In a bid to make a difference and bring more purpose to her work, Polly Neate left her successful career in journalism and joined the charity sector. Nearly twenty years later, she is CEO of one of the largest charities in the UK, Shelter, and a proud mother of two grown up women.

In this podcast, Polly discusses her fascinating journey, the sacrifices she has had to make, and why finding purpose in your work is so important.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

This episode is part of our CEO Series, spotlighting parents with young children who hold a CEO role.

Show Notes:

• Connect with Polly on LinkedIn
• Find out more about Shelter

A senior-level career doesn’t have to come at the expense of being a present parent. If you are interested in progressing your senior job and balancing your family life, take a look at our Senior Director's Fellowship:

https://www.leadersplus.org/seniorleadersplusfellowship

Job sharing is a powerful tool for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace and has several benefits for both the organisation and their employees.

Joining us on Big Careers, Small Children this week are successful job-sharing duo Emily Wilton and Jo Goring, two senior leaders at the UK's largest animal welfare charity, the RSPCA.

Emily and Jo share how they make their job share (which they explain is actually a job split) work so successfully, including why communication is key. They offer practical advice on approaching your employer about a potential job share - spoiler: be brave and go for it!

They also discuss why they believe it's vital to be loud and proud about job sharing and how splitting senior roles and designing them part-time can be especially beneficial to organisations.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

How can you self promote at work and invest time in building relationships as a busy working parent?

Today on the podcast Verena Hefti MBE welcomes Ferzana Bham & Bethany Pearson from PR Mums.

PR Mums is a community-led platform which offers former PRs (many of whom have left the workforce after having children) a pathway back into the industry.

Ferzana and Bethany share their expert advice and practical tips on self promotion, including how to forge relationships when you're time poor and effectively promote your achievements whatever your industry, especially when it might not come naturally to you.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

PR Mums are working to establish an industry-wide model of best practice for parental policy – for the benefit of all current and future mothers and fathers; our children; and our parents. 

If you work in PR, please spare five minutes to complete this survey.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about PR Mums: www.pr-mums.com
• For more information on the Leaders Plus Fellowship head to www.leadersplus.org/fellowship

Shift work can be especially challenging when you're a parent to young children.

This week on the podcast our Leaders Plus Fellow Nathalie Holdstock, a Senior Sister and Emergency Nurse Practitioner, shares how she navigates working shifts in the NHS whilst raising two small children.

Nathalie shares practical tips for other shift workers, including why it's important to ask for what you need and what others who don't work shifts can learn from the experience.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

The Leaders Plus podcast will now be on a short break over the summer holidays returning on Thursday 5th September.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about the Leaders Plus NHS Fellowship

Why are so many women over the age of 38 leaving the workforce and what can we do about it?

Our guest today to discuss the future of work is employee experience, culture and communications expert Lucy Kemp.

Lucy shares how AI is impacting the workplace and gives practical advice for anyone just getting started with adopting AI to support their work in future.

We delve into why workplaces have historically been designed by men for men and what this means for women. We also look at the data around women leaving the workforce after the age of 38 and what we can do to stop this, including why we need to support Gen Z women to thrive in the workplace.

Enjoy the conversation.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about Kemp & Co
• Find out more about accessing a Mentor via the Leaders Plus Fellowship

This episode is part of the future of work series, where we explore how work will change in the future to help everyone thrive and progress their careers equitably regardless of circumstances.

Are you feeling overwhelmed and burnt out?

This week on the podcast Executive Coach and Founder of Wisdom for Working Mums Nicky Lowe shares practical advice on dealing with and preventing burnout as a busy working parent juggling both career and family. 

Burnout is something Nicky has experienced first-hand following her return to work after the birth of her first child. She shares her own story, plus how to identify if you are struggling with burnout and fantastic tips on how you can begin to recover and learn to reimagine your approach to career and parenthood.

Enjoy the conversation.

Show Notes:

• Listen to more from Nicky on her Wisdom for Working Mums podcast
• Download our free setting boundaries workbook

How can we move to more outcome-based work cultures and how best can managers support this?

Outcome-based leadership relates to delivering results and achieving specific, measurable goals rather than being hyper-focused on time spent at your desk. It can enable employees and teams to work more autonomously and flexibly.

Our guests today Helen Balcome and Kate Groom, founders of The Health Kollective, believe that work can be and should be a positive force that complements everything else we do, enabling people, teams and businesses the freedom to thrive. They believe that outcome-based management is key to this. 

On the show, they share how organisations can move to a more outcome-based way of working, how to manage a team based on output rather than time practically and why senior leaders should be first to model this behaviour. Plus, why you should have both 'to-do' and 'woo-hoo' lists. 

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about The Health Kollective
• Find out more about the Leaders Plus Fellowship

Verena welcomes Gethin Nadin, an expert in workplace wellbeing and one of HRs most influential thinkers to discuss how to build better employee experiences for working parents.

Wellbeing for working parents is a hot topics and Gethin shares insights from his research, including why organisations who prioritise employee health and wellbeing and put people over policy are often more successful and crucially, profitable. 

Gethin also shares the importance of taking charge of our own wellbeing, including speaking kindly to ourselves and being our own biggest supporters.

Show Notes:

• Read Gethin's book, A Work in Progress (available on Amazon)
• Read our blog, why supporting workplaces is a wellbeing issue: www.leadersplus.org/supporting-parents-wellbeing 

Do you struggle to set boundaries around work? Have you ever wondered if you're a workaholic? Would you like to be more present when you're spending time with your children?

Our guest today is Dr. Malissa Clark, Associate Professor of Industrial Organizational Psychology at the University of Georgia and author of the book "Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture is Bad for Business and How to Fix It."

Malissa outlines exactly what workaholism is and shares why having a 'type A' personality or identifying as a perfectionist is highly correlated with workaholism.

The good news is there are lots of helpful things we can do to set healthy boundaries and start addressing the negative ways this could be impacting our lives.

Malissa shares practical advice and tips, including how to learn to be more present as a parent when you are juggling so many different responsibilities.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about Malissa Clark, including her book Never Not Working.
• Download the Leaders Plus Setting Boundaries Workbook
• Book: The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying (Bronnie Ware)
• Read the Havard Business Review Study on Why Some Men Pretend to Work 80 Hour Weeks.

Ahead of Father's Day in the UK, Verena chats to New York Times columnist and founder of The Company of Dads, Paul J. Sullivan.

Through The Company of Dads online platform, Paul has created a thriving and inclusive community for 'lead dads' and is challenging traditional norms of what it means to be a father.

Lead dads are fully engaged in raising their children, supporting their partner and working to keep the house together and typically work a more flexible schedule than their partner.

Paul shares how he became a lead dad, why he is passionate about parenting out loudly and why it's so important to parent through your calendar (e.g. be honest about why you're leaving work and diarise it) because of the profoundly positive impact this can have at your organisation.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Show Notes:

• Find out more about The Company of Dads.
• Find out more about the award-winning Leaders Plus Fellowships.

How can you navigate shift work as a parent?

This week we welcome Emergency Medicine Doctor Sonia Damle to the podcast.

Sonia shares her experience of shift work and how to make it work alongside bringing up children. Sonia has lots of practical advice for other shift workers, including:

• why knowing what you want is vital to make it work
• how utilising your support network can really make a difference
• how self-rostering could be game changing in the NHS and beyond

Plus, the skills and experience we can take from shift work (eg. compartmentalising) and apply to more traditional working hours.

We hope you enjoy the conversation, do get in touch if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Show Notes:

• Applications for the award-winning NHS Fellowship close 18 June. Find out more: www.leadersplus.org/nhsfellowship
• Access further resources for parents working in the NHS: www.leadersplus.org/resources/parental-leave-toolkits