The Stress Effect

Since 1992, April has been recognized as Stress Awareness Month. Chronic stress has been shown to negatively impact health in a multitude of ways, and enduring high levels of stress can decrease performance at both an individual and organizational level. Research also indicates that stress can impact historically marginalized communities in more extreme ways. In this podcast episode, we explore ways to recognize and address stress in both yourself and your team, and the importance of understanding how it manifests uniquely for each of us.

Transcript below:

Erica D'Eramo 0:07

Hello, and welcome to the Two Piers Podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo. Today we'll be discussing stress. So we'll explore stress from a personal and physiological standpoint, but also from an organizational standpoint. We'll discuss ways to recognize stress and ways to address it both for yourself and for your team. Thanks for joining us for this next episode of Season 3 of the Two Piers podcast.

For the past 30 years, April has been recognized as Stress Awareness Month. It's a time in which we can raise awareness about the health impacts of stress, and how it affects both ourselves and those around us. So I wanted to start this podcast out with a personal anecdote back from 2016. So at that time, I had just wrapped up a really high stress, high stakes job working offshore, rotating internationally kind of working on a boat. And I just started a sabbatical, I had just started this company Two Piers, I'd also just gotten married, we just had like a little ceremony with friends and family up in Massachusetts kind of signed the paperwork out in a park with a town clerk, you know, nothing exorbitant. But I was also combining households at the time, now that I wasn't working offshore, we decided to renovate my house while we lived in my partner's house. I also decided to apply for some grad schools to start my MBA and explore grad school programs. Meanwhile, I was in parallel organizing the big wedding celebration that we would be holding in Houston, where, you know, our friends would travel from around the country, and it would kind of be the big party. So, I was doing all this while self managing ADHD and thinking to myself, like, oh, this is the low stress part of my life. This is the part where I've left the high stress work environment behind and now I can just focus on some personal things for a little bit. Then, all of a sudden, I started seeing these symptoms of what looked like an allergic reaction, almost like I'd eaten something that I was allergic to. And we could not figure out the source. I talked to doctors, and we tried eliminating pretty much everything from my diet. They put me on some oral steroids, and yet I was still seeing these like big red blotches that would just come out of nowhere and it persisted. I tried antihistamines, I tried Benadryl, which is an antihistamine, but you know, these all have side effects. So the steroids can make you like a little edgy or cranky, they can cause like increased appetite, decreased metabolism, the Benadryl makes you sleepy and groggy. Just a whole cocktail of things that someone who is about to have to get in a little white dress does not, does not want to deal with. And I just felt increasingly helpless and frustrated. And then we like had no answers. So it just happened to be that in those days leading up to the wedding, I offhandedly mentioned to my OBGYN during my annual appointment that I was having these like, allergy symptoms, and we couldn't figure out what it was. I'd like gone to hypoallergenic everything. And I was essentially eating just like bowls of rice at that point. She laughed and was like, "Well, it's the stress silly." And I thought like, I'm not stressed.

There's no stress, like, what I'm not even like doing anything I'm, I'm, I'm not working offshore anymore. So this is like the low stress period. And she kind of like rattled off all the things that I was doing, these major life changes that I was tackling all at once. And I realized, like, oh, right, I am stressed. It's just a different type of stress. I was so just caught up in the sheer number of things I had to get done and just entirely focused on powering through that I really hadn't even considered the magnitude of what I was trying to accomplish. And it just didn't fit in my paradigm either of what I thought stress looked like. So instead of being in an environment where people could die if I made a mistake, or we were always on edge, and the hours were really long, and there were sleep deprivation, it was a different type of stress, but stress that I had gotten used to, in a way. And now I told myself, you know, I'm just like, I'm arranging Airbnb reservations for family members, and travel plans and catering reservations and this is easier stuff. But it wasn't, it wasn't easier stuff, there were lots of interpersonal interactions going on, there was a lot to juggle, there were a lot of disparate work streams happening with pretty high stakes. So, yeah, I finally realized what the source of this reaction was, and it was my own body kind of saying, like, timeout, stop, that's enough, you're not going to acknowledge the stress unless we do something that's unavoidably recognizable here, was like putting up a warning flare to say, like, cut it out, this isn't sustainable. And it did right before the big wedding event in an unavoidable way. So, it was clear, once it was clear what the source of the stress was, or what the source of the this reaction was, I was able to take measures to kind of intervene, and I was able to sort of delegate a lot of stuff and let go of some of the perfectionism around it, and just sit my butt down and do some meditation, which really, really helped. And so in those photos from that day, I managed to get into that little cream colored Diane Von Furstenberg dress after all, and there's no big red blotches in any other photos. But, I still look back on that and think, how unaware I was of my own stress levels, and whenever I start to feel stress kind of reaching those unsustainable levels in my life, I remember like there's a potential allergic reaction around the corner that might kick in, that I'll then have to deal with in parallel, when my body just says, nope.

So what's the point of this story? What's the learning that I want our listeners to take away? Well, there are a couple, one big piece of it is the connection between mind and body, they are in fact, one in the same. So our brain's primary function is actually to maintain what's called allostasis. And you might not have heard that word before. So that's the process in which a state of internal physiological equilibrium is maintained by an organism in response to actual or perceived environmental and psychological stressors. So Lisa Feldman Barrett explains this in actually both of her books that I've read, she might have more than two books, but the two that I've read are, How Emotions Are Made, which goes very much in depth around how our brains function and the connection between emotions and physiology. And then her other book, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, which is a very engaging and easily approachable book, so I highly recommend it. So she explains that the brain's primary function is not actually thinking, even though that's what we normally think of when we think of the brain. The brain's primary function is to keep you alive. So all of the signals that are transmitted, all of the chemicals that are released, the physiological changes that we then interpret as emotions, for example, my stomach feels queasy, and my blood pressure has gone up and I'm starting to sweat, therefore, this is stress. Those are the result of our brain trying to predict and prepare for whatever will keep us alive. And it does so by budgeting and then deploying the resources that we have. So the energy that we have from eating food, or the water that we have available, the hormones that we have available, but sometimes the perceived threats that we're physically prepared to tackle in that state of elevated stress, that like acute stress, are not the actual deadly threats that we think they are.

Instead, we end up with this chronic enduring stress, which ironically, does not help keep us alive. In fact, it shortens our lifespans. So stress is tied to myriad health conditions that can negatively impact not just our quality of life, but also the length of our life. So in that episode from 2016 that I just discussed, I had a case of acute stress that was layered on top of chronic stress and that manifested into a visible physical reaction. However much of the impact to our bodies and health are just not so easily recognized. But that doesn't mean they're not occurring and enduring. So according to the APA or the American Psychological Association, chronic stress can affect both our physical and psychological well being by causing a variety of problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system, which you know, during a pandemic is certainly not what we want. So chronic stress, we know is tied to heart disease and even those that do not have heart disease can suffer a heart attack due to an acute bout of stress. So as we approached April this year, and I was thinking about all these amplifying stressors that play layering on top of each other, the incredible amount of stress that most people are managing just day to day already, plus we had a war kicking off in Europe, we had these terrible stories of pain and destruction and talk of nuclear war at play, COVID cases going up and down, surging, but certainly regulations are changing with mass mandates, and people are returning to the office and managing that in a new world of hybrid work or fully returned to work. And oh, April is tax season. So you know, that annual low stress time for everyone where they're getting all their stuff done. And you know, maybe you got your taxes done in January, but I don't know how many people were battling up to the last minute to get taxes done in April. So I'm sure it's just a coincidence that April was chosen as stress Awareness Month, but I certainly saw lots of seasonal stress. And the days are getting longer, which everyone tends to think of as a good thing. And I do think it's a good thing, I think seasonal affective disorder tends to hit people in the winter, when the days are short, we have a lack of sunlight, a lack of vitamin D. But as those days get longer, and our energy increases, sometimes that can lead to higher stress, it can actually lead to increased irritability for some folks and longer days and less sleep. So that light change in the positive direction, we should also be keeping an eye on.

So what can we do? I think we certainly can't change individually, we can't change outcomes of international diplomacy or stop a global pandemic. But one of the most important things we can do is to recognize the stress itself. So that was the other key element from my story from 2016 was this ability to recognize our own kind of tells or identify our own signals from ourselves or our bodies that we are under huge amounts of stress. So we all have different ways that stress will manifest and it could be behavior like biting your nails, or eating sugary foods, or it could be exhibited through poor sleep. Maybe when you're experiencing high stress, you end up doom scrolling on social media for extended periods of time.

