviously, it wasn't as though he was screening everybody who was sick and calling them. Somebody in leadership, somebody who was close to him, had told him, and he took the time to actually make that call and talk to me, to me. Those are leadership lessons. I took away and tried to bring that into the way I led. And I think it has served me well.
00:05:16
My God, that is so. I have goosebumps from listening to you, Subha. But that is such an inspirational story and such a special moment. And these things matter, and it matters how you make people feel. And it's incredible that the levity and the fact that you thought it was Sundar and then the fact that he took the time to call you is pretty amazing. But many professionals really struggle with this balancing act of career aspirations and personal responsibilities based on your journey and what kind of advice would you give people? It is always a struggle. It is a balancing act. But what advice would you give to people who are overwhelmed by both?
00:06:01
An interesting way to understand that in life, in any given moment, we usually rise up to address what it is that demands our greatest attention. So if you are driving, you have to navigate the traffic and assume that you're on a call. You know what takes priority in a given moment. If something rushes across the road, the driving takes the priority. I always try to use those analogies in explaining to people how you're going to have ebbs and flows. And I wish I could tell you that they will come at the exact appropriate moments when you are best equipped to deal with them. The answer is that's not the case. So sometimes the focus is on work, sometimes the focus is on home. And sometimes you don't choose very wisely. You prioritize the wrong thing, you make a mistake. I still remember scheduling my time in a way that didn't allow me to get to my daughter's school's Mother's Day celebration where they had cooked and baked and, you know, done this play and set up tables with flowers. And I literally got there at the very end of it, having missed most of it, sat myself in a seat and thought to myself, I should. I prioritized wrong today. This particular moment in third or fourth. Third grade, I think it was a second grade is not going to come back again for this child. And I know that her eyes were looking in the audience to see if her mom arrived. It wasn't a big school, so she knew that her mom was not there. And those are the sorts of moments I would encourage people to not miss. And you'll make missteps. I have made plenty of them. And I have to tell you, in the long run, the things that you will not get a second chance at are the ones that you should prioritize. And nine out of 10 times, they usually have to do with family, not with work, because there's always something that you can substitute for at work, but at home and in family, you can't. My advice to people is look back, whether it's on a weekly or monthly or yearly basis, look back at decisions you made and allow that to be the guide for how you will plan going forward.
00:08:43
You know, we're only on the third question here, Subha, and I'm already starting to tear up a little bit because I know exactly, you know, My daughters are 7, 12 and 15. And what you're saying, it's like, if you were to look at my calendar, it's all color coded so that we know what we have to be to and what we're kind of moving around. And not too long ago, my oldest daughter had this biology presentation. And I went. My wife went. My dad, otherwise known as Grampy, he went. And my daughter's like, nobody else has three people. Everybody else only has one. And, like, yes. And both my wife and I said, but we. Not to, like, offend my dad, but we both know what it's like to have none. And so we want it to be there. You know, when you're talking about things that have helped you, you know, that Dave Kamansky story is remarkable. Cause as most people know, I began my career as a business journalist, and I knew David Kamansky. He was this sort of legend. And the idea of him calling you up, just picking up the phone, I would have doubted. I don't know your brother, but I would have doubted that it was really him. It just didn't. How is. That's what you remember. And you've gone through in some more detail about how Marilla at the time, helped you tactically through your own health journey. We always remember the leaders. We always remember the managers, both good and bad. But when you think about leaders today, companies, executives, what are those things that they can best do to help their employees, either in a moment of need or just day to day, around childcare, around managing life, those really tactical things that may not stay in your deep memory, the same way a call from Dave Kamansky does, or arriving late at this crucial thing for your daughter. But those tactical things, each and every day, that make their lives a little bit better and maybe make them a little bit more loyal or less likely to leave that job.
