00:00:00
The same way you're investing in roads and in bridges and in hospitals is the same way you need to be investing in care. It is no longer a nice to have. We have data that shows that care is infrastructure.

00:00:17
Hello and welcome back to The Work Life Equation. Here we talk about what it takes to thrive at work and in life. And I'm Priya.

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And I'm Paul. Today we're joined by Blessing, additional CEO of The Care Gap and a powerhouse in the global care movement.

00:00:32
Blessing, welcome on the show. We've had the privilege of knowing you and getting to know your work. But as the audience gets to know you, it'll be great for you to talk about your work. It touches so many intersections. It touches care, business equity policy. Can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey and what led you to create The Care Gap?

00:00:56
First of all, thank you so much for having me and thank you, Priya and Paul, for this wonderful platform. I'm always excited when I get requests to speak, especially on care, because I don't think we talk enough about care, which I believe is the backbone of everything that we do. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and moved to the US when I was 16. And one of the funniest thing that happened was I did go to school, I did get my chemical engineering degree, but I also graduated with a baby in hand. So it was just quite. I still have my pictures, my graduation pictures, and my daughter Taya is three months old and I'm old in her. So I went into the workplace with a very different mindset. My friends, my colleagues were looking at the newest. You know, that was when the journals really took off, right? Like the color coding and the things matching. That was. It was really, at that time and everybody was just like, have you seen the latest, you know, time management tool, etc. And I'm there like, no, no, no, no. What I need is childcare, okay? What I need is, you know, is what is the paid leave? What are we doing for working families? And I remember my boss just, you know, literally wide, like his mouth was wide open. First day of work when I showed up with my baby in his car seat because the childcare center was going to open at 8 o' clock. I was working at Dupont in West Virginia and I was told to report to work at 7am and so I showed up to pick up my badge with my car seats and my baby in there and. And I'm like, I just want to pick up my badge. I'm going to go drop her off. And I'm going to be right back. And so, you know, I. After decades of growing up in Nigeria and seeing how tough it was even for my mother to juggle our own career as well as raising children, I was basically prepared to have this conversation with my employers around, what, how can we solve for childcare? Because I really want to be productive. I really want to, you know, support my team. But I can't do that without solving for care. And I looked around and I found so many people that were going through exactly the same thing. They were walking, they were juggling multiple priorities. They were in the PTA, they were in the churches, they were in the schools, they were in the libraries. And they were still juggling, you know, caring for their aging parents or for their children. And it was a lot. And so that work at DuPont, advocating for families cascaded to so many other things. I started working with HR to create policies at DuPont, then moved on to BASF and so on and so forth. And I think that ultimately sparked the care gap, which is a platform, a conversation, and a coalition to treat care not as a charity or a woman's burden, but as the backbone of economic and social stability. We cannot have a stable workforce. We cannot have a productive workforce. We cannot have a stable society without care. And I think those companies got it because if you look at where DuPont and BASF and PepsiCo, companies that I worked with where 16 years ago when Tayo was born, and now we've seen them go from six weeks of parental leave to 18 weeks of parental leave or 24 weeks, they've had various care infrastructures to support families. And that's because they know that if they don't solve for care, 74% of the workforce who identify as caregivers simply will not have the optimal opportunity to contribute at work.

00:04:50
That's great. Thank you for sharing that, Blessing. The three of us here, plus so many of our listeners, are juggling work responsibilities and, and caregiving responsibilities. And look, the struggle is that juggle. So when you think about the impact that that has on productivity and well-being, both short term in the workplace, but also longer term on that individual's mental health, what are some of the things that you found through your work at the Care Gap, and what are some of the things that perhaps companies or individuals can do to. To make that juggle a little less onerous on their mental health and their productivity?