So we can learn a lot about our current state by just stopping to take a quick inventory of our behaviors of our rhythms and the sensations and experiences that we're having within our bodies. That's something that we call interoception. So a key to this activity of like taking that inventory is at least, to the best of your ability, trying to leave behind the stories about how stressed you should be right now. So just like in my story, where I felt like, I should not be stressed right now, because I'm not doing the normal things that I would think would stress me out. These are fun things to be doing. You know, picking out tile for the kitchen renovation should be a fun activity. I had my own biases and stories around what stress should look like and that got in the way of me being able to recognize what was happening with myself. Even more recently, a few weeks ago, I realized that I was crying intermittently from things that normally wouldn't cause such a reaction. And that's pretty unusual for me. And then it dawned on me that I was managing a massive amount of stress, coming up on the end of one cue, lots of due dates and deadlines and a lot of different responsibilities in different parts of my life that we're all just kind of landing at the same time. In a moment, I remember thinking, but I don't have anything to be stressed about. And just saying the words out loud, like, I think I've reached my full capacity and I'm approaching burnout was hugely impactful for me.

So being able to stop taking inventory, and just recognize what is versus what should be, can be really helpful in at least understanding where we're at on that scale of stress. And when we've moved from sort of peak operating for intermittent stress into the enduring chronic stress that is now reducing our quality of life and reducing our quality of work and having negative impacts. So while you know coming to that realization is not a cure in and of itself, it is the key to be able to make a change. So that's the key empowering information to be able to then make changes in your life and not just continue with the status quo. So you can start to monitor for when those sorts of, I'll call it a tell, those tells arise, even just when your pace quickens or you can feel your blood pressure increase, and I mentioned interoception. So that's when we are aware of the feelings within our body, and a lot of times yoga practitioners will discuss interoception, but it's being able to understand the small changes in your own physiology that normally you're not even thinking about. Once you can pick up on that, then you can make those adjustments and adjustments can take a wide range of forms. So it might be physical, you might notice that you're feeling elevated stress and you wanna go get some fresh air or go take a walk, maybe play fetch with your puppy, that's a great stress reliever. Or you know, play with your cat. Pets are huge stress relievers, when they're not stressed inducers at three o'clock in the morning. But you can also make environmental changes. So you can increase how much full spectrum light that you have in your workspace, you can put your noise cancelling headphones in and add some uplifting music, if you work better with music. Music and rhythm can be huge stress reducers. Maybe dancing is the way that you can reduce stress. It can also be psychological, we can reframe our situations and maybe understand the true likelihood of negative outcomes. So that threat that we're perceiving that's causing that fight or flight mechanism to kick in, what's the real likelihood that something bad will happen? And what does that really look like? That can take some of the weight out of it. Or perhaps, we stopped trying to control an outcome that isn't ours to control so that you know, there's mechanisms in the reframing that we can use. That's something that we do a lot in coaching is we can reframe things and understand what the true root source of the stressor is, and then how we want to understand it going forward.

But we can also make some big changes. If chronic stress is something that has been a battle for months or years, then it could be that you can say no to big projects, you know, no new projects, I'm already at capacity or no to people. And surrounding yourself with people who understand that and are okay with that can really improve our quality of life. And sometimes it's at a point where we understand that it's time to leave a job or a relationship that's no longer serving us and is the source of our chronic stress. And I recognize that's not always possible. That requires resources, privilege, etc. But a first step is even recognizing where the source of our chronic stress is coming from and what the impact is to our longer term lifespan and quality of life. So another thing to keep in mind, as we look at how we react and respond to stress is that our stress patterns can really be shaped by our past experiences, especially when those include trauma. So in their book What Happened to You?, Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, do a great job of exploring stress patterns and stress response. I listened to that book on Audible and I thought it was wonderful to hear the discussion back and forth. They provide a PDF that has diagrams to walk through it, but I also think the paperback could be another great resource. So they discussed how individuals who have experienced unpredictable, extreme and or prolonged stress, particularly in their developmental years, may also experience sensitized stress responses. So that means that they're fight, flight or freeze reaction is just triggered more quickly. So if we think of like a curve, it looks more like a logarithmic curve that rises fast and then plateaus versus a linear curve, that's like a straight line in a upward direction. So this type of response, one point was the body's way of keeping that individual safe in the face of unpredictable danger. But it's not so easily turned off when it starts kicking in prematurely or causes a stress response that's no longer appropriate or helpful for us. So we see similar impacts with PTSD. And Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, actually explores this extensively in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. And I mentioned this because it can be really helpful to work with a trained certified therapist to address any past trauma that is negatively impacting how we experience and process stress in our day to day lives. That's not for everybody, not everyone is experiencing those sensitized stress responses due to trauma. But if you are, then definitely there is work to be done that a therapist can help with.

So we've talked about this from a personal perspective, but how about from an organizational perspective. Staying tuned into the stress levels of your team and your employees is critical, but we have to remember that each of us will exhibit and manage stress in our own unique way. So, if you as a team manager are an extrovert, and you think that the way for the group to blow off steam after a big deliverable is to have an off site or like a Zoom happy hour, you'll just need to be mindful that any introverts on your team are probably under increased stress due to that activity, and it's adding about a massive stressor instead of alleviating stress. Similarly, for the extroverts on the team, if they've been working from home extensively for enduring periods of time, that could be leading to feelings of isolation, and thus increased stress. So many times the narratives and myths we have around the value of the grind or toughing it out or putting in the elbow grease, they can actually do a disservice to us in recognizing and addressing stress. And yet, we know that chronic stress levels lead to decreased productivity, difficulty concentrating, increased interpersonal conflict and tension. And then, oversights and mistakes. So while we might mythologize and kind of hold up the grind and putting in the long hours as being somehow like, emblematic of a good worker, it can cloud our vision with recognizing stress and performance on the team. So allowing the stress to then continue to the point of burnout just results in more like days away from work cases, more medical leave higher turnover. And none of that is good for the bottom line. None of that is good for team cohesiveness or for furthering the mission of your organization.

And we also know that members of marginalized and underrepresented groups may not just experience additional higher levels of chronic and acute stress, but they also might have less leeway in addressing that stress in the workplace or showing vulnerability because they're facing biases and stereotypes that will limit the ways in which they feel they can talk about that stress or voice those concerns or be vulnerable. So getting to know each member of your team as an individual and establishing psychological safety and understanding how they cope with and manage stress are all critical leadership skills and frankly responsibilities of any leader. That doesn't mean that we need to entirely change the way the team works for each and every individual but, being able to treat everyone in the way that they will operate best will inherently be better for the team.

So if you are looking for support in dealing with a stressful work environment, or if you want to learn more about establishing healthy work practices in your team, you can get in touch with us at twopiersconsulting.com and you can schedule a free consultation and we'll talk about how we can help you. Our coaches and consultants are here to help you on an individual level and on an organizational level to help you thrive. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Two Piers Podcast.

The Pay Gap Bot That Rocked IWD

International Women's Day can be a drag. Each year, we watch as the corporate world floods social media with supportive statements and images of women, while in the real world, we continue to see systemic disparity for women in the workplace, particularly when we look at the intersection of race and gender. This year, however, we were treated to a glorious Twitter bot - one that retweeted companies' IWD posts along with the median gender pay gap within their organizations. We got to speak with Francesca Lawson, freelance copywriter, social media manager, and co-creator of the Pay Gap Bot. Together we discuss corporate gender parity theater and the data that can help us see the current state of things (as well as what's still missing). Don't miss this fantastic episode!

To learn more about Francesca's work, visit www.francescalawson.com.

Transcript below:

Erica D'Eramo 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Two Piers Podcast. This is season three, episode two and today we have another great guest on the podcast. Her name is Francesca Lawson, and she's joining us from the UK. She's a freelance copywriter, a social media manager and the co-creator of the Pay Gap Bot, which many of us took notice of on International Women's Day this year, and it caused quite the conversation.

So welcome Francesca, thank you so much for taking the time to join us, especially when it's probably a quite busy time for you.

