As we mark International Women’s Day, I wanted to reflect on my time as a leader in business, and the way that I have seen business culture change over the years, particularly in relation to the ways of working and the shift in attitudes to working parents and carers.
In my early career, it was apparent that the majority of care responsibilities lay firmly with women, and there was an assumption that this would always be the case. Comments I personally received first thing in the morning included: “Did your alarm clock break?” and “What time do you call this?”. And this was despite me arriving at work before 9am and often working late into the night delivering my tasks. Little did they know that by the time I had got to work I had already dropped off three children to either nursery/preschool or school, having been up since 6am!
I will be honest, I felt embarrassed to say I had to leave work to “pick up the children from afterschool club” whilst my peer group stayed late into the evening. At times, a sense of belonging was often hard to achieve.
However, in the last few years, I have seen a change in this culture, with my male colleagues being happy to talk about their home commitments and need to “take their children to school/football training“ or “pick up mum for a doctor’s appointment”.
The realisation that ‘modern’ working parents appear to be sharing their family’s commitments, provides a welcome sense of transparency, and creates an atmosphere of empowerment, enabling our teams to be honest with what they require from us as employers.
At times, due to the needs of the business, flexible working arrangements can be hard to accommodate. However, I believe that Ascent is supportive and tries to create a sense of inclusion and belonging across our six sites and Training Hub, so that everyone can be their true selves at work and share what is important to them.
We have amazing Wellbeing, and Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging groups, that not only drive a culture of openness and inclusivity, but also help to support and educate us all on all aspects of diversity and mental and physical health.
There has been a definite shift in culture and one that we will continue to embrace, as we enable our women colleagues to feel they can be their “ true selves “ at work. This in turn will enable all of our employees to enjoy rewarding careers, while balancing the needs of those that they support outside of work.
