Part 2 in a Series of Features: Women Making History by Changing the Game for Working Parents (The Rise of Employee Activists)

Ten years ago, there were virtually no employee-led parents groups inside workplaces. Today, there are hundreds of them. And many of them are having a significant impact within their organizations.

In 2013, Mel Kepler was pregnant and standing in the hallway at her workplace, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, asking another mom to help her understand all of the complicated details associated with having a child while working at a federal agency. Mel, who had had another child while working at the same agency only one year earlier, was still baffled by the process. When it became apparent that her friend was also struggling to make sense of it all, Mel decided to do something about it. She began bringing other parents together to share resources, create community, and engage in internal advocacy. In 2015, the group became official and was the first employee-led parents group inside a federal agency.  

 As Mel had discovered, parents working at her agency needed access to clear and consistent information. To solve for this need, she worked with others to create a ‘New Parents Compendium,’ which included all of the information anyone starting a family might need, such as when you could use sick leave vs. annual leave (since federal employees didn’t have access to paid parental leave until 2020). Mel and her group then vetted the guide through their Human Resources Department so it was current, comprehensive, and compliant. As Mel explained it to me, “that guide was a lifesaver!” Prior to having it, she said: “you never knew if something your friend did was an official policy, or something she’d just gotten away with because her supervisor didn’t know any better.” For instance, they were able to put in the guide that workers didn't need to deduct from their time cards the breaks they took to pump breast milk. Previously, very few moms knew about this policy. And it made a big difference for leave-starved new parents. The group also advocated for a drop-in nursing room that was accessible to all employees, including front-line workers like the cafeteria staff.

A few years later, when Mel was the chair of the parents group, she heard about a contractor who was 8 months into a high-risk pregnancy and didn't have a garage parking pass because she was part-time and the policy was that part-time contractors did not get garage passes. Her supervisor, naturally, asked for her to get a pass because it was August in DC and she was walking a quarter mile in the heat from the distant parking lot. Her supervisor was told "our policy is part-time contractors do not get garage passes." Mel said she and the rest of the parents group “raised a stink,” which not only got the mother her much-needed garage pass, but also led to the leadership talking to all of their staff about over-enforcing policies. As I spoke with Mel about the many other accomplishments of her group, I was struck by the grassroots quality of her organizing, and how effective it was at addressing the needs of all parents -- especially those who were the most vulnerable. Being grass-roots, as opposed to being led from the top-down, gave the group the ability to set their own priorities and made it easier for people to speak up about the challenges they were facing without fear of jeopardizing their jobs. Today, the group is over 1,000 members strong.

Back in February of 2017, I was at the first Parents in Tech Alliance (PTA) meeting, a secret gathering of mothers leading the parents’ groups inside the largest tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 20 women, representing companies like Salesforce, Yelp, Uber, LinkedIn, Lyft, and more, gathered in a sun-filled conference room at Twitter’s downtown headquarters. 

After piling our plates with food, we sat down around a white rectangular table and went around the room to share our stories. We talked about what it was like being a working mom, and why we’d shown up to meet with other moms who were advocating for the change we knew we needed. Sarah Johal, who had founded and was leading the parents group at Lyft, said listening to the other women talk about their experiences made her see the universal nature of the challenges working moms face. She was surprised to discover that “it doesn’t matter what size a company is, or where they are in their life cycle. As working moms we were all facing similar biases and opportunities. It was very inspiring to know that I wasn’t alone in my desire to create change,” she told me.  

That day, Sarah made a fruitful connection with Orli Cortel from PL+US, a paid family leave advocacy organization. Over the next several months, Sarah worked with members of the PL+US team to get the resources and benchmarking data she needed to launch a campaign to convince the leadership at Lyft to expand their paid leave policy. Lyft already had a generous policy for ‘primary’ caretakers, but a negligible one for ‘secondary’ caregivers. Sarah knew, both from personal experience and from research, that empowering dads to show up for parenthood was critical to building an equitable workplace. So Sarah worked with a community of other internal champions to win a campaign to expand their leave policy to 18 weeks for all parents, regardless of the parents’ gender or the child’s birth status (if they were adopted, etc.).

