E154 – Maternity transitions for working women w/ Rachel Morris

and here we are in the main part of today's episode. And I cannot tell you how excited and how much I've been waiting to record this particular episode of our podcast. Today we are speaking to Rachel Morris of motion learning and before I explain how we know each other. Rachel, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience and maybe say a little bit about yourself and your background? Oh, Jane,

thank you very much indeed for having me and for inviting me. I'm really excited to be here, and so intrigued about how you're going to say how we met. I'm Rachel, Rachel Morris, and I'm the co founder of, actually, two coaching companies. So I've got a core coaching business called motion learning, which I set up in 2004 we coach business to business across executive leadership, management coaching and parental coaching, which clearly is the area we'll discuss today. I've also run a not for profit called coach community, which has a two fold aim of developing coaches whilst democratizing coaching. I've been working in this field for my whole career, Jane, which is now well over 20 years, and I live in London, and relevant to today's topic is I'm a working mother of two primary school aged boys. Brilliant.

Thank you for that, and I will share with the audience, because those of you who regularly listen to James and I talking about the world of work will probably actually have heard me refer to you Rachel, but maybe not by name. So Rachel is the person who introduced me to the very, very first piece of, I guess, model or theory that would help me think about my working life way before I started caring about other people's working lives. So in some senses, it is you Rachel that this audience can either blame or be thankful for, depending on how we feel about it, for my passion and interest in people's experience of work and volunteering in our world. So that's how I know you. I know you to be an incredibly insightful person, and I'm really excited to talk to you about the experience of working women through maternity because I have lots of friends, lots of colleagues who've been through this process, not I don't know a huge amount about of it. So today, we're talking all about the experience of women having children while working, and we're talking a little bit about maternity leave, the potential impact and the role of maternity coaching in organizations and for those women. But I guess I'd love to start at the beginning. Why do you think we should be talking about this topic today? So,

Jane, there's a terrifying statistic, which is that as a woman, you're 50% more likely to leave your work following motherhood than for any other non maternity related reasons. And this statistic absolutely terrifies me. And I think in a world where we quite rightly are talking about inclusion, quite rightly, where we are focusing on female talent and female talent across pipelines, then maternity and supporting women through the maternity transition, knowing that we're likely to lose a massive percentage of them afterwards if we're not careful, has to be a huge part of the dialog. My view is that, you know, maternity coaching looks to work in the opposite way, in that, through support, we want to provide women with not only the incentive, but the confidence to return to work and then to continue to thrive once they're there. So for me, as part of any inclusion agenda, any female talent and female leadership agenda, we have to, have to address the maternity transition. It's

really interesting. You talk about this, particularly given a report I was reading yesterday. And for those of you listening, you'll know that generally, we talk about the context of the UK. There are a lot of it's relevant around the world where you guys are. But what's really interesting is a report came out a couple of days ago that economic inactivity in the population is that it's one of the highest levels it's ever been, and that working age women during the pandemic saw the biggest drop in the amount that they were working, right? Because we know children were at home, and the lion's share of the responsibility to either educate or support or care for their children sat with them. So it's a massive issue for everyone, right? It doesn't matter whether you're a woman or not. This is an issue for our society, for our communities and for our organizations. So I guess if it's an issue, and we know it's an issue, what specifically is the problem? What is the experience of women regarding. Regarding maternity, what's, what's their working life like during this period at the moment? And why is that problematic? So

the word that springs to mind, first of all, Jane, is misunderstood. I think there are massive amounts of assumptions around the maternity transition in terms of, you know, so, oh, a woman, she and I'll talk about maternity. There is, for sure, a paternity transition and a non birth transition at all as well. But for today, we're focusing on the maternity transition. So I think there are a huge amount of assumptions about, you know, this woman, she'll go off, she'll have her baby, she'll look after a baby, and then she'll come to work. And the problem just starts there. Because anyone who is listening to this who has either had their own children, who has watched other people have children, knows that actually there is anything but go off, have this massive experience, and then come back, kind of nature to this whole transition. It is very, very, very significant. And I think if we want to be really addressing it, then what we have to look at is we have to look at is we have to look at what really, really happens to women in this transition, so both before they have their baby, when they are often, when they are having their baby and when they come back from having their baby. Because in those three significant phases of this particular transition, there are very specific needs, there are very specific behaviors that kind of we can identify that start to show, and there therefore are very different solutions, or different ways in which we can support people during that time. And my very, very certain view is based on now over 10 years of kind of research and practice in this area is we are really missing a trick. These are not difficult, difficult solutions. There are relatively easy solutions to these problems. But what we have to start doing is just not assuming a woman's just going to go off, she's just going to have a baby, and she's just going to come back and it's all going to be okay, because that's where she ends up fit to burst.