00:05:34
I think honestly, I'm always like, we don't need to answer these questions over and over again. We know that companies know, companies get it. They know that if they invest in care, that employees will be well supported, that employees will have the tools, the resources, the energy that they need to actually do the work. But companies also know that care is expensive, and that is why they are choosing not to invest in care. But it's also expensive to them even more, because care, the lack of care, is affecting not just productivity, but also the physical, the emotional, and the mental health of the employee. I'm going to give you an example of, you know, a mom who literally said, I can't, like, I can't. I can't walk today. I'm just on my bed. I'm. I'm taking the day off, but I'm not going to check out of work. I'm not going to call them and let them know that, you know, I'm taking a day off, but I'm going to literally have my laptop in front of me and just nap in and out. I had a dad call me and said, I am in my car. I just dropped off the kids, and I don't want to go into my office. I literally don't want to go into my office because I'm exhausted. I'm physically exhausted. And usually when we think about care, we are thinking about childcare, we're thinking about elder care, but we're not thinking about things like flexibility. We are not thinking about things like, you know, just checking in. We're not thinking about things like, you know, the managers understanding the impact of caregiving on their workforce. That is actually a thing. It's, you know, you have, you know, 75% of your workforce who identify as caregivers. They're caring for someone, something, and you have no idea what they're doing outside of work. You have no idea how much energy is actually going into caring for their children, for their own home, for their own households. And companies are saying, you, that's not, that's not professional. That's none of our business. Because, you know, you just got to show up at work. Well, it is your business because how they, how they interact with their family, their children, how they manage that is going to heavily support how they actually show up at work. So if that part of their life is chaotic and mismanaged, if they don't know, you know, a lot of families in the United States right now are piecing care together. Like, they don't have a sustainable care plan. And so if that is chaotic for three or four children, I have four kids. So you have to, like, basically play this mental gymnastics. And so companies know that this affects productivity. It affects physical, mental, and emotional health. They know that women, women especially, are suffering because women are basically carrying and shouldering all of these responsibilities. Majority without support from their partners. And we're Starting to see 85% of autoimmune diseases in women. We're starting to see women suffering from heart diseases because quite frankly, I mean, that can cause a lot of damage to your heart. When you're constantly worried about your child and whether or not they're in a safe place, whether or not you need to rush and go pick them up. How many of us have literally ran out of work at 3pm or 2pm rushing to pick up before we get that late fee? So these are the things that families and employees are having to deal with. So I always say, how can company support? Sometimes it's not even money. Sometimes it's really just having a management that understands the value of care. It's really about checking in and understanding and saying, I know you have three kids. How are you managing? Summer is coming up. Is there anything else we can do to support you? When people know that their company cares about them, that their company values care, the energy at work is different. No one is tiptoeing around. I remember when I was in corporate America, I would literally come up with all the lies because I was a single mom. Literally. I mean, I became a professional liar. And that is what is. That is what we are doing to folks. You know, my. I had. I was a single mom, so I already ran out of excuses that month. And my dad, you know, flew in from Nigeria and he fell suddenly, and we found out that he had a brain tumor. So I'm running around trying to, you know, piece together his MRI, his appointments, all of the things, plus being a single mom. So I ran out of excuses, so I had to come up with more. And, you know, one of the days my. My boss saw me tiptoeing out and was like, you know, I've been noticing. And it was like, I've been asking for support. I've been literally crying and begging for support. And he finally called a meeting and said, you know what? We need to give you some. We need to make sure that you can. This was way before it was time. It was, you know, this flexible era that we are in now. You know, this was way before COVID And he said, you know what? You need to work from home for the next two weeks until you at least sort out this MRI issue. Understand your dad's diagnosis and get the support that you need. And that was very, very helpful to me because I didn't have to sit in traffic in Houston for two hours in a day trying to get to work. So these are some of the things. It's not just money. It's also having a care culture within the organization. And when we have that care culture, when we then have the money, we can then say, how else can we support? Can we offer childcare? Can we offer aging care? Can we offer credits? Can we support families differently so that those people can bring their best?

00:11:03
Just a quick follow up on that. That manager who took the lead and realized that you needed support, was that manager responding to some sort of care policy at that company? Or did that manager just realize that this is what was going on and as a good manager, as a decent human being, that the thing to do was to create this policy that allowed you to work from home for two weeks until you got a little bit further along on what was happening?

00:11:32
Yes, at the time there was no care policy. I know, Paul, you advocate a lot for care days, which I find, you know, intriguing because I think that's what I would have needed at that point in my life. So the manager was basically like, you know, we have to figure something out. Like, we can't lose you. Because I was just like, you know what, I'm going to just take a break and maybe go find another job. I was a chemical engineer and I mean, I would find another job in no time. And so it was like, we have to work something out with you. But there was no policy at the time. And so what has happened in some organizations is that they've put in place care policies. We work with companies like indeed, that have basically said we have to create care policies so that employees know that we have their back when life happens, when they have to expand their family, when they have to, when they, when they are transitions, when their family members get sick, when kids have to, you know, when you have to go attend to a special needs, for example, we, that is another angle that we never, we've never explored, you know, in our institutions, is that families actually do have a wide range of diseases and illnesses that needs to be, you know, that we need to care for. It's not just childcare, it's not just elder care, it's all the things that are in between. It's like a spectrum of things of care related issues that comes up that we need to basically solve for before they happen. Because when it, when it's happening, nobody like the Manager is trying to get things done, and the employee doesn't have the time. So at the end of the day, it's still a time issue. Right?