Lori Mihalich-Levin started the US parent (now caregiver) affinity group at Dentons, the largest law firm in the world. While Lori was leading this group in their advocacy efforts, Dentons eliminated the “primary caregiver” distinction in its parental leave policy, adopted Milk Stork as a benefit for nursing mothers, and worked to ensure that all employees of the firm - not just lawyers -- had access to support and benefits.

Just like Sarah and the other moms from the Parents’ in Tech Alliance, Lori was also eager to be in relationship to other leaders of parent employee resource groups. So she started the Working Parent Group Network (WPGN), which today includes 167 individuals representing 83 different organizations, in all different sectors—such as law, non-profit, CPGs, tech, fashion, accounting, consulting, banking, government, and more—and they meet regularly to learn and share with each other. 

Last week, I met with dozens of members of the Working Parent Group Network at one of their regularly scheduled meetings. During our time together, I did what any person motivated to build a powerful case must do: I collected data.  

Using Jamboard, I asked everyone to brag about the successes of their ERGs. What had their group been able to accomplish? As the colored sticky notes filled the screen, I felt my face, fingers, and toes begin to tingle.  

There were so many wins, such as:

A. The adoption of new benefits, including memberships to platforms to curate childcare solutions, fertility and adoption support, heavily subsidized backup childcare, and significant budgets to run internal events like “bring your kids to work day;” 

B. The implementation of new policies, such as shortened meetings times, no-meeting-days, and phased return to work after parental leave programs; 

C. The acknowledgement and support of company leadership, which came in the form of bonuses and performance evaluations linked to their investment in their parent or caregiver ERG.  

D. Many groups also boasted about the increased participation of men; and not just as participants, but also as co-leads and/or executive sponsors.

As we were debriefing this exercise, I was struck by how the members of the WPGN were benefiting from being in relationship to each other. Many of the successes they’d listed had been possible because they’d learned from each other how to launch effective internal campaigns.  

Next, I asked the group to vent about the challenges they faced. While the brag session revealed some positive trends related to parent group leaders being compensated for their time, it soon became apparent that this was not the norm. The most prolific vent was that the work was usually unpaid and under-valued and that as parents (who were already tired and overwhelmed) they were expected to run the community without meaningful compensation or acknowledgement for their efforts. Another significant theme was frustration around gaining support and validation for parents as a group. As one person wrote: “Parents aren't a traditionally recognized ‘underrepresented group’, it's hard to gain empathy. No major ‘awareness’ month per se like PRIDE to help promote it.” Another posted: “Parents seem to live between the Diversity and Inclusion and Human Resources spaces - sometimes programs fall through between those teams.” And a third wrote: “Other ERGs are seen as more important - such as the ERG for women, African Americans, etc.” And sadly, even during COVID, which has made visible and exacerbated many of the challenges faced by working parents, many people reported losing their parent groups existing budget, or having it significantly reduced.

And finally, I asked: “What is the one thing your organization can do to support working parents?” The most prolific response was to dismantle bias. As one person wrote: “see us for all the value we have to offer instead of the fear that we aren't as dedicated to our jobs.”  

It’s time to recognize parents at work. There is compelling research to indicate that parenting may develop career-critical skills. However, in order to unlock these capacities, we must create workplaces where parents are supported.

Here’s to the internal advocates and champions, like Mel Kepler, Sarah Johal, Lori Mihalich-Levin, and the members of the PTA and the WPGN, who are working to create environments where parents can not only survive, but thrive. May you feel seen, heard, and valued.

To follow our series and learn more about the other women are featuring, visit www.amyhenderson.org/leaders

*Also, thank you to Natalie Tulsiani and Anne Kenny of Shift the Workplace for their help in designing the session for the WPGN.