00:10:42
What's interesting is that you have broad based company programs, policies, initiatives, things that companies do. But you can always trace it back to individual experiences. And I'll share one particular experience with you. I believe it was the early mid-80s. We had a leader at Merrill lynch who was a gay man. At that time, gay marriage was not legal. Merrill did not offer coverage for domestic partners. So this man's partner was obviously not covered. And Merrill also had a very Christian leadership team at that time, so quite conservative in terms of their religious views, et cetera. So this man was traveling to the Far east, and his partner suffered some debilitating illness for which there wasn't coverage. And normally, if it had been a Merrill employee traveling on business with their spouse, they would have been medevaced back to the US for treatment. The company covered that. And for this individual, obviously the coverage was not there. They changed. Bill Schreier, a devout Catholic man very close to the Vatican, changed Merrill's policy to cover domestic partners, enabled this person to be brought back and covered. It gives you an example of how individual experiences can actually shape policy. Another example, when I had my stem cell transplant, Merrill was self-insured. So we had a million dollars coverage per person, at the end of which you then start to pay your own bills. At that time, I got a call from Merrill lynch, not the CEO, but somebody in the benefits group to say to me, we have you covered. Senior leadership has already said that since you've hit your limit in June or July and you have the rest of the year to get through, we have you. So policies and programs and benefits and other such things evolve because the experience of one helps to inform what could be broadly supportive for the organization. So I would say to you, in so many cases, we have examples where individual experiences, and usually that takes a manager that notices that and steps up to elevate it, to bring it to a level, whether now it's a corporate policy around it, and there are, you know, whether it's around menopause awareness, whether it's around coverage for children with special needs, whether it is. I could go on and on about the various small and big things that have become standard corporate policies that started out with some individual experiencing it, some organization leader noticing it, elevating it, and then moving up. Then you have, of course, the more broad gathering of data, information, the way we at Seramount do that actually informs companies about other best practices. So companies begin to realize that. I can actually look at the data that shows that companies with the policies are able to attract, retain more of their talent and that reduced turnover costs can be obviously quantified so easily. All of those things have ultimately led to an understanding that good corporate programs, policies, et cetera, can actually deliver outsized results for companies.
00:14:47
Yeah, I'm glad that you Talked about Seramount’s 35 years in this space and the data that you're analyzing constantly, what core markers, according to you, help employees identify companies? So given the trend that you spoke about, it's an individual, it's a leader who identifies that specific need, and it becomes a policy. So what would be markers that employees should look at to say, this is an employer that is truly supporting working families and caregivers in the workplace?
00:15:23
So when you really think about what are the kinds of things that have impact on your talent, I would say to use strong policies like gender neutral paid parental leave. Our 100 best companies have an average of 12 weeks. But many companies offer as much as 20 weeks of paid parental leave. Parental leave, not maternity and paternity separately for each, but parental leave support for employees dealing with fertility issues, miscarriage, menopause. This is specific, specifically targeted towards women. Child care, adult care, all of these have become standard markers for what employees look for when they want to go work for a company.
00:16:13
Piggybacking off that question, Subha, when you think about that list of the top 100 companies, a few of them have been on there for almost the entire time. At least one has been on there for the entire time. Many of them have been on for 5, 10, 15 years. Obviously when you get on that list, you don't want to fall off that list. You've told stories about some individual leaders and managers who were wildly instrumental. But if you're on that list for 10, 20, 30 years, you've had many leaders cycle through. When you think about those companies on the macro level, what are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things that distinguishes those top companies as it relates to the benefits they provide employees with those who haven't cracked the top hundred and may never crack the top hundred.