00:13:01
We run into a situation where there's time poverty at that point for the employee to pour into their work. And the manager is saying, I need that time. I need that time. But if we have some policies in place where we're like, okay, when these happens, where else do we create time? We can create time with another employee, we can create time with another department. We have, you know, a backup plan for this, and we're able to pull into those backup plans to meet, to help meet that employee's needs. So that is what I would love to see. Paul, you mentioned, you know, what are some of the things I would love to see companies do. It's a care culture. It's care policies. It's making sure that is a backup plan. Because when you have three out of four employees with serious caregiving responsibilities, you cannot leave that up for discussion. You can. You can rely on. That is just. That is, you have no strategy at that point. You can rely on, oh, let's just, you know, hope that you won the manager lottery, right? I happened to have won the manager lottery at that point. It could have gone the other way. It could have been like, you know what? Guess what? You're fired. Get out of here. Right? And so we need to. That is why policies are important, because we can't leave it to the manager. We can't leave it to the individual.

00:14:12
And I think, you know, and it's great that you both had a supporting manager and you were vocal about it, Blessing, because I think it's both employers and employees, and through Covid certainly, you know, in our role in Bright Horizons, we saw a lot of companies step up and do more. So the good thing is during that period because, you know, we saw work and life merge in the way that it did or at least become visible. I think companies stepped up to do a lot more. And then we discovered flexibility. We realized, like, a workforce could be productive remotely, a workforce could be productive. This artificial construct of nine to five could actually be challenged. And people could work nine to three, go pick up their kids and still clock back in. So I do think there have been some unlocks. Have you seen that play itself out? And are there things that you've seen change in the 16 years since you took your little one out of the, you know, in the car seat into work? What have you seen change? And what are the good things that have come out, you know, as a result of both Covid and your own work.

00:15:16
Absolutely. I think one of the good things that has happened is just we're having more conversations about it. You know, when I 16 years ago, it was like, oh, no, you don't talk about your kid. You know, we weren't talking about our kids. You know, at work or in meetings, everything. You're supposed to keep everything. If you're going to pick up your kids, you can't even talk about it. Now we have people even putting on calendars, you know, to say, okay, today's football day, or I'm going to leave work early. So we're seeing some shift there. And that doesn't mean that people aren't getting penalized. A lot of people are still getting penalized for being vocal and for making care visible. Right. And so, you know, I always say, if you feel like you don't have the voice, you don't have, you know, the tools to speak at the time, you know, the best thing to do is really send an email. Send an email, state this problem and just leave it there. Do not have any. There's no ask, there's no request. But just let your employer or somebody know that this is happening. And you know, and you just want to share that. So that's one. The other piece is a lot has changed, but unfortunately, change has been extremely slow. And the reason change has been extremely slow is because we still live in a society that truly believes that. That this work is a woman's work, truly believes that if a child, you know, if you're pregnant, you give birth to a child, if it's breastfeeding, if you are having to drop off the child at daycare, you need a nanny. It is still a woman's job. Summer camp time, I mean, around this time, everyone is agitated. Those who won the lottery to get a spot are happy. And those of us that are still like, oh my God, I have three or four kids. We have to do all the different drive around town for each child. How is that going to work? And summer camp is from 10am to 2pm what's going to happen to work around those hours? So we're looking at a situation where women still get the short end of the stick. So not a lot has changed. What has changed is we're having conversations. Unfortunately, the more we have the conversation, the more pushback we're getting. The more it feels like we're asking for too much. The more it feels like, well, you know, we can't. This is not infrastructure. You know, this is. This is just a nice to have. This is not. It's not. It's not. It's not really. Where is the ROI? I remember when we were trying to sell to companies, it was almost a joke. I got tired, right? Because you start talking and the next thing is, what is the ROI? What is the this and that? Go come up with the numbers. Why we need to make it look good so that we can sell this. And I'm like, look, are we asking for companies to. To come up with rois when it's time to build a road from the power plant all the way to the city so that employees can get to work? I worked in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in the middle of nowhere. Dupont was responsible for building that road. That is infrastructure. No one is asking for ROI for those things. So we need to start thinking about care as infrastructure for families. Again. If you have 75% of your workforce depending on care, providing care, then you need to think about, how can I make care available so that these people can actually work? It's the same way we need roads to get to work. It's the same way we build bridges. It's the same way we need hospitals in strategic locations so that we can get sick people attended to in the right amount of time. That is how valuable care is to every one of us. So it's still very confusing to me that we have to sort of prove that is what has changed, is this need to prove how, you know, how much money care can add to you as a company. But the way we need to thinking about it is care as capital is care as infrastructure. We need to actively be thinking of setting aside enough money for care. It should be baked into the budget. This is not something that is nice to have. It is something that is important to have. Because if those families cannot get to work because there's a hiccup, there's disruptions in care. Look at Covid. That was when we all knew how important it was, when there was massive disruption. And we were all like, oh, my God. We didn't realize care was infrastructure. Oh, my God. Everybody was running around losing their minds. Dads were hiding in the bathroom because they didn't want to do care work. Moms were losing their minds. I know that I just got in the car and just drove for like, 30 miles because I was exhausted from all the care work. And my husband kept calling. I'm like, you know what? Go deal with Your four kids. And so that is the reality when we think, or we believed that care was an infrastructure. And then we realized during COVID that care was infrastructure. And then we decided not to do anything about it because guess what? Women will continue to do this work for free.