Francesca Lawson 0:50

But that was not a problem and thank you for having me on. You know, I really, really loves to tell you a bit more about about the Pay Gap Bot, how it all came about. I'm really pleased that you found it useful and interesting and on International Women's Day.

Erica D'Eramo 1:10

Yeah, I was telling a mutual acquaintance of ours before I knew she was a mutual acquaintance, that for me, International Women's Day can just be really tough because like my lived experience, and the lived experience of many of my clients is that we have not made as much ground as we would like to in terms of gender equity, particularly in the workplace. So when you see this kind of bow wave of posts from companies talking about how wonderful the women in their entities are and how much progress we've made, it just sort of rings a bit hollow. And so, International Women's Day can kind of be a downer for me because it's just that dichotomy between what I see in reality and then what I'm seeing on these externally facing brands. Your project was one of the highlights for me of International Women's Day where I actually saw it and thought like, yes, this is the real deal. This is shining the light on real data that exists that's being collected. So, tell me a little bit about how did you guys come to come to think of this idea? Put it in action?

Francesca Lawson 2:29

Yeah, so, I felt a lot of the same things that you did around International Women's Day, and especially because, you know, I'm in the sort of marketing and communications space myself. I have been in that unfortunate position of having to press publish on things which I know not to be true. You know, I've sat in meetings where we've been discussing, you know, what we're going to do for International Women's Day? How are we going to show our support for black lives matter? Shall we change our logo to a pride flag for Pride Month? And I've made myself really quite unpopular by trying to challenge that and ask the questions about like, okay, well, why do we want to communicate that? What are we doing behind the scenes that sort of in's us a place in that conversation? And of course, that's not what people want to hear. They want to hear, like, oh, great idea, you know, let's push out some really lovely messages, let's show our support and then, you know, it just covers up any sort of need to do the real work and behind the scenes to improve the lives of marginalized people within their organization, for example. So yeah, my sort of inspiration for wanting to create something like this was to put the data in the spotlight so that people can kind of see, you know, see the truth, understand that behind the sort of smiling photoshoot, and the kind of lunches and the webinars that there's real work still to be done. We want to sort of keep the focus on that real work that's to be done rather than just these kind of performative gestures.

Erica D'Eramo 4:19

Yeah. I almost am of two minds sometimes when it comes to the aspirational element of some of this that, like I do believe that if you can see it, you can be it and showing photos of people who wouldn't normally picture working in those environments can be an inspiration to that next generation and I think that that's important. And also, I'm not so sure that that's really the intention behind so much of this. And I think that a lot of times companies are trying to gain credit that they haven't quite earned yet. So, my own kind of humorous anecdote to that was when I worked on a facility where there were, I don't know, like, a little over 170 of us at a time. I was generally one of one or two women on the boat at any given time, or on the facility. And whenever the regional photographer would come out with like leadership, it was like I had a tail because they would be trailing me just like taking photos all the time. You know, you're not in your like best, you're in coveralls like, you know, it's, you're working offshore. So I finally had to stop and I actually really enjoyed working with a photographer, he was a great guy. But I had to explain to him like, I am not gonna let you take any more photos of me because these photos end up being used in our sustainability report or in internal or external marketing, that portrays that we have all these women working out here, when really, if you took a picture of the whole crew, including me, it would be quite shocking how few women there are. Yeah, I'm consistently hearing about how I got my position because I was a woman, I got my position because our number one priority was to promote women, because we're seeing all these photos, right and it's giving people the feeling that we've made so much more progress than we actually had. So there was actually a lot of backlash that wasn't even earned backlash. I kind of had to put a stop to it, I was like, I'm really sorry, but you can't take my photo anymore. It's like it doesn't align with what my real actual experiences. So when I see these International Women's Day, kind of posts, I just sort of, I always wonder like, what is the rest of the org look like behind this photo? Like behind this one woman? How many women? Did they leave behind the scenes? Like how many people didn't make it to this photo? So yeah, what are your thoughts?

Francesca Lawson 7:11

Absolutely. It's like, you know it's all about sort of, like accountability and honesty and fall for me. I just wonder sort of how the women that I kind of call for these photo shoots feel like, one day a year, the company wants to take notice of them? And what about all the rest and is my concern? I think fortunately, I've not been in that position myself, where I've been sort of like rolled out to for the cameras and for them to kind of promote themselves on the equality angle. I think that fortunately, there's the sufficient other women at my workplaces that they've ended up with that job. But then as well, you've got to wonder about who were the women that aren't in the photograph? Are we kind of just picking off one women of every major ethnicity to make us look like we're really good? And anti racism as well. Yeah, you just think, where are the rest? How do they feel about how their images are being used? Because, I think what it all comes back to for me is you want to use pictures of women for promotional reasons without actually seeing what challenges that they face, what the barriers are to their success in your organization and working towards removing them.

Erica D'Eramo 8:53

Yeah. So for all the people who have faced barriers along the way that then see these gleaming photos of the success stories, it almost sends a message of look, it's possible, like if you just try hard enough, because the message is always look, this woman, she tried really hard and she was really smart and she overcame racism, and she overcame poverty. And she overcame this and that and look at how successful she's been. So if you are just as tough or if you are just as resilient you also could be here too. It puts that little shine on it instead of taking the onus for some of these systemic inequalities back to the source, which is the entities that continuously perpetuate them.

Francesca Lawson 9:49

Yeah, that's a really interesting point. Because it is often that we talk about inspirational women and it's just like, why do we always have to be inspirational? Why can't we just exist and get on with our lives without sort of fear of like harassment either at work or in the street, and, you know, getting paid fairly for the value that we bring. Those things shouldn't be inspirational, they should be just sort of standard.

Erica D'Eramo 10:26

Right?

Francesca Lawson 10:27

Yeah. It's like, from now, when we talk about sort of these inspirational women it's like you say, it's sort of ignores the issues that they've had to kind of fight through, or potentially things that they've had to give up. Like a lot of women still have to make that choice between sort of career and family. And so, like, for financial reasons, and that's not inspirational to me if you know, okay, yeah, we've got a woman CEO, but you know, she's actually been unable to do something that she really wanted, which is sort of have a family. You know, that's not inspirational to me because it's not the full picture.

Erica D'Eramo 11:17

No, and I think that especially, so coming from engineering for me sometimes I just end up taking this very pragmatic view of like, okay, cool, you found that one person that defied the odds and put a spotlight on them, but, statistically speaking, if we look at the statistics, they are not representative of what you would consider equitable or fair if we look across the spectrum. So, we know that to be true, we know what would look representative. So what are the underlying causes, and then just go try to fix those underlying causes? These are symptoms. If you see your diversity and inclusion numbers or just your diversity numbers, not looking the way you would expect and they don't look representative of the population you're pulling from, or operating in, that would be a symptom. That's like, in and of itself, isn't the goal. Diversity in and of itself, like, sure that would represent if you had diversity, that would mean that people were being treated equitably, that you probably didn't have discrimination in your recruitment or in your promotion systems, but it's still just a symptom in and amongst many other symptoms, right? So, that I think gets really obscured when we just use these talking points and we find a single data point or a single human being that we can kind of shine a spotlight on and say like, but look, she did it, so you can too. Okay, cool, but like 99% of the other people who were in those circumstances did not and is that really what we want? Is that really gonna lead to the outcomes we want?

Francesca Lawson 13:03

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting point that you make about representation, because it's like even if you sort of put more like a wider range of people into those roles in your organization, if you sort of achieve representation, both in terms of like, race, gender, disability, etc. It's no use of just having representation, if the systems that created the inequalities are still in place, you know, there's work to be done on sort of like policy level and to sort of make sure that it's actually a place where people can thrive not just you put people in to makeup your diversity numbers and then wonder why they're leaving on mass or they're not advancing in their careers, and because, you know, under certain themes that are within the control of individual organizations that they can do so like they are in control of what they pay, for instance, and, you know, the, one of the kind of...

Erica D'Eramo 14:09

They would lead you to believe that they're not, by the way.

Francesca Lawson 14:12

Yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 14:12

Like, oh, but this is market or this is like what she made coming in, right? So like, we're gonna perpetuate that inequality. Yeah. Sorry.