And so you talk about these different phases and that there is at least something that's a problem. What is it that's happening in those phases for those women that needs addressing? Do you think so?

I might, if it's okay at this point, just take you back and tell you where I kind of started in this field, because I think it's relevant to how I've kind of identified these three different phases. So back in 2012 I was approached by one of our national broadcasters, and they knew me as a coach already, and they knew that I was an already, already pregnant again, working mother. So I'd got one baby. I'd gone back to work after six weeks with him, because I was self employed, and we needed two incomes in our household, and five months later, I was pregnant again. So I think they approached me and they said, We would like you to be someone who supports us, piloting, maternity coaching. And they knew me. They approached me because I was in this very particular situation myself, and I'd coached pregnant women, but I'd never, I'd been focused on leaders, primarily the first 10 years of my career, and I'd never specifically just looked at the maternity transition from a maternity coaching perspective.

started maternity coaching, and over the last 10 years, I've had hundreds of hours work worth of conversation with brilliant women in this transition, I've now got a team of maternity coaches that also capture data and capture conversations and find out where we think the trends align, and we see three particular trends. So these are these three phases. So the first phase of the maternity transition typically seems to hit between eight and 10 weeks before due date, so before the woman is actually due to give birth herself. And what we see at this period of time Jane is two really seemingly incompatible, but massive worlds colliding. So the world of work, which matters dearly and greatly to the woman herself, something which encompasses a huge amount of her identity, a huge amount of purpose for her often has practical value in terms of things like income, etc, etc. And then what we have is we have the baby that is suddenly eight to 10 weeks before due dates starting to become much more of a reality. So these needs on both kind of sides seem to really, really, really put a squeeze on the woman at that particular point in time. And in this phase, what we quite often see from a coaching perspective is classic for us to see things like overwhelm, heightened levels of stress and anxiety, heightened levels of fear, heightened levels of concern about things like unknowns and uncertainties. It's often as well, a time of confusion for people, where people are navigating loads of questions. You know, who's my handover going to be? Oh my gosh. Have asked me to find a replacement. I mean, who in their world wants to feel like they're being replaced, let alone to be asked to go and find their own replacement? It's a period of time where they quite often, will feel very vulnerable as well. So women talk to us all the time in this phase about, am I going to be a good mother? What happens if I don't like being away from work? What happens if I do like being away from work too much, and so on and so forth. And on top of that, they are often exhausted, so the physical toll of that last part of kind of carrying a baby and that push, knowing that you are potentially handing over your role for a significant period of time brings a huge amount of turbulence. So that's this kind of first phase. It does sound doom and gloom. Obviously, people are going to be very happy and excited that they're having a baby during that time as well, for sure. But from a coaching perspective, this is the kind of conversation that comes to us. The second phase of coaching comes typically, and it's uncanny, because of when I first started seeing the trend, I had to really test it and check it and monitor it to see if it was right, because it typically comes about three and a half to four months after the baby has been born, so after the baby has arrived, and at this period of time, what we typically see is we see the mother kind of just having enough headspace. Some people talk about it as going through the fourth trimester, but just having enough headspace, coming up for air and looking around and thinking, oh my gosh, how Now am I going to navigate this whole new world in which I now operate? So nothing for her at this point in time is the same. Everything has changed. So at this period of time, in this kind of mid phase, what we quite often see the mother experiencing is real massive questions about, okay, now I really do have conflicting needs. Now I really do have conflicting demands. I have different needs from a relationship perspective, different expectations on me, different responsibilities. And now suddenly this thing called a mother, but I'm supposed to be a professional as well. But you know what, I'm not even at work. In fact, what's happening at work? Women call up quite often. We say, you contact us when you're ready, and not always, but nine out of 10 times, people will call us, and they'll call us in this three and a half to four month period, and they will say something like, I'm suddenly starting to get my work dreams back again. And those work dreams might be nightmares. They might be really, really nervous. I don't know how I'm going to do this, or they might be excitement. I can't wait to get back in the office, but What on earth am I going to have to do with this baby? Are people going to think I don't care about it? So this mid phase is also a time of massive change, massive uncertainty, lots and lots of questions about kind of changing identity, changing roles, changing expectations, kind of changing purpose. So that's kind of the second phase of transition. And then what we have is the third phase, which is when we when the female herself re enters the workplace. And this is, for me, an astonishing time, because this is the one that actually businesses, from my perspective, if there's a shift that can be made, it's at this point, because businesses here talk about having a returner, and actually the woman who is re entering the workplace is very, very different, very changed, differently informed from the woman who left. So the sense that she is actually returning to anything, I think, is is really quite interesting. The workplace will not be the same. The team that she's involved in is unlikely to be the same. We know organizations don't stand still. So the you know, the strategy, the tasks, the you know, the day to day operating is unlikely to be exactly the same. And that woman herself is definitely not the same, because her life has changed fundamentally, whether she likes it or not, whether she feels she's good at it or not. And so nothing is the same. So this third phase of the maternal transition, this re entry back into the workplace, where we see the woman actually going, Okay, this is now the reality of what is commonly, slightly lovingly called the juggle, which is constant problem solving, constant decision making, constant balancing of needs and expectations. The fallout, often of this, which, again, women, quite often, we see experience in this final phase of transition. There can be conflict that starts to come because people aren't having proper conversations. There can be misunderstandings that kind of start to arise. We often see self care for the woman herself. Actually, all three, three phases of transition that this one in particular, dropped right down to the bottom of the pile. And my concern is often that this is interpreted in the workplace as she's not quite as good as she used to be a she's not far in all cylinders issue. She probably wants to be at home looking after the baby, doesn't she? And actually, the reality is so far from that. Right? So they're the three kind of different phases, and we've identified this from 10 years of conversation, dialog, mapping things out, monitoring things and checking to see what we think the trends are.