00:20:04
The infrastructure framing is a really interesting one. My father in law was a nuclear. He was a nuclear scientist, so he created townships around nuclear power plants. And everything that you're saying, right, which is how do you build hospitals, how do you build roads, how do you build schools? Is a really important aspect of saying this township needs to come together. It is a community that comes. So it's the euphemistic village to both raise your children and your community as you're flourishing. The role of the employer versus the government versus the employee is something that we've continued to debate. So in your policy work, how is that worked out? How, how do you see the role of employer versus, you know, the government versus the employee and whose role ends and begins where? Because we've seen different countries do this differently. There are countries in Europe who think of this as infrastructure, but certainly that's not the case in the US So what are you seeing? And again, in terms of shifting trend lines, is there something we should be excited about?

00:21:07
Absolutely. So I think that when I think about care, the first word that comes to mind when a mom or a dad or anyone comes to me and say Blessing, oh my God, I'm drowning in care. I'm being crushed under the burden of care. The first thing I see, I basically the first word that comes out of my mouth is redistribution. Care is something that shouldn't be shouldered alone. It's not something that I take on. It's not something that my husband takes on 100%. In fact, I always joke, my husband, that, you know, this, this shared responsibility conversation that we are having, that this conversation is really and truly, oh my goodness, my kids are here. I'm going to have to answer this question again. You know, so when I think about care, the first thing I think about is redistribution. When I. When a mom or a dad or if, you know, anyone comes to me and say I'm being crushed under the burden of care, I always think about redistribution. And that's the first thing I tell them, you need to redistribute the care. My husband and I, we joke a lot that the work is even too much for two people. So even when we talk about shared responsibility, I look at my four kids and I'm like, there's no way we can do this alone and have a career. So we still need to redistribute. And so where do we need to redistribute that care? We redistribute it to individuals. So whether that is my partner, my husband or my wife, whether that is aunt, neighbors, grandma, grandpa that is around, those are the first people that we want to redistribute that care to. Then we need to think of markets, the Bright Horizons of the world. What is the market doing to solve for care and who are the people that I can go to for care? Support three institutions. That's our market, that's our workplaces. Those are churches. I always say churches, religious institutions. These are places that really and truly should be serving for care. You know, if we're collecting tights, we're collecting all this different support from, from our congregation, then we should be able to provide care. A lot of churches have, you know, nurseries. They have, you know, Sunday schools. Well, can we utilize those places for care then? The fourth place we need to look at is the government. The government should be treating care as a catalyst for economic growth. If I want my workforce to actually go to work and not come up with excuses, not say, oh my God, you know, I can't come today because my child is sick. I can't come tomorrow because we don't have childcare. I really can't. When are we going to get anything done? So the government needs to be looking at care as an economic catalyst that will support all the targets that they have. The same way you're investing in roads and in bridges and in hospitals is the same way you need to be investing in care. It is no longer a nice to have. We have data that shows that care is infrastructure. It is not a. Oh, let's just see. Because what has happened is women have done the work for free. And we did not include care in the GDP of a country. We looked at all the different sectors. We looked at agriculture, we looked at banking. We looked at all these different things. We said, these are economic activities. Let's add them to the GDP. Well, care, you know what? Women are doing that work. Let's just leave that. That's behind the scenes. Well, it's no longer behind the scenes because we have more and more women in the workforce. We have women contributing to the economy. So women are no longer strictly care providers. So we need to start treating care as a visible economic engine. And so when we say, whose responsibility is it? Is it the government or the employer? I say both. I say Everyone. And so governments can introduce care subsidies, they can provide universal child care, universal aging care. They can support persons with disabilities. Employers can support all of their employees with care credits. They can support all of their employees with proper paid leave so that they can use those days for emergencies like I had with my dad, and not have to tiptoe out of work. So it is a collective responsibility that I'm hoping we've never stopped talking about it because we are seeing very clearly that this is no longer a nice to have. And so we have been very bold in just going straight for the, for the, for the, for the, for the money and saying, look, this is infrastructure. You don't pay for it. Guess what? The, the world is expanding. We're having more and more. I'm just going to give you an example. Nigeria is on track to be the third largest country in the world by, in 20, by 2040, I think India and China are the, you know, the first two. And so you're looking at more and more children, more and more people getting older, who is going to take care of them? Because if we're still relying on women, we have missed the boat because my daughters are not going to do that. You know, a lot of us, we have young kids, we know they're not going to do that. We didn't do that. I'm here talking to you. You know, Priya, you're wearing a nice suit. You're not going to do that. So who is going to take care of, you know, the babies and the aging adults? We have to solve for care and we need to solve for it strategically.