Francesca Lawson 14:19

It's like one of the things that we've heard since we've had the pay gap bot life is like from airlines, for instance, the people like to make the excuse that pilots are predominantly men and they have the highest wages in the organization. Whereas the more service base roles, the cabin crew, the contact centers, they're predominantly female and they're sort of lower wage jobs. But then my question is, well, I'm not disputing that pilots should be paid generously. But why aren't the cabin crew in the contact center teams also paid generously...

Erica D'Eramo 15:02

Why aren't there more female pilots? Like, why?

Francesca Lawson 15:05

Oh totally, yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 15:06

Like what's happening in the recruitment system? Or what's happening in the development system? Like? I think so often, if we just take a snapshot at a certain period of time we can alleviate ourselves of the guilt about what we inherited, but then not do anything to actually try to change that. Is it right that pilots are generally mostly male? Just like engineers, you hear the same thing from the energy industry, right? Often they'll see the pay gap and explain it away that universities are graduating mostly men in these engineering programs and they tend to make more money than HR or like some of the support staff or the fields that tend to be more highly populated with women. Okay, well, we could probably ask why we're devaluing certain professions, which we know, as soon as those professions become more populated with women, they get devalued, like we've seen this time and again, so it's kind of chicken and egg. But also, what are we doing to make sure that women are accessing opportunities in engineering? Are you going into the universities and doing programs to show that these can be wonderful and successful careers for women? Or are you going into the middle schools and showing young girls that they can have a career in engineering? And why is all your support staff women? Why are there no male admins? Like, I just don't understand some of this. So I agree, you get that initial pushback against the data and it almost feels a motive sometimes when it's like, well, yeah, but okay, and then what? Like, and now what are we saying that we're just happy for this pay gap to persist for eternity? Or are we actually going to go and look at the root causes?

Francesca Lawson 17:11

Yeah, that's it, it's like, it's got to be sort of like a holistic solution, if you will. How can we create the conditions in the workplace where, so that, you know, women can thrive? Likewise, how do we create the circumstances in the education system, which mean this sort of, I guess, the science engineering kind of pathways are more appealing to girls. And then also in the home as well, what sort of influences are going on in the home, which may be reinforced stereotypes? And likewise, when we get to like domestic labor as well, how is that being split? Because, often, if there's sort of a better gender balance, in terms of the tasks in the home, then that kind of gives a better gender balance in sort of work as well.

Erica D'Eramo 18:13

Yep. Yeah, that's one of the reasons that we saw when COVID hit, that we lost like 30 years worth of progress towards equality in the workplace in terms of gender roles, because the responsibilities within the home just became so much more onerous when there wasn't access to childcare outside the home when there wasn't access to school. We did see that still, that is falling to the women even, I think the data showed that even regardless of if the woman in the household, and this is in like a household with a heterosexual, like male, female couple, that even in where the women was making more money, they still would be the one to have to make sacrifices in terms of career during COVID to help out with home responsibilities. So yeah, in that light, I think that there's probably some limitations on what a company can do. But also, I think it doesn't let it doesn't let companies off the hook, right?

Francesca Lawson 19:27

I mean, yeah, definitely no, I think...

Erica D'Eramo 19:29

All of the above.

Francesca Lawson 19:31

Yeah, that's it. It's like it's quite a knotty issue with several different contributing factors and so I think companies need to take responsibility for their part. They can't wait for the other parts that they're not responsible for to fix it for them. They can't wait for or they shouldn't wait for, say like governments to tell them what to do. They should be taking steps to improve the lives of all marginalized people within their organization now, and so that, over time, we are making genuine steps towards parity, rather than just sort of one post a year for like, kind of celebrating and empowering women while actually, life on the ground is much more difficult.

Erica D'Eramo 20:30

Yeah. So the piece around the government involvement is an interesting one, because we, I don't think, would be able to do the same pay gap bot necessarily, if it weren't, you know, like, here in the US, we don't collect the same pay gap data that the UK does. Do you have any other history on that? I was working a UK job at the time that that happened, I just remember a lot of noise around it and companies being like this data is not gonna be representative, this is going to be really onerous. But I'm interested, like, from your perspective, how has that gone? What's the history?

Francesca Lawson 21:11

Soyeah, first year that it launched was 2017 and so this year, we're now on the fifth year of data. The purpose of it was the increased transparency will kind of be the instigator of some change. Unfortunately, I don't think that that's quite works out the case, we do have five years worth of data. While some individual companies have shown an improvement, there's also a fair few that have got worse. I think in the latest data set for the UK, 77% of companies reported that women's average earnings were less than men's. So like five years into this requirement, I would have expected it to be a lot less than three quarters of companies that have a gender pay gap. So yeah, I think that the reporting requirement is a good thing to be able to quantify the problem and be able to kind of get an idea of kind of where it lies. But I don't think that it's done enough to force companies to actually take responsibility for their paths in creating this gap. Their data gets published on the government site, but they don't have to publish any sort of action plan along with that. So they're not held accountable for, say if they said, right, well, we've got a gender pay gap of 15% so therefore, we're going to raise salaries across the board and we're going to introduce better pay parental leave policies. There's no sort of, they don't have to declare that and then follow up next year with oh, yeah, we did this and this was the effect. So I think that the limitation of the data is that it is literally just sort of that one data point, the gap between the median women's earnings and the medium men's earnings. It's a good indicator of sort of where the problems might lie. But then it's not pushing them towards actually fixing them enough.

Erica D'Eramo 23:54

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, because a median pay gap is again, like a symptom, right?

Francesca Lawson 24:00

Yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 24:01

And the underlying root cause of that pay gap could exist in a variety of places.

Francesca Lawson 24:06

Yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 24:07

And so it's just like a little blinking light that says you need to go look here. Something isn't operating the way it should be.

Francesca Lawson 24:16

Check engine.

Erica D'Eramo 24:17

Yeah, check engine like, oh, well, this could be a big problem or it could be a little problem. Yeah, I often draw a comparison between diversity metrics or demographic metrics and the world of safety because that's kind of where I came up through. And if you see safety numbers going south, if your safety numbers don't look the way you would expect them to or want them to look, it's not like you can just snap your fingers and say like, okay, people stop slamming your hands in doors. Stop having loss of primary containment. Stop doing those things you have to go digging to find out what's happening in the system. But generally, if you see safety numbers that are off the mark, that means that there's a larger, operational issue that's underlying it. You are then wondering, well, what are we losing in terms of efficiency, right? If we're not operating with operational discipline, if we don't have the fundamentals to keep people safe, we don't have the fundamentals to operate efficiently either. I feel like my head goes to the same place when we talk about diversity metrics or pay gap metrics, that this is a blinking indicator to us that something isn't operating the way it should, that perhaps we're not accessing talent as efficiently as we could be, we're not developing talent as efficiently as we could be. We're not gaining the full perspective of some of the brightest minds in the organization and then compensating them fairly. So those are all like fundamental things that influence the performance of a business. As a leader in that organization or as an investor in that organization, I would want to see that, at least understood and then addressed. That's my...

Francesca Lawson 26:16

Yeah, yeah, it's totally, I think there's like an old saying, that springs to mind about like, an, like a happy employee being a productive employee. And so it's like, if you're not sort of nurturing your talent and trying to make their lives at your organization, as sort of valuable and as kind of smooth as possible, then, you lose people, you limit their progression and they check out, that's just what happens. I've been in that situation before, where you just start to get frustrated when you get continually kicked back at work and then you're not productive, you're not happy, you kind of drag down the morale of the entire team. So yeah, I think that it's such an obvious thing that there is a connection between efficiency, productivity, and ultimately, kind of profit and the wellbeing and safety of your employees.

Erica D'Eramo 27:30

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that's wherever that underlying issue is, I remember asking, seeing some pay gap data for the organization I was working in that showed that people within the same band, there was not a differential in pay based on gender, or like a substantial differential, based on gender if you looked at it across the seniority band. I thought like, okay, that's cool. But like, I'm not an idiot. How fast does the average man take to get like, how long does it take the average man in this company to get to that seniority abandoned? How long does it take the average woman in this company to look to get to that seniority? Like, let's cut the data a different way, then. Because you still have an overall pay gap. So maybe this is about promotion, right? Maybe this is about like developing your talent and it's not about actually just giving people within the band disparate pay for the same job, but it's about like opportunity. I think it almost becomes a shell game where you can cut the data however you want to support your effort. But if the fundamental goal here is that you want an equitable workplace that's performing towards its mission, who are you serving by playing the shell game? I don't understand.