00:17:05
It's a great question. 88% of our 100 best companies offer fully paid caregiving leave. Now, everyone offers parental leave, but caregiving leave, which is a little differentiated caring for an elderly family member or a sick child, 80% promote menopause awareness. So you're talking about 80 out of 100 companies that really actually dedicate resources towards not just promoting the awareness, but offering support for people struggling with it. More and more. What you're starting to see is a better awareness and support for mental illness, children with autism. Miscarriage is the new thing. You know, do you provide leave for women who have experienced a miscarriage? So some of these, in my opinion are, you know, gender neutral. Parental leave is become a standard. Everybody does it, 100% of them. I also remember when, and it was Johnson and Johnson. I'll call them out by name because, because I was struck by the fact that they were one of the first to do this sick childcare coverage. So if you have to come into work, they actually offered care for that child, one on one care for that child in their facilities, in the office. The ideal one would be to say, yes, you have that day off, you can go help take care of that child. But if you're not able to, they had backup Childcare, because usually childcare organizations like Bright Horizons are not going to take sick children normally. But the ability to be able to offer something like that was something that differentiated J & J from other companies.
00:19:02
And it's companies like that that also allow companies like us to continue to innovate. What differentiates these top 100 companies? How do they stay on top of trends? Workplace trends change, family definitions have changed over time. The number of generations in the workforce has changed. What do you see as the key differentiator that keeps these companies ahead of the curve and how do they keep track of staying on top?
00:19:30
So there's several different ways they can do that. I think they do look at the data they submit to a Seramount and they compare themselves against companies in their industry, their geography, their size, et cetera. That is one. But they also listen internally to their own employees. And this is where the employee resource groups have become such an important element of Support. For example, 77% of our companies have a resource group for working parents whose issues and challenges may be unique. 65% have an ERG for caregivers. Again, something that and the caregiving can be for a disabled child or for elderly family members, et cetera. They listen to the feedback they get from their own employees to help shape and structure their policies and programs. And very often what that can do is give the employee the very powerful message that your voice matters, that we care about you, to listen to you, not just look at an average number that we get from a data point, from a survey, et cetera, to say, well, this is what the average is for my industry. Let me offer that they actually customize it based on what they are hearing from their own employees. And that is a powerful affirmation that each employee matters and that they care about them. And I think that that has worked for all these companies in terms of being able to hold on to their best talent.
00:21:08
This next question is about expectations and listening to your story. When you were a commodities trader, having your daughter, I don't know if the company even offered maternity leave, but if they did, your expectation would have been that your fellow commodities traders would have cannibalized your book of business and stolen all of your clients. Then by the time you got to Merrill for when your son was born, you had maternity leave and they had a real policy in place. Now nobody would go work at a company today if they didn't at the very least have a maternity policy. Most people are looking to go to work for a company that has a parental leave. Policy. The question really is how have expectations changed for the better, hopefully, or for the worse? How have the expectations changed over the years? How are companies meeting the expectations that their employees have now for benefits? And it's perfectly fair for part of this answer for you to say where companies may be maybe pushing back a bit, but it's really about how those expectations have evolved and how companies are meeting their employees today.
00:22:13
What's really interesting was before COVID and before this, working remotely was not as common as before. One of the big things was, oh, my company has dry cleaning services at the office. So bring your red bag with your name tag on it to the office. They will take it and bring it back to you. So that's one less trip you have to make around it. Now, you know, with the greater flexibility that has become commonplace, that sort of thing has gone away. But you know, there were so many things that we hide. Mental illness being sort of top of the list in my opinion, where people, whether it's their own or a close family member's mental health and wellness were issues that were so sensitive that you just did not feel comfortable being able to be public about it. This is where societal change, and I credit Gen Z and even the Millennials with, you know, so much for allowing that to come out into the open. Having children with autism, going through a cancer diagnosis, menopause, miscarriage, I could go on and on about all of those things that we hid and that no longer need to be hidden. Quite the same way. It doesn't come easy, especially with things like depression or ADD, ADHD, bipolar disease, et cetera, and other mental health issues. I would tell you that people still struggle to be able to understand, but there is an openness now that wasn't there even 10 years ago. I can't think of a company that doesn't offer the Calm Meditation app as a resource for someone that is going through stress. But they are doing it in other ways too. Seramount has a platform called Forge, which is a online job simulation platform which allows you to actually go experience what being a entry level investment bank or at a company is like. And if you come from a background where your parents didn't come from, financial services background, or even a white-collar background, it affords you the opportunity to experience something before you go in on that interview itself. It helps somebody who has so much anxiety around interviewing. It helps people who have processing delays and disorders who may be really smart and sharp. Technology has become also a big enabler and companies are beginning to offer that which in my opinion, it shows an adaptiveness and agility, a willingness to pivot and to be more open and inclusive in terms of either, saying, well, this is who I want. If they don't have the capability for it spot on, on the job in the moment, then I don't want them. That has changed. That mentality and mindset has changed.
00:25:15
Yeah, and you're right in terms of both employee expectations or even employer willingness to adapt and change over time. That's what your hundred top companies demonstrate. But let's switch to the companies who actually fall off that list. You spoke about the fact that there is a megaphone microphone effect, which is you listen to employees and then you say, I'm responding back to your needs. What do companies that get off the list, what are some common missteps from them? How would you advise employers to look out for them? And how do you give employees the advice that look out for these signs? These are not companies who sustain these policies.
00:25:57
So you can listen to your employees. But another one is you should look at your competition. You should look at the marketplace. And I'll give you one very specific example. A company that offered eight weeks of parental leave 10 years ago, that's two months of leave was considered cutting edge. Guess what? Today it's a minimum of 12 weeks. But many companies offering as much as 20 weeks of leave, and what is interesting is the phase back piece. So they're innovating even within that. The way parents are taking leave right now is they stagger it. You know, both of them take the first week or 10 days off. Then typically the mother takes the full, you know, if it's 20 weeks, 20 weeks off, and then the other parent steps in and takes the rest of it. So the child essentially is covered for almost 39 weeks or 38 weeks. That is the kind of creativity and innovation that is important. And when companies get stuck and stay dug in on things that they put in a while ago and don't evolve with either the marketplace or the competition, typically they fall off the list.
00:27:18
We're still in this liminal state. We're working differently, we're living differently than we did five, six years ago. But we haven't really cemented ourselves into what that new pattern is going to be. That next pattern. When you look at companies that are really investing in helping their employees figure out that work life equation that they're trying to calculate right now, what are the best companies doing? What are they doing that their competitors aren't doing because they think this isn't Just good for these employees today or this year. This is going to be good for these employees four, five, six years down the road and ultimately good for the company because we're going to retain these great, smart people.
00:28:02
I'll share several categories I think that are important to think about. The first one is self-care. If Covid taught us something, it taught us about the impact of isolation and the ability for us to help our talent develop. Your ability to be able to withstand all of the different things that are happening around us, that's one. The second one is going to be around elder care, senior care. That obligation is continuing to multiply and the ability for companies to appreciate and understand that is going to grow and not recede and it is here to stay. And the obligation that you can just take someone and put them in some place and have somebody else take care of them. I think both this generation and the generation before it is really committed to being involved and engaged in that elder care. And if that is what they want to do, then your company's policies must enable and help support that. The third part is around if an increasing number of young people, I'll throw out a data point. Gen Z, 50% of them are multiracial. So that issues of race, et cetera, are now here to stay. They're not going away. We talk about the overall population of the United States becoming minority majority in another 10 years. Gen Z is already there. They are going to be there in our midst. How do you help to work with it and deal with it? That is going to become core part of what companies will need to know to do. Which means it's not just about the individual themselves, it is about everybody around them. The third one is they are, I believe, 22% LGBTQ. And that includes individuals that are non-binary, that are gender fluid, that are trans. You talk about the medical piece of it. That is the smallest part of it, the larger part of it is really dealing with who they are, how they feel about themselves, how they fit in into the workplace. These are things that I really believe companies will need to grapple and have to deal with and prepare for. And that is about not just knowing the data and the numbers, but also then how do you then treat each person as an individual when they come in? Anybody with any kind of disability or disadvantage has a corresponding advantage that they come with, a strength that they come with. How do you tap into that to benefit your organization? That's where companies will need to go in the future.
00:31:03
Yeah, I guess that's why it's you know, it's no longer called a disability. It's called being differently abled because you bring strengths to the table.
00:31:13
Thank you so much for your wisdom over the course of this conversation. We have so much to chew on. Shubha, there was one key takeaway from this conversation that you would want our audience to remember. What would that be?
00:31:28
I always think every employee thinks that my employer has the responsibility to do A, B, C, D. I agree with that. But I think each one of us has a responsibility towards ourselves and towards each other as colleagues. The question I would ask you to go think about is what is your role? What is your voice? What is your unique differentiated viewpoint guidance suggestion that you would bring to your company to make the overall experience better? You'd like to think that there is some sort of master brain sitting there that looks at all this and figures out what to do and how to move the chess pieces. But I would say to you, it's incumbent on each one of us to do our part. So as somebody who went through cancer, what have I done to help create better support for other people going through that? How can I guide my company to do that better? All right, I have a child with a special need. How do I take that and not just say, this is for me, but also broadly, how can I become that advisor guide to my company? We always expect someone else to do it. And I'm going to ask for individual ownership and responsibility in helping make this broader ecosystem better. If each one of us did that, there would be less train wrecks, there would be less people left behind and not addressed. I would challenge anybody in our audience listening to it to think about their role in it. What would I do, what could I do and how do I do it? That is part of developing your own leadership voice. And I, you know, I often say, even if it's the, the only person you're leading is yourself. You're a leader. Where each leaders and I would really like for people to think about their role as a leader in helping shape the future of the world they want to live in and the company they want to work in and the society they want to be a part of.
00:33:42
That is such a good lesson in taking initiative. Thank you so much, Shubha. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing your insights with us. Not only your leadership, but your resilience and just your can do attitude. Your whole notion of saying, I can move on, I will make the world a better place is so inspiring to all of us. We're trying to Seek these answers of what this work life equation could be. Thank you very much.
00:34:10
I'm always impressed when we talk to her about how open and honest she is about everything and how that is such a key trait for a leader. She talked very specifically about her own cancer journey, but then she talked about the people who helped her. But we also know that was inspiring all these other people to be more open and honest about what's going on. And, yes, she's helping companies get benefits, but the true leadership comes in how you implement those benefits. And she remembers those individuals who helped her but also helped other people. And that always impresses me about her.
00:34:42
Yeah, I love her openness and honesty, but for me, she undermines the fact that she's so comfortable in her own skin. That's not easy to come by. Right. You want the fact that she said that I embraced who I was. That's not easy. And openness, honesty, embracing your own self and normalizing those conversations. Right. Is, I think, what is so inspiring about her. The other element that I just absolutely love and I wish, you know, and I'll take this away into my. Into my daily life, is that positivity can get you very far. Like, she came at life as saying, it is. You know, I'm dealing with it one step at a time. The fact that 30 years into remission, she smiles and she's thankful for everything is pretty amazing. So, you know, when you have a positive outlook, I think that can impact life. Pretty meaningful.
00:35:39
Yeah. But to add on what you said about being super comfortable in her skin, like, when you're around somebody like that, it makes you more comfortable, and you can't fake that. Just as when you're around insecure people, you start to wonder, you know, is the ground shifting under my feet? And so that really allows her to sort of, you know, talk the talk and walk the walk. And when she's, you know, she's in there with these companies saying, yeah, these are the benefits. This is what other people have. And you believe her because she's very comfortable in who she is.
00:36:05
And to our listeners and viewers, thank you so much for tuning in. And stay tuned for the next episode, where we'll continue exploring strategies for thriving in work and life.
00:36:15
And today, you joined us on The Work Life Equation podcast, brought to you by Bright Horizons. Take care. And with Shubha's words, be kind to yourself.
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