00:26:23
I want to pick up on that Blessing, the strategic part, and kind of blend in. I love the idea of redistribution and of course we were talking about the manager lottery. But if we think of companies and in your experience, what the best companies have done here, if it's something that I'm not saying, these things are easy to solve, but they're solvable in a prescriptive way. If, for example, you don't have enough employees signing up for their 401k plan, you can build in incentives, get them to sign up more. If you want to put in place an equitable parental leave policy, you can look around and say, okay, well, we're going to give 20 weeks to men, 20 weeks to women. We'll have a policy in place before they go out on leave, a policy in place when they return. That's fine. Even if you have an office in an out of the way place and there isn't great Infrastructure. You can put a cafeteria in there and feed them so they don't have to wander off and spend an hour getting lunch. But when it comes to the, I don't want to say software but the less predictable things, I'm wondering what companies can do by that. I mean you could give a caregiver parental leave. You could give them three, four, five, six months. You could then bring in a Bright Horizons to help with on site childcare up until they go off to school. But from 5 to 18 to 22, you know, all kinds of things happen with kids. We all know as parents of older children. They can get sick, they can just need mom or dad for a moment. They could have a health crisis, any number of things. How can companies help in that space where it is less clearly defined as to what might be needed at a specific time but you still know that there's a need there that's going to arise. What if you know, companies done specifically that you've seen to sort of benefit folks in that age range.

00:28:12
I think I can also certainly add in terms of how what we're seeing because it's an interesting trend. It is an important question on how ages and stages change and what supports are. You know, you have four kids who are from three through 16. How has that changed for you?

00:28:33
I mean I, I think honestly, you know, things happen, life happens the same way. You know, companies are planning for 401k. People go in and they grab it. I've grabbed my 401k before. You know, there's always, you know, tools and push when it comes to these things anyways. But I think that we can still solve strategically for these things. A very good example was when I was working in one of the, you know, Fortune 100 companies that I worked with and the, our manager, I was very surprised. Like, you know what? Everybody's working Monday through Thursday. That wasn't a company policy. He just came up with that policy by himself. It was like we're working, our team is working Monday through Thursday because I want like I don't. He said I don't work on Fridays. I. Fridays are the days that I use to solve for any of my care related issues. I use that to do any errands, any school lunches with my kids, et cetera. I was very, very surprised. And that manager and I became best buddies because of that. Because guess what? We would work. We would literally heads down Monday through Thursday and Friday were just on phones, you know, and those were the Fridays that I did My laundry. Those are the Fridays that I, you know, had lunch with my daughter at school. Those were the Fridays that I had my doctor's appointments, all of the things. So we actually had more people working Monday through Thursday versus somebody just coming with. Because what you will find is a lot of these things when it happens, because you know that there's no solution, there's no flexibility. You just want to take that time off right there. And then sometimes you can actually just be like, you know what? We will deal with this. This is happening on a Wednesday. Maybe a child needs to. Or a husband needs to go to the doctor. Oh, this is happening on Wednesday. What's. Well, guess what? I'm just going to wait till Friday to go to the. To the hospital. I'm just making it up. I'm just going to go, you know, to this event on Friday versus going now. Right. And so when. When people know that there are some. There's somewhat of a structure. That is why companies put structures in place. It's not because things are not going to go wrong. It's because there's something to fall back on. There's something to say, okay, this is a standard operating procedure. This is how we actually do things. So when we have something like a Friday off or we have flexibility built in, where people can actually use that flexibility to work. And this, we saw this during COVID when we were like, okay, you know what? As long as we're all online between 10 to 2pm Right, whatever you now do outside of that, as long as your work is done well, you're fine. But as long as you're at work from 10 to 2, you're good. So people used those openings to breast pump, to breastfeed, to, you know, to go pump, to do various things. And it's not because these things, you know, life is happening. But. But there is some structure in place. And so what my pushback to employers who are like, well, you know, this is not really standardized, is that you can actually standardize something. You can actually put some kind of structure in place. You can say, you know what? On Fridays, we don't have physical meetings. Maybe don't declare Friday as a day off, but on Fridays, we don't have physical meetings. Any meetings that happen on Friday is a virtual meeting so that if people are at a doctor's appointment, if people have to go pick up their kids early from school, we know Fridays, usually it's early pickup. You know, they can put their headphones on and they can still pick up their kids. So I think that a lot of companies, you know, just need to put structures in place. We, when it comes to care, suddenly we are lazy. Suddenly there are all these red tapes. Suddenly, oh, my goodness, this is a risk that we can't take. But if this was a 401k, if this was, you know, something that is, you know, that is a risk, exposure to the company, suddenly there are structures, they are processes. But we need, if we take care as, again, like I said, if we, if we, if we value care as something that our employees need that is absolutely important to them, but something that we as a company, if we see it as what, as a company, we also need this to get the most out of our employees, then we will put some kind of structure in place. And that structure will help a lot of people that, you know, tend to fall outside of this. You know, the lines, they will come in very quickly. And yes, you will still have things that happen outside of the box, but you will realize that people will take advantage of those Fridays or people will take advantage of those flexibilities and still do their best work or even perform at a higher level.

00:33:06
And yeah, the notion of sort of saying, you know, employees are adults and they will work responsibly is really critical and flexibility. And to your earlier point, Paul, that we've seen this with employers, and I sit in the half glass, full sort of category when, you know, we've seen five generations in the workforce. Summers came about, yes, Bright Horizons provides childcare. But as we have a more aging population, we're suddenly seeing more and more employers lean into elder care. You know, we operate a camps company and more employers leaning into saying, how do we provide school age supports for kids who are under the age of 12, college supports, et cetera. So I do see employers leaning in for three reasons. I would say one is the fact that it is a changing demographic. The second is that the workforce is getting more vocal. You know, fathers are getting more vocal, moms are getting more worker. And the third is Covid sort of normalized that conversation. And so there was a little bit of a reckoning. I want to flip that question a little bit Blessing and ask you what happens when employers don't lean into this? What have you seen as the downside of employers who've said, no, this is not work and life are separate. You are the eight hours that you're in the office. What has happened in those scenarios and are there lessons that others could take from that?

00:34:38
I think the first thing is we see women drop off and we saw that during COVID when care became too intense, women tend to drop out of the workforce at that point. So we find that a lot of those employers are unable to retain women in the workforce. They are also unable to retain, you know, men that want to step into care. You know, I think gone are the days when we thought dads weren't, you know, capable of care. So a lot of women now know that dads are capable. So you do your part. So that's one. And then gone are the days when we thought that men would just accept, you know, that they didn't need to talk about their kids and they didn't need to go home and go, you know, for football practice and support their partners and, you know, be home for dinner. Gone are those days too. So we're finding that a lot of those companies are also losing, you know, well, meaning men. Men that, you know, wanting to have that equity in their own households. A lot of them, you know, we're seeing more and more women earning more. And so a lot of them are looking at their paychecks the same way companies are looking at, you know, I always said this, this is a numbers game, right? It's really a numbers game. So when you then see couples say, look, my, this is my salary. This is your salary. Someone, somebody needs to come home on time. Somebody needs to be the one to pick up the kids. I know there was a day that I had a meeting with one of a large funder and we were supposed to pick up the kids. And my kids have two. They're spread across three different schools. And you know, normally my husband handles drop off, I handle pickup. I said, you know what, you're handling both. And any, you know, at first he was like, oh no, I'm going to be at work, I'm going to be doing X, Y and Z. I said, well, you know, this meeting is with this and that, this and that. It was like, say what? You know what? I will be right there. It's like they know more. And so these are the conversations. So I always tell employers, you need to pay attention to what is happening on the home front. You can't have a work front that works optimally by ignoring what is happening on the home front. It's really just not going to work anymore. So if employers are paying attention to what men and women are doing at home, they will realize very quickly that quite frankly, a lot of those men jetting out early these days, they are going to pick up their kids. They are also going to make dinner they are not. I think a lot of companies are operating on that. The basis that women are the one doing this work still. And what they will find out very quickly, and I hope they find out sooner rather than later, is that men are stepping into this work and men will also do it. Because at the end of the day, it's a numbers game. It's a numbers game for the company. It's a numbers game for the man. It's a numbers game for the woman. So this is why we need to look at this. We need to basically all come back and look at these numbers and this data and these statistics and say we have to make it easy for everybody, all employees, male or female, and even the workforce to value care. We all just need to come to the table and realize that care is something the same way. I don't know if you all remember, this was about 15, 16 years ago, when the workplace was just a crazy place, especially in the manufacturing environment that I was in. You know, people. There was a lot of, you know, just any illness is what I call it. Things flying back and forth between men and women. There was different harassment and things like that, people being disrespectful, and they launched, you know, respect for people across board. Everybody was. We were having mindset and behaviors. We were having respect for people training. We were having all sorts of things. And I feel like we are at that junction with. With companies. We need to have a care culture, sensitization. Everybody needs to understand the value of care, not just to the employee, but also to the company. So instead, so the next time that manager goes into the performance review and, you know, it's like, you know, what? Blessing was, has been pregnant, you know, twice now in the last four years. I don't think it's time for a promotion. Another VP should step up and say, no, that is unacceptable here. We are a caring company. We will not accept that from you.

00:39:01
You know, Blessing, obviously you're singing my tune at the company of dads and how we always talk about lead dads as men being super involved versus event dads who just show up for events. But, you know, your story about men being more vocal reminds us of a guest that we had on last season, Dr. Dana Susskind, who told this story, this wonderful story about her husband who they had three kids, three daughters who would leave early, was leaving early to go see their kids do something. And he was the chief pediatric surgeon at the University of Chicago Hospital. And he made something up to put in his calendar. He made something up that he was having a high level meeting with Dr. So and so, knowing that Dr. So and so would never see it. And then he would sneak out and one day he does this and he sneaks out and he runs into one of his residents. You know, residents should be wildly deferential to the chief surgeon. The resident is pretty cheeky, comes up to him and says, so is this your high level meeting with Dr. So and so? And he's like. And that was a moment of change for him. And this is again, you know, like you're saying 12, 15 years ago. And we are slowly moving along. But I want to talk more about sort of your own evolution. As you know, I'm a super fan of yours Blessing and you know, started with Mother Honestly. Mother Honestly became MH Work life. That evolved into the care gap. Part of the care gap is Caring Africa. And now, you know, you've really gone from the individual. And that story you tell when you started Mother Honestly. And all those women, all those moms showed up to working with companies now to be working with governments and NGOs and really pushing for systemic change. You're one of the smartest people I know in the care economy. What drove that evolution? And how do you see what you're doing now pushing for that systemic change cascading down to companies and individuals who really need that, that help with care?

00:40:51
Wow, great question. I think one of the things that I always joke around is you just have to be, you know, an immigrant, a chemical engineer, and a model for all of those things. I think, honestly, I think for me it was, you know, just starting out, you know, thinking that I was the problem and then realizing that, you know, wow, it's, I'm not alone. There's so many other women that are going through this and then speaking to those women and realizing that, ooh, this is not a woman's issue, this is a workforce issue, this is a workplace issue, this is a government issue. And then