Francesca Lawson 29:02

Yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 29:02

What's the point?

Francesca Lawson 29:03

You know, it's really interesting that you've brought that up, because, so the UK Data Records the median pay gap and the mean pay gap. We use the bot to display the median pay gap and just to sort of rule out any kind of extremes skewing the data, which it could be like...

Erica D'Eramo 29:27

Like the CEO, right?

Francesca Lawson 29:28

Yeah, it could be just like one well paid female CEO makes the company look like they're doing really well as a whole, when that doesn't paint the right picture for those sort of on the other rungs. So, whenever we got a lot of questions through about like, oh why you use the median rather than the mean. And a surprising number from companies who are like, well, our mean pay gap is only 2%. So, we don't really see it as a problem. They might have a medium gap of maybe like 10, 15%, but they're choosing the lower figure on purpose to make themselves look better. In my mind, it's like, you can't just cut the data the way that you want it to escape scrutiny. A gap is a gap. It's better to just face up to it. Maybe use it as an opportunity to reflect and go like, oh, hey, yeah, we didn't realize it was quite as serious as it is. These are the action points that we're going to look into to fix it. So yeah, it's really disappointing just to see that being the defense that a lot of companies have looked to, and when we've been able to highlight their data.

Erica D'Eramo 30:51

Yeah. It is fascinating, right? I think it's actually quite psychological, where that comes from that, that immediate move to sort of defensiveness or defend the status quo or your role in it or not want to make changes, I suppose. But, I don't really know who that's serving. I mean, clearly serving the patriarchy, I guess. But, it's like using your engine light analogy, right? Like, okay, the engine lights on and the brake light is on. But we're gonna ignore the fault because we fix the engine light and it looks okay now.

Francesca Lawson 31:30

Yeah.

Erica D'Eramo 31:32

It's telling you there's something going on here that means your company isn't running the way you would want it to run. So you can go fix it or you can create excuses but, in the end, I truly believe that the companies that can successfully remove arbitrary limitations, like discrimination and bias, are going to achieve their missions. I say companies, but really just entities, any organization that can remove that, those biases in the system, whether they're cognitive biases or biases in how those systems work, if they can remove those so that they can better accomplish their mission that just seems like a no brainer to me.

Francesca Lawson 32:25

Yeah, absolutely. That's the way to do it and in my opinion, those that aren't doing this work now, I think that they will continue to sort of lose relevance as time goes on. I think it's going to become increasingly important. What I hope that we've shown with the pay gap bot is that once this data is actually in the hands of the public, then it equips them with the tools to hold their employers to account and challenge inequality where they find it. That is something that I think any employer is going to have to be ready for, if they're going to kind of continue to be successful in the coming years.

Erica D'Eramo 33:18

Yeah, yeah, I don't see any real argument towards a lack of transparency. Right? That's a pretty hard stance to take that we don't want transparency, because we don't want people to know what they're getting into as either an investor or an employee, like a potential employee. I think there has been a big shift in the power dynamics between employees and employers, with COVID. Definitely, in the US, are you using the same thing in the UK?

Francesca Lawson 33:54

Oh, it's a bit hard to say, because I'm self employed now. And so, I'm a little bit out of the corporate leaf. But, I went self employed because of the pandemic, because, you know, I realized what I truly valued was kind of flexible working, ability to have lots of time at home and with my partner, the dog, with friends and family, and my previous workplace wasn't really serving that. They were very much we want our employees to be coming back to the office. And...

Erica D'Eramo 34:33

Yeah.

Francesca Lawson 34:34

Because I'd been able to use the pandemic to save the money that we're spending on transport to commute to an office, then that kind of gave me a little bit of a confidence that I can take the leap into self employment. Yes, it's a risk but I survived two years of a pandemic. I'm a lot more risk averse than then so a lot less risk averse than I used to be. So I think that that was a bit of a kind of, it served as a learning curve for me to understand what I wanted and if my existing employer wasn't going to satisfy that, then there were other options. I could have a go at doing it on my own.

Erica D'Eramo 35:24

Yeah, I mean, I guess it was the same for me. So we're like two data points, but the great resignation in the US really, the conversation around it is very much similar to what you just recounted that people are realizing that there is no low risk option. Even people who are somewhat risk averse, I'm actually a quite risk averse person. So when I said, I'm going to go out on my own, people were like, oh, that's such a risky option, why would you do that? I'm like, there is no low risk option. It's all about what you're measuring is in terms of risk, right? Financially, financial stability, I might be in like increasing my risk exposure, but likelihood of living a fulfilled life where I reach my potential, I'm probably decreasing my risk exposure here. So, I think with that a lot of people went through that same realization and it's really shifted what employers need to show to potential employees. Employers are having to compete for talent, they're having to compete with other employers who are in the same space of losing people and needing to scramble and they're having to compete with the opportunity to work for yourself or work for another small entity, or a startup or something that fits your ethos more. This data, this transparency, I think, becomes even more powerful when potential applicants are looking at a company to see what am I getting myself into? Do I want to work for this company and when talent is so highly sought after right now.

Francesca Lawson 37:17

Yeah, totally. A question that I tend to ask when I've been to job interviews before is like, I've looked up and looked at their data on the government side and ask them, this is the data kind of what's your kind of understanding of it and what are you doing to fix it? The what are you doing to fix it answer tells you loads and loads and loads about the company that you're getting into, it tells you about their culture, because if it is met with quite a defensive reaction or like they reel out the, oh, it's because we have more men in leadership positions, and...

Erica D'Eramo 37:59

That one. Okay, why?

Francesca Lawson 38:04

Yeah, then you know, that like, okay, this potentially isn't going to be, this potentially isn't a company where I'm going to be able to realize my potential and I'm going to be supported in my progression. So yeah, I think it's a really important kind of question to ask and totally understand that potentially, there will be people that don't have the luxury of choice of being able to sort of step away from a potential employer and job application because of that, but, at least asking the question in the first place, it shows the employer that it's an important issue and it's something that they need to be prepared for, they need to be aware of, because chances are, it's going to come up again.

Erica D'Eramo 38:53

Yeah. Yeah and for those of us that can ask the question and do have the luxury, I feel like it's even more important that we use that privilege to do it, because if this is a case where a rising tide will lift all boats. Especially when it comes to more competitive wages, a fuller package, fuller benefits package, even if there are pay gap issues, like what are they doing on the other side of things? I mean in the UK you won't have health care as being as large of a part of a package, in the US like that's a really important part. Leave childcare on site, like all of these things that make that up that speak to where the intentions of the company are and how holistic of a picture they're seeing when they look at this. So yeah, thank you so much for lending your insight here. Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you think is worth highlighting for our listeners?

Francesca Lawson 40:00

I think one thing that I'm just gonna add is that the data that we have on the gender pay gap in the UK is still really quite limited. We currently only cover gender. As we kind of touched on in our conversation today, there are so many other different inequalities that intersect.

Erica D'Eramo 40:22

Yeah.

Francesca Lawson 40:23

Withi society and within work. So, yeah, I think that there's a little bit of a caveat is like we still don't have a true picture of, say, how people of color are affected by pay gaps at UK companies. That's something that I really, really want to be able to fix. I really want the government and the UK to extend to cover things like ethnicity as well. So when we have events like Black History Month and we'll have the same thing, we'll have companies will put some symbols in their logos, they'll maybe put out a couple of posts about like inspirational black people from history and it's all looking backwards. We need to start looking forwards rather than just sort of looking at how far, we've come far. Let's not undo that. We can sort of acknowledge that. But we still got further to go and any sort of awareness event and to do with social issues, it should be a chance to reflect on why we still have issues with inequality and what we're doing to fix it.

Erica D'Eramo 41:40

Yeah. Yeah, it's an excellent reminder, every time we do see pay gap numbers in the US, it's almost always more indicative of what white women experience here. As we start to look at ethnicity and race, it becomes a much starker issue and that inequality and intersectionality becomes really important part of the conversation. So yeah, I think that data is really important. I hope we start to get more transparency in the United States, because I feel like the conversation that it has at least started in the UK has been a valuable one. I would love to see something similar here. So yes, improvements all across the board, that we can continue to work towards and strive for. Thank you so much, not just for coming to talk to us today. But thank you so much for the ingenuity and putting in the effort and the hours that I'm sure it took to get that started and prompting a lot of really good conversations on International Women's Day for me and for a lot of folks I talk to.