It's funny, I'm listening to just I was sitting listening to you lay that out. And as you know, I don't, I don't have my own children, and I was listening to it, and at this one part, horrified that I have completely underestimated the sheer scale of psychological and emotional change that a woman goes through in this period. And on the other hand, completely recognizing everything he said. And it's a very odd thing. It's like we've just accepted this is what happens. And we've said, hey, that's your lot. You've made this choice. Crack on. And I don't, I don't know that. I can think of many other scenarios that an individual in their career would have such a transition that was, to some extent, predicted, in the sense that we have some warning about it, and it's just, it's just extraordinary. And it sounds, I guess, it begs quite a lot of questions. One of the the initial ones is it reminds me a lot of when we think about James and I have talked quite a lot about job demands and job demands and job resources, and understanding that if a person's context changes, the same demands could be placed on them, but they might not have the same resources to meet that that demand, and so the same job might feel harder. And you were talking about women, you know, oh, she's not quite, you know that phrase, oh, she's not quite as good as well. No, she's every bit as good. She's just trying to achieve more with less. And this sounds like a pretty, pretty traumatic experience if it's not great for for women and if they're not supported. But what does it mean for the organizations that employ these women? So

there are risks. There are risks at all of these different phases from an organizational perspective. So I think there are massive risks at that early phase of not supporting that early stage of transition with the maternity leaver, because, you know, if, okay, I've got a team, hey and so if any of my team were to go on maternity leave, we want everything handed, handed over really effectively. I want there to be seamless, seamless service and seamless kind of output from my own client's perspective. So I think from an organizational perspective, the risks are the role, so let's take the human out of it for the moment, but the role itself just doesn't get handed over effectively, and there are massive costs to that, for for teams, for organizations, for customers, for clients, for services, etc. There are risks in the mid face for organizations, if they're too scared to talk to their maternity leaver about, let's collaborate, and let's try to find a way that works for you. I and quite rightly, there is legislation around this area, for sure, quite rightly. But one of the things that I experience is through coaching a woman to be really, really empowered in that mid phase. So we support in the first phase, we empower in that middle phase to really think her own thoughts and get her own views and then talk to her organization about, you know what? This is what I was thinking might work for me, or this is how I'd like to play it. I'm really committed. Can we talk about how we can make this work for both me and for you? And I think the risk to the organization is if they don't support that mid face, they don't end up having those conversations that mean brilliant solutions can be found, great, collaborative, open solutions can be found that are going to work for both parties. And what the end of this, they end up getting somebody coming back, and they think, okay, we haven't actually talked about this, and I don't if I can, but what you're doing isn't working for me and isn't working for you. So there are big risks in that mid phase. I think if we come to the return phase, this kind of re entry phase. I mean, the risks there are rife, you know, and this is where we see big, big, big headline grabbing tribunals and cases. And quite rightly, you know, challenges to the problems that women have coming back into roles that have changed since they were away, or replacements have remained. And, you know, complex, complex business issues to be navigated. And if, again, if we support early in that thing, I think business has really, really reduced those risks, because coaching and support is all about saying, let's help you think your thoughts, and let's help you articulate them. Let's help you navigate this situation so that you get the right outcome for you and for all the people around you. So from a business perspective, there are risks at every single one of those transitional phases, and I think we're being quite short sighted and quite. Naive in not taking simple solutions, like maternity coaching, for example, to help solve them. It's

so interesting listening to you talk about legislation, because one of the things that we talk about quite a lot is that, because HR is a relatively legislation driven service, I'm going to say similar to something like a council legal in in major organizations, quite often we find that there's a there's a bit of fear around doing anything that's not, strictly speaking, written down in a policy. And there's a fear both, both within HR departments, but all especially small organizations, but also that there's a fear of the line managers that they're they want to be, they want to come to solutions, but they're also fearful that they might do something wrong or accidentally create an additional risk for the organization. Is that something that you come across and do you think that's something that having a sort of plan in place in advance for something like extra external support and coaching is helpful, for sure.

So, I mean, I think there are some amazing forward thinking, you know, talent, HR, people, specialists, who are really on it with this kind of thing, you know, so who are really very much about collaborative, open minded, creative solutions. And we certainly work with some people like that, and they are wonderful in their thinking. I was talking to VP of talent, a global VP of talent, just yesterday, and she was talking about, you know, this is almost like we want people to create their own adventure, which I just think is the most beautiful way of looking at the maternity journal. I said to her, Can I can I copy it? And she said, Yes. So she listens to this. Thank you. She knows who she is, but it's this idea that actually, here's your support, here's your support, here's your access, here's the person. We now step back, because you choose your own adventure with this, but we're all working towards the same thing. So you know, as with most things, Jane, I have a core personal belief, which is, most of us want to collaborate and do the right thing and find solutions and be happy. And some of us, in some situations, find that hard to do because we might lack the skills, or we might be scared, or we might be and I believe very strongly that if we take the fear out of things like this for people and help people by giving them clarity and giving them the tools or helping them find the words, then actually solutions can be found. And in our business, we do that with both parties. So we work with businesses and line managers as well to say, look, this is the transition your your direct report might be going through. This is what she may be experiencing. This is what might come up. This is why it might be happening, as opposed to maybe why you think it might be happening. And this is how you know we can, we can demystify it, you know, put it on the table, demystify it, and then we start having proper conversations about it. So I think there is risk everywhere, hey and, and the way I believe we mitigate risk is to lean into it a bit and to look it straight in the eye and kind of try to understand it, and then start exploring and discussing and being open minded, that's it.

So you talk a lot about maternity coaching being one of the tools that can be used to address this. We talked a bit about coaching. We've talked to other coaches before on the podcast. How do you see maternity coaching as differing from other forms of coaching?

So in the core piece of you know, the core element of the work coaching is coaching, for sure. So we are professional listeners. We are skilled professional listeners, but we are professional listeners. So in terms of the actual act of coaching, we're going to be coaching in a very, very similar way. The maternity coaching difference is that we structure it around this particular transition. So for example, we win if we know that actually the early phase of transition, actually what we need is we need quite a high support approach to our coaching, less challenge, higher support, that's what we're likely to need. So from a coaching perspective, we're going to be much more on that high support angle. So we're going to be talking about, you know, supporting people through conversations around fear, vulnerability, possibly overwhelm, helping people with things like, you know, kind of control and boundaries, you know, all of those kinds of pieces when we enter the mid phase of transition, we're going to up our levels. We still keep the support quite high, but we're going to up our levels of challenge a little bit. And so again, from a coaching methodology and a coaching approach, we're going to be really thinking about how we empower actually, how we help the woman really think her own thoughts and get cemented in her own purpose, her own drive, her own needs. And we're going to be doing that through thinking and talking and working with her, most likely, on things like, you know, what makes her happy? You know? What are her values? What matters to her? What are her drivers? What does she want out of this phase in her life? How's she going to take care of herself? Who is she now? How does she feel about who she is? Now, we're likely to be working with her on things like, you know, short term needs, you know. So a woman, quite often, will come and will say, I've just got to work out how I'm going to navigate this next year. And once I've done this next year, then I can take a deep breath, it will be a bit embedded. Maybe the baby will be, you know, more settled in nursery, or whatever it might be. And then I can look further ahead, when we get into the third phase of transition, our channel, our level of challenge is probably going to increase yet again, you know, because that's when things like, you know, practicalities of juggling self care for her are going to drop. So we need to be her space. We need to be her challenger. We need to be the one that actually will be sitting there and working with her and saying, now let's talk about you. We are here to focus on you, because you're you're focusing on everyone and everything else. And any woman who is listening, who can relate to this, knows this feeling, and if the wheels fall off you, they're going to fall off everyone else. And now we are here for you, and at that point in time, the challenge level will be thinking about, you know, let's think about, not only now you know your voice, but how are you articulating and how are you using your voice, and as well as using your voice, how are you using your ears to be listening to the perspective and the needs of others as well. And what we find in that third phase of transition, and I find particularly, is women want this alternative perspective, but it can be very, very hard to hear. And sometimes, if you, if you're doing a good job professionally as a coach, you will be the trusted party that can say, this is what I am seeing right now, this is what I am hearing right now, and this is everything, every other perspective that I can see and hear around you. Let's discuss it. So from a coaching perspective, we have this kind of, I think of it as like support and power action. So this is my model that I'm kind of just been in the process of developing. And we have high support, lower challenge at the start. We keep the support very high, but we kind of raise that level of challenge as we go along the transition. So

from the perspective of the organization, sometimes what we pay attention to and spend resources on helps us shape and think about what we need the problems we have. And it just occurs to me that the very act of saying maternity transition is a situation that requires additional reporters, resources to support both the individual and the line manager is quite a powerful thing. To what extent, just thinking about some of the organizations you've worked with, do you think that's true? Do you think it just really helps people as well recognize same as isn't enough, like you actually need to do something about it?

Yeah, for sure. And I think, I think that can be scary for organizations. As well, because we hear this a lot from a commissioning perspective, and I understand it. Hey, I've worked with businesses for the last 20 odd years and run my own so, you know, this is the kind of thing that, you know, it can snowball. Hey, when one person gets offered it, well, my goodness, we have to offer it to everybody then and then, you know, it's something that keeps happening. So, you know, there can be a huge amount of fear about if we put additional resource into this. It's not something like, you know, there's not a finite aspect to it. It's not something that we do, that we do it for 12 months and it's done, and we can say we've done it for five years until we have to do it again. And my view is we've got to be really realistic about it. So anything is better than nothing. Any additional resource is going to be better than no resource, you know. So education, education of line management, education of leaders, education of businesses, is a key part of it, and that can be done internally, that can be done by external experts, people like us that can be done relatively simply. It can be done in a much more complex way, you know, depending upon budgets. I think planning a lot is about the planning. So with our clients, we've got clients who have started quite small in this space, you know. So they've started in a really quite small way. So for us, a really robust approach is to support women through each of those three phases of transition. So a classic example may be they get some coaching support before, they get some coaching support during, and they get some coaching support afterwards, and the line managers get kind of briefed as well. Some some businesses absolutely can't do that. That's not where they're able to put their resources at that particular moment in time, so they offer one session or two sessions, or this idea that you kind of, you know, you build your own journey. You know, you create your own journey. So you have three conversations that are available over this 12 month period. But it's down to you for how you use it. So I think there is a lot about planning. I think there is a lot about starting slowly commissioners, who I've worked with, when they start slowly and they demonstrate the return on it, the return of this type of resource investment is way, way, way greater than the costs of re recruitment when people leave, because we know the stats that women are much more like. To leave after having had a baby. They are significantly, significantly less than costs of massive things like tribunals, and that's even without things like, you know, damage to reputation, etc, etc. So in my perspective, we have little people don't

need to be convinced that adding resource into the space is a sensible thing to do. It's just how they do it. That is the challenge, and that's relatively different for each organization. I want

to ask you a little bit about the line managers, and you've obviously worked in and around lots of organizations. What do you think the experience of managing a woman going through maternity is like when they are supported with transition coaching versus when they're not how? What do you see as the difference in the experience for the people who are still in the organization through that period, and are sort of watching that person go away, go through a transformational experience in their life and then coming back. So that's a really

wonderful question, Jane, and I'm there's lots of different ways in which I want to answer that, so I suppose I'm going to give my simplest response. First of all, so when a woman is supported from a line managers perspective, it seems to me, or appears to be much more Well, I think, just easier, more comfortable, more what I witness is I Witness Line Manager and returnee talking to each other. I mean, that novel idea of, you know, kind of talking to each other. I see heckles down. I see dialog happening. I see people picking, you know, working at a pace that works for both parties when support isn't there. I see misunderstanding, and everything that comes with misunderstanding. So conflict damage to relationships. You know, that hill that you have to climb every day, which is just life? You know, just getting steeper and steeper and steeper and steeper for both line managers and direct reports, I've seen stand offs, total standoffs, where people just do not feel like they can talk to each other anymore. You know, where a line manager thinks I'm not allowed to ask that person anything. I can't talk to that person about anything, and the individual woman thinks, I can't tell them anything. They're going to want this from me. They think that of me where it's got so confused and so tangled that actually the gap between the two parties is just sometimes too great to be kind of resolved for any resolution to be found. And that's kind of the it's almost a bit of a black and white scenario. And I think it's that human thing about you know, when we talk to each other through changing times, difficult times, uncertain times, where we've both got conflict or we've both got demands on us, we've both got pressures on us, we've both got needs to us, but when we talk to each other, it's 1000 times better than when we get stuck in, you know, kind of separate rooms where we are just not, aren't communicating at all, and that's what I see play out. Forgive

me, I'm going to draw a parallel that I think I see in something that's not related to maternity and you you have absolute freedom to go, No, it's not like that, Jane at all. But it strikes me that we've just been through a massive pandemic, and a lot of the conversations I've had, and I haven't seen any research in it yet, but a lot of the conversations I've had is that where organizations that put large numbers of staff on follow furlough kept talking to them, not engaging them in work, but kept letting them know and informing them what was going on, and to some senses, involved them or made them feel connected to the organization. The the experience after they returned was, um, if not better, certainly there was a level of emotional bond and responsibility, because they felt that they had been, in some senses, cared for, even when they absent. And it just strikes me that the extraordinary thing of going through this life changing experience, whilst feeling that your organization has got your back, and whilst feeling like your line manager is being given a bit of language and support in terms of the way that they can have conversations, is just, I mean, it's got to change how you feel about your organization, surely, because you feel like they're trying to see it from your perspective, as well as acting in their own interests. And I guess, I guess the question in all of that is, we come 30 years ago from a place where work and life was meant to be separate, supposedly for most of the professions. There are, you know, exceptions where you lived, on site and stuff like that, but generally, work was in this tight little box. And I think as we've understood just how challenging that is for inclusion issues to do so, and also just how much more complicated life is than than being able to put work in a box, I think we've begun to recognize and acknowledge the enormous. Role that organizations that we work for play in our satisfaction, our happiness, our journey, our pick your own adventure, in your in your clients. Words, do you think that these women who are experiencing that are in some senses feeling like their organization is is is seeing and treating them as a whole, rather than just picking and choosing the skills they take and if so, do you think, I mean, I know that there probably isn't research on it, but do you think that makes them somehow more loyal, more committed, have higher organizational like responsibility to that organization, without doubt

for every reason that you've just outlined. I mean, you know, we all want to be seen and we all want to be understood. And you know, I mean, for me, that's the piece that's at the heart of inclusion and so and when we feel seen and when we feel understood, then we want to stay there, don't we? We want to hang around people that see us and people that understand us without doubt, without doubt. I hear, and again, anecdotally, I hear women all the time saying, look at how much they've done for me. They've been so good for me. They've been so supportive of me. I'm like, why would I want to go work anywhere else? Why would I want to be anywhere else other than here? And remember, these are people who want to work as well. So so the women that certainly, the women that I coach, are incredible women who become incredible mothers who become incredible working mothers who want to do a really, really, really good job in their work, but they need to be seen, and they need to be understood for their whole and when they are it makes a huge, huge difference to them. Without doubt, I think

there's something really joyful about giving an organization giving its employees reasons to be proud of them as an organization. And it strikes me that something like this is, is is that I guess there will be lots of people listening. As you know, we work with a lot of small organizations, and we'll have people listening who either don't have any immediate influence on their budget or just don't have any, and I guess I wonder, there's someone sitting there right now listening, and they're like, Oh, this is so relevant. I've got someone going on maternity leave soon, and I've been given no support, and I definitely, in the short term, I'm not going to be able to free up any budget, because it's not in my gift. Do you have any advice for them, or anything they can do or think about, or what steps they might take just to improve a little bit the experience of that woman. I

think it's a very real situation that you outline, very realistic. So I think the first thing is start talking to her and that don't stop talking to her. So ask her, ask her how she is, ask her how she's feeling, ask her what it is she needs ask her if there's anything you can do to support another really good thing I think you can do is you can hook her up with other women that are in a similar situation. So what I have noticed quite a lot of organizations do is they've brought kind of groups of women together. You don't have to be big organizations that could be cross organizations, but you can bring people together who have been in or who are in similar situations, and they make amazing peer coaches for each other. And I would utilize things like your internal population, your internal experience, not because everybody's is the same, but people have got tips and tricks that they've kind of got through their own kind of battles, through things that often in this space, people are very, very, very happy to share.

I think that's brilliant advice. I think you know, largely in organizations that you are in or in, like organizations you work closely with, there's bound to be one or two women who've been through this process, and that's a great place to start. Thank you for that. For some of our listeners, they might have budget or indeed, sometimes we have senior leaders who are like, oh, yeah, actually, this hasn't been a problem for us before, but now it or not problems. It's not, but a challenge for us before, and now it is. If they wanted to start thinking, Okay, we could do something around this. How, like, a lot of the things we get from our audience is, how do I know if someone's like, legit, how do I find the right sort of supplier or the right person to talk to to be able to support them, because I don't want to get this wrong. I don't want to get the wrong person in to help this person, and that might be putting them off. What? What would you suggest they do?

remains, sadly, an unregulated profession, I would absolutely be looking for somebody who is ICF accredited, or association of coaching accredited. So if you go to the Coach federation.org, website, then actually what you can do is you can find your accredited coaches through there. So definitely I'd be looking for somebody who has some level of coaching, some good quality coaching accreditation. I think what you can also do is you can look on, look through networks. So ask your network, because people do know good coaches, good quality coaches quite often work through networks. So my top tips would be, only work with accredited coaches. The best place to find them is through organizations like the ICF or the association of coaching. And then see if you've got anyone in your network who's got anyone that they'd recommend.

beginning. To run out of time for this episode, which is a real shame, because I could absolutely talk about this conversation, possibly late in tonight and possibly over

drinks. Um, well, that's on another occasion. Jane, well, maybe, maybe we'll do, maybe we'll start

doing an after an after podcast show. But in the meantime, obviously you really care about this topic. You're talking a lot about it, and I know you're continuing to look at it. How can people learn more about you? How can people learn more about what you do and your work and the research that you're talking about? So

the best place to find out about me is either on LinkedIn, so it's Rachel Morris motion learning, or via our websites, which is www.motionlearning.com, and keep an

eye out, because I'm writing my first book on this, which, hopefully, once it's published, will be a book that any organization can buy for something like seven pounds 99 in fact, any person can buy for seven pounds 99 and give to a friend, a family member, stick in the local library, give to a loved one, and it will take the woman through the process herself. So I'm going to try to smash that budget question, Jane too, by producing a book that will have all the information that are there for people as well.

Yeah, and those of you who are listening, and regular listeners will have Eagle ears, might have picked up that Rachel used a phrase about, I think, did you describe it as democratizing? Yeah, democratizing coaching. And we talk a lot at World of Work about democratizing learning, so we're really passionate and excited to hear about that. And we will do let us know when the book comes out, and we will make sure that our listeners get an opportunity to know that it's out, and they can read it themselves, if this is an area of their expert. But until then, I guess it's just left for me to say thank you so much, Rachel, for coming in and sharing your knowledge and your experience with our listeners. It's been a real pleasure to listen and to talk to you about this topic, and it's a goodbye from me.