Francesca Lawson 42:50

Yes, thank you so much for having me and for all your support of what we've been doing. Still absolutely amazes me that we've enabled some of these conversations to happen. So, yeah, really appreciate the support.

Erica D'Eramo 43:04

Yeah. Awesome. So if folks are interested in engaging with you for freelance work, is there any site that they should look to? Or?

Francesca Lawson 43:16

Yes, so when, for kind of any copywriting or social media projects, and my website is francescalawson.com. I'm on Twitter @franwritescopy and yeah, happy to have any conversations about my work or the bot or anything.

Erica D'Eramo 43:37

Cool, awesome. Well, yeah, hopefully, we can work together in the future as well. This has been great to have you on. For the website, we'll include that in the show notes and the transcript as well. And for the Two Piers consulting, as always, you can find us at twopiersconsulting.com. We are on all the social media platforms. So LinkedIn, I shouldn't say all of them. But we're on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Two Piers Consult and you can find us there or on our website. So, thanks again for joining us for this episode. It was a great one. We really appreciate our guests coming on and sharing your knowledge and we'll see you next episode.

International Menopause Awareness Day

In this episode, we're joined by Sarah Utley of Momentm, a fellow coach and DEI professional who discusses the impacts and implications of menopause from both a personal perspective, as well as a workplace and societal point of view. By 2025, projections estimate that 1 billion people will be experiencing menopause and yet understanding and awareness are still lacking. While menopause will be a part of life for nearly half the population, many employers do not take into account ways in which they can support their employees and create an inclusive environment that retains talent at the peak of their careers. We discuss this and more in our episode! To learn more about Sarah's offerings in the realm of DEI and coaching, visit her site at www.momentmpeople.com.

Transcript below:

Erica D'Eramo 0:08

Hello, and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo. We are joining you with a bonus episode in between seasons two and three. So we ended last season with an episode around hybrid work and returning to the workplace with Ruth Cooper-Dickson from Champs Consulting. It's a great episode, we recommend you check it out. So this bonus episode came about because Monday, October 18th is International Menopause Awareness Day, which ties into our efforts in creating diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces. We were discussing this topic with Sarah Utley, a fellow coach and DEI professional, who's agreed to join us from across the pond to share her personal story. She'll also give us some background about why this topic is so important, some of the societal context around it, and what companies, organizations and individuals can do to help raise their awareness around the topic of menopause. As well as, understand how they can better support those in their lives and in their workplaces when looking at this issue. About half the population will experience menopause in their life and that includes cis women, trans men and some non binary folks as well. Lastly, before we get started, you may notice the audio quality on my end isn't its usual quality. And here at Two Piers, we're striving to combat perfectionism. So, we appreciate you sticking with us through this Airpods episode.

Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the podcast.

Sarah Utley 1:53

Hello, Erica. Thank you so much. Really, really happy to be here and talk about something that's incredibly impactful and personal for me and important for us to start talking about more broadly within society and within organizations. So, I've spent my my career in in human resources and I'm a qualified coach, and I'm looking into pivoting my business more into coaching. I'm passionate about supporting organizations to develop a coaching culture and coaching capabilities, as well as, working with individuals to help them maximize their potential. I am one of those younger women who experienced perimenopause in my 30s, which is less common. I've had both physical and mental health impacts as a result of menopause. I'm still experiencing that, I'm 46 now. Exhaustion for me has been the main physical impact along with sometimes lack of concentration. But the main thing really, for me has been feeling mentally disconnected, and often feeling tense and anxious and nervous, for no explained reason, kind of came out of nowhere. I didn't really link the two until I went to see a specialist about erratic periods. Then she asked me generally well, how are you feeling? What else is going on in your life? I kind of vomited out this whole, "I just feel awful. I just feel tired. I'm feeling nervous and anxious. I go into meetings and I'm just not myself anymore. I feel dislocated." She said, "Well, you know, you're probably going through the menopause." I was so surprised because I was 34. I didn't think at that age that I would be experiencing perimenopause. But, the more research I've done, the more I realized that that is not as uncommon as I thought it was originally. Fluctuation in your hormones can be so disruptive to your sense of well being. You've got these hormone receptors in your brain and they start to dip and that impacts the production of all those great feel good hormones like serotonin and dopamine. That can increase the symptoms of anxiety. Then you've got that stress hormone cortisol, which is highest in the morning and that helps. Estrogen actually helps control the spike in that, so when you lose estrogen, you just get this peak of cortisol and nothing really to counteract that. So, it's been really helpful for me to understand the chemicals in your brain more, and you take for granted a lot of the things in life that you experience until you start losing something. And so, it's almost like this, my loss of estrogen, slowly throughout my life, is becoming more and more impactful. But luckily, I have a lot of support around me. I'm on HRT, which is quite controversial still. But for people experiencing menopause under 50, it can be a really good thing to be doing for a lot of health reasons. So that's straight into my story and the impact of menopause on me.

Erica D'Eramo 5:44

Yeah, thank you for sharing that personal story. And thank you for sharing it with me outside of the context of this podcast, too. I guess for the sake of our listeners, this discussion came about because you and I share that passion for coaching in the workplace, creating a coaching culture in the workplace. And also, we share the passion for creating representative workforces that are both diverse, inclusive, and equitable. So, this topic, you know, in relation to those efforts really fit in well, and I appreciate you raising it with me and giving us an opportunity on the awareness day to raise awareness about it. So, in your words, how would you describe why this topic is so important? You know, what are some of the implications of it?

Sarah Utley 6:40

Well, as I just described, estrogen plays a massive role in women's health and well being. For women, personally, estrogen contributes to calcium in bones. With the loss of estrogen, you therefore have more risk of osteoporosis and brittle bone disease. Estrogen helps maintain cholesterol, which I found really surprising. I've experienced an increase in my cholesterol despite eating healthily and being fit. That is because my estrogen is just at such a low ebb now. Therefore, the loss of estrogen impacts coronary heart disease, and makes you more at risk of that. It also keeps, estrogen helps keep your bladder healthy, which again, I didn't know about. So a lot of women can experience bladder problems when they go through the menopause, that frequent need to urinate, which you kind of think, my goodness, why is this happening to me, and then you put two and two together, and it kind of all makes sense. For industry and society, I can only talk about what's happening in the UK. But there's roughly about 72% of women who are in employment, and four and a half million are aged between 50 and 64 and that is the fastest growing economically active group. That happens to be the age group of the people that are most likely to experience menopause. Many of these women are at the height of their careers. Shockingly, one in four women report considering leaving their jobs due to the impact of menopause symptoms. You know, that's really shocking when you hear that. I think there are some statistics to suggest that in the UK, 14 million workdays are lost a year as a result of the menopause. So it has huge consequences for organizations and society: retention of talent, productivity and performance, employee well being and in the UK, you know, sick pay, as well. So huge societal, and organizational impacts and individual impacts.

Erica D'Eramo 8:58

Yeah, I think you gave me a statistic that by 2025, approximately, 1 billion people are estimated to be experiencing menopause. While a lot of the framing of this is kind of around women and women's issues, we recognize too, that this is affecting trans men. This is affecting non-binary people, it's affecting partners of people experiencing menopause. So, while it's often framed as a women's issue, it's really throughout our society and across you know, the gender spectrum. This affects humans and relationships and workplaces. I think this age bracket is really, really interesting because that is sort of where many of us are at our peak experience, our peak knowledge, our peak wisdom that we can be contributing so much to the workplace and so much sure our colleagues. One of the that things you and I discussed was how, oftentimes, when we talk about these issues, when we talk about pregnancy, any sort of reproductive health, when we talk about taking time away from the workplace, or any sort of accommodations that can help retain this talent. Sometimes we're met with the eye roll of like, uh, more concessions for women, like women takes so much effort. This is why we shouldn't have women in the workplace, this is why we should just write them off on like a multitrack. Anyone whose initial reaction is to think like, "Oh, this is so much effort," I would say that the challenges for everyone morph and change throughout their career, regardless of gender. It is a real wasted opportunity to not try to retain that peak talent. These individuals that you have invested so much in, whose challenges are just shifting and morphing, right? We have challenges early stage career, we have challenges mid stage career, and by the end when we feel like we've got it all figured out, and we're sort of coasting, well, the challenges change, right? So, that's typical. That is, again, that affects men and women. So, for people experiencing menopause, that's like a different challenge for them. It feels like there's so much opportunity there to better support people that are going through these challenges so that we can continue to have access to their brilliance, to their ideas, to the cohesiveness that they add to our teams.

Sarah Utley 11:47

I totally agree, Erica. It is so simple to just think of this as an older women problem. But it's not. There are so many young women and just think how disruptive it is, if you're in your 30s, to be experiencing something so profound on your fertility, you might not have thought about having children and going through early menopause takes away that opportunity or makes it harder. The psychological or mental impact of that must be quite profound. So, it's not just women over the age of 50, we are talking about young women. We're also talking about men who have transitioned, as you mentioned, and women who've had cancer treatments such as chemotherapy can trigger menopause through the treatment they have. Anyone living with a woman, whether that's in a lesbian or heterosexual relationship will vicariously experience the menopause almost a double whammy. So, you know, and anybody who manages women in the workplace, is going to experience menopause. So it's societal, we should all have an interest in this. I'm passionate about changing the narrative, making this more accessible, normalizing this, so that we all feel confident to talk and tell our stories. Because, I have been profoundly changed by my experience of menopause for the better. Because, I have experienced levels of anxiety. That has taught me a lot about myself and I've reached out for help and support and learned a lot about myself, that have shaped my journey now. Part of the passion for coaching is to give back. I know the power of coaching and what it can do for individuals. So, I'd like other people to experience what I've experienced too, to help them.

Erica D'Eramo 13:56

Yeah, I think a very interesting, I guess, anecdotal observation that I had was that I have heard about the increased need for awareness and discussion of menopause in the workplace and that, so far, has been from men who have a partner or a loved one who is experiencing menopause and have said to me, you know, you work in diversity, equity and inclusion. This is a topic that is grossly under covered, under represented and not discussed enough. It really affects people who are experiencing it and might be blindsided by it, like it might not coincide with our work plans with whatever plans that they had. So it's been men that have raised it to me, which just, is a little reminder that perhaps when it comes to issues that typically affect women or that disproportionately affect women, they can often have this taboo, right? Because we're discouraged from showing vulnerability or showing these weaknesses that perhaps can get used against us and we don't want to be seen as requiring more effort or more investment. So, it's fascinating to me. My hypothesis is that that is why it's been mostly men who have raised this to me, because they did not feel that same anxiety about being seen, as you know, more difficult. So yeah, I haven't had women raising this to me about, you know, in the context of work, just men. So, keep raising it to the to the folks out there who have the privilege and the space to raise awareness, even if you're not directly experiencing this or directly affected. If somehow you're in a bubble that does not interact with any women, then still raise it, right? Because it does affect society. Often your voices can be taken very seriously if you're not seen as having a vested interest. I will say that, the allies and advocates are very important. Also, those are individuals who often disproportionately sit in higher ranks of management. So we need to have men as a part of this conversation. It can't just be seen as a women's issue.

Sarah Utley 16:29

That goes for the whole spectrum of inclusiveness. Whether we're talking about gender, ethnicity, disability, neurodiversity, menopause is equally important and requires a shift in mindset, a narrative and ally ship. I don't want to exclude men from any of that conversation. You know, my husband lives with me, he experiences me and my menopause every day. Actually, his insights could be incredibly impactful for an organization looking at what they do to raise awareness, how they create that conversation, how they build programs that support women, and have men as allies for those programs. It won't work unless we're all singing off the same hymn sheet, unless we fundamentally believe in that inclusive culture.

Erica D'Eramo 17:39

Yeah, I totally agree. So, we discussed some of the personal elements and some of the organizational elements a little bit, we touched on that. But, what do you think are some ways are that organizations can better support their talent and continue to retain that talent when they are experiencing menopause?

Sarah Utley 18:10

I like to reframe that to what can organizations do to create that inclusive culture and where women can bring their whole selves to work. You've touched on a lot of stuff already, but, raising awareness and building engagement events around days such as World Menopause Day. Investing in employee resource groups, where women can come together in a safe, psychologically safe, space to talk about things that are important to them and raise awareness within their teams, within the broader organization about menopause, and have men and leaders sponsor and advocate for those groups. Sharing personal stories is also a great way to raise awareness. Organizations can also better support talent experiencing the challenges of menopause by training managers, so that they have the skills to foster that inclusive culture. For me, those skills are listening, that underrated skill of listening, that we all take for granted. But, not everybody is very good at listening. But giving your time to sit down and genuinely invest in listening to another person can, in itself, be of such great value. Having empathy, showing your own vulnerability as a man or a line manager, giving and receiving feedback and dealing with difficult conversations. I think those are all the ways that we can support having better quality conversations about menopause and other inclusive topics. I am enormously passionate about coaching culture and coaching capabilities and what that can bring to an inclusive environment as well. Some organizations are writing specific menopause policies, others are ensuring that their flexible working policies are inclusive to enable women experiencing menopause to be able to take time off at short notice. The online fashion store ASOS will be allowing women to work flexibly, as well as take time off at short notice while going through the menopause. It's been in the press recently and it's one of several new policies they're introducing aimed at supporting employees who are going through health related life events. There's a number of other organizations in the UK, HSBC UK, First Direct and M&S Bank, who've recently announced as first employers in the UK to be awarded an accreditation called menopause friendly accreditation. That accreditation basically recognizes inclusive employers who build awareness and understanding around menopause and take well being of their colleagues really seriously. So there's lots of stuff that organizations can be doing to create conversations around menopause.

Erica D'Eramo 21:37

Yeah, I think your comment about being an attentive listener in any position of authority or power is really tied a lot to our coaching culture that we are hoping to instill in organizations. I guess, for those who are not very familiar with coaching, or a coaching culture, that listening means not jumping to conclusions about what best serves the person you're speaking to. So really kind of just checking yourself. I could see people who are very well intentioned, sort of assuming that they know what will help individuals and jumping to those conclusions. That's kind of got like a bit of a paternalistic, kind of bent to it, right? So we just want to ask individuals, what do you need? What would help you fully show up and fully be present, what could give you that environment? Ask them because everyone is different. So while we can create these more inclusive policies, certainly like flexible working, we've seen from the pandemic that this can be more effective than what many managers or leaders had previously assumed. Again, that's kind of the paternalism coming in, but, we've seen that it can work, right? We've seen that some people need a mixture of that and so being open minded about what can work in your workplace can really help these conversations blossom. I guess I would add that as a manager, if you understand what it is that your team is delivering, what the end goal is, what the mission is, then it really helps to have that mindset as you have these conversations about any sort of accommodations or any sort of changes to policy because presenteeism is no longer as important if you understand what you're measuring. If you understand what your team is delivering and why they're there. So, it really opens up all sorts of opportunities when you just know what it is that your team needs to deliver. The rest of it is noise, right?

Sarah Utley 24:08

Totally right. I love the way you picked up on listening. I ran a leadership development program last week and I practiced Nancy Klein's Time to Think and it went down a treat. People really nervous that the whole thought of not speaking for five minutes and just listening and getting them to focus on what's happening in their head. And you don't realize when you've sat there, truly trying to listen, what's happening in your head, the cueing of questions and how judgmental we can be and how we are compelled to give advice and offer solutions. That for me has been a major mind shift through my coach training. For my entire career, I've been paid to give advice and provide solutions and coaching really offers you and invites you to step back, and truly believe that the person in front of you has the answers to their own questions, and having that mindset will be really helpful at all levels of an organization. For my managers to pause, give really good space for a woman who is possibly struggling to talk about something that can be very personal, very impactful and could be feeling really embarrassed but raising this topic. So yeah, listening skill.

Erica D'Eramo 25:42

Yeah, and we're highlighting it here in this discussion around menopause awareness a and I just keep thinking about how it really is so applicable to any marginalized community who shows up with vulnerability and communicates what it is that they need in an environment where they have perhaps been discouraged from showing vulnerability or from meeting too much or asking too much, because they always have an eye on that value proposition, right? Like, how am I being measured? And so, I guess, anything we're discussing here really is so applicable across just the spectrum of disability awareness, neurodiversity, fertility issues, gender issues, gender transition, all of these things that occur in the workplace. I guess are conversation around active listening, open mindedness, coaching culture, checking our biases, it all applies, right?

Sarah Utley 26:51

Sure does.

Erica D'Eramo 26:52

So Sarah, as a coach, how do you support clients that are facing this kind of shifting landscape of challenges in their careers and in their lives as they are perhaps approaching menopause?

Sarah Utley 27:06

You mentioned that women experience many career transitions and menopause is just one of those. Women experience early career challenges. If they have children returning from maternity leave, their first leadership role, menopause is a another career and life transition. I coach from a place of what can you do to live alongside the menopause more easily? Because it can't go away. For some women, they may not experience any menopause symptoms. For others, this could last for 20 years of your life, the most productive period of your life. And therefore, I coach from a place of what can we do to help you live alongside this more easily. And coaching is an opportunity for women to talk about the lived experiences of menopause, and work on things that are important to them in dealing with the challenges that that brings. That could be around well being and resilience, being more assertive, and being able to talk about menopause with their own manager, or even with the husband, having more self belief and confidence. That can all fluctuate a result of changing hormone levels. So it's working on what's important to them in a one to one context, or as part of group coaching, or team coaching, where you can create safe spaces for people to talk about things that are important to them, get to know each other, build that trust and increase team performance as well.

Erica D'Eramo 28:51

Yeah, I think having, well, obviously, having a coach can be so valuable. In so many different elements of life, it just seems really well suited for this as well, because of a lot of what we've already spoken about, right? That coaching is about sort of that self discovery that it has so much agency about it that the client gets to lead the way and choose the path that's right for them. So in a society and a world where we're constantly being told how to conform, how to make ourselves smaller or more flexible to conform into these workplaces or these cultures organizations. Coaching can really kind of help strip some of that back and show individuals what it is that they want. While a lot of my clients come to me initially thinking that I want to be happier in my job, we can sometimes pull away the in my job part and just focus on I want to be happier and sometimes it's turns out that I want to be happier in my current job is not feasible. And we can explore what other options look like if the workplace will continue to be inflexible or toxic, or not conducive to thriving. So yeah, coaching really just goes straight to what is the end goal? What is it that you want to achieve, and if that's happiness, if that's better mental health, living alongside menopause in a way that's sustainable, I think coaching is such a great, great support mechanism for that.

Sarah Utley 30:37

I agree. For me personally, I felt very dislocated, both from my own sense of self, and at times my own mental well being and that dislocation has been very unnerving. I've lost a sense of identity. So I've worked with my own coach on who is Sarah, who is my authentic self and being really bold about this is me, this is what I'm experiencing. This is what it means to people around me and how you get the best out of me. Coach has enabled me to be braver about saying this and being proud of it. If I can help other women and organizations and people impacted by menopause more broadly, to feel the same way, then, I've done my job.

Erica D'Eramo 31:46

Yeah, I think it's a really inspiring focus area for your coaching practice. So, what resources are currently available, whether that's for companies or for individuals?

Sarah Utley 31:59

There are lots of resources, more so now than what there have been let's say decade ago, but you've got to go and find them still. I can only talk, again, about the UK. Interestingly, Parliament are debating support for people experiencing menopause next week. So I'm really keen to see what comes out of the debate in Parliament and whether they change any of the laws, Employment Law within the UK. Currently, menopause itself is not recognized in law. It's not a disability. But you know, some of the the impacts of the menopause such a stress and anxiety is covered by the Disability Discrimination Act. So I'll be very keen to see what comes out of that, because that could give a really clear steer for organizations on what they actually need to do to provide the framework and compliance in this area. Reaching out to your doctor if you are experiencing physical or mental impacts of menopause. There's lots of societies online and who signpost to support services as well. Your HR team within an organization will always be there to help and provide support, and a sound board and a lot of companies offer employee assistance programs as well. I think coaching, obviously, we've found the job impact coaching a lot. That's always available as well.

Erica D'Eramo 33:37

Yeah, all great resources. For those in the US, there's also if you go to menopause.org, that's the North American menopause society, which is focused on advocacy and awareness as well. I guess it's good to know that in the US it is not current, menopause is not currently considered under Disability Employment Law. So under the ADA in the US, it does not require, what that means is that it does not require accommodations from the workplace by law. That doesn't mean that it's not the right thing to do to provide accommodations for the benefit of your own business and organization. But yeah, it's an interesting topic. I think we discussed that, my perception on this is that the conversation is more advanced in the UK than perhaps it is in the US. So, it's great that you reached out and we can raise awareness for our audience on the podcast, which we've got audience members kind of around the world. So, just to close out would you have any... I know we tend to avoid advice right? Something that you and I probably share that we avoid advising people because we'll never know their personal circumstances, everyone is so uniquely different. We fundamentally believe that everyone has their own right answers that we try to help them find. That being said, for this audience, are there any insights or kind of general advice that you would share with people that are perhaps struggling with this change in their life right now, or even for those who have loved ones that might be struggling with this?

Sarah Utley 35:36

What I say here, you're not alone. There will be someone you know who's experiencing multiples, and be brave and seek help. I think those are the two things, talking is a great healer. Whether that's through coaching or counseling, with your friends, or your partner. Be bold, be brave, find somebody to talk to, whether that's HR at work, or some woman within your life. But you're not alone. There'll be lots of other people who are experiencing this as well.

Erica D'Eramo 36:15

And how about for in the workplace, with managers or for leaders? Do you have any kind of closing comments?

Sarah Utley 36:24

For leaders, I would say, put this on the leadership agenda and talk about it. Start talking to women about it. Start listening to women and how this affects them and start normalizing it. Conversation, it all comes down to having conversations, not being afraid to have those conversations.

Erica D'Eramo 36:51

Yeah, if we look at retention numbers and we talk about retention numbers, and companies are looking at why can't we meet X and Y metrics, and why our pulse survey results so poor. Go that next level and start asking the questions and finding out what's really going on with people. Some of this might be hidden under there and just not been discussed because of past stigma around discussing health issues or issues that create the perception of vulnerability, even if it's not really vulnerability. So yeah, I think that's great talking about it, opening up the discussion, and doing away with that stigmatization.

Sarah Utley 37:48

I've heard of employers who refuse to make changes to uniforms, so that women that come forward and say, I'm going through the menopause, this uniform doesn't allow me to breathe, and therefore when I get hot flashes it's really uncomfortable. I've heard there are some employers that hadn't been willing to change their uniforms to make accommodations for that. And yet, I take real heart that there are some other organizations such as, I believe, Marks & Spencers who have just said, you can order as many different types of uniforms to suit your needs. That's just showing an awareness that not everybody wants to wear the same clothes. People go through different stages of their life and need different things from something as simple as a uniform. That can be transformative to how a woman feels about working for that employer. It can change Net Promoter scores, simple adjustments. You don't need to wear your heart on your sleeve and go all out. Incremental, small changes based on listening to what women really want, will make all the difference to lift experiences of women and colleagues random.

Erica D'Eramo 39:11

Yeah, I agree. And again, while this conversation is centered women, we also want to be inclusive to have what we mentioned trans men, non binary individuals, this affects a variety of different people. But we can say that more than 50% of the population, slightly more than 50% of the population, will at some point in some way, likely experience menopause. So, that is a massive number of people. With that, I just want to thank you and ask how people can get in touch with you if they wanted to work with you or gain your insights either through consulting for organizations or coaching?

Sarah Utley 40:07

I run a business called Momentum People. You can get in touch with me through my website or my email address, which I will leave with you, Erica. I would really welcome people reaching out to find out more about the menopause and how I can help them on their journey to live along-side menopause.

Erica D'Eramo 40:30

Great, thank you so much, Sarah. So we'll have Sarah's contact info in the podcast notes. We would invite you to follow us on our social media platforms to kind of learn more about these topics, stay engaged in the conversation. Two Piers is on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can always visit our website if you want to reach out and that's www.twopiersconsulting.com. We look forward to seeing you at our next podcast episode which will likely be in season three in 2022. Thanks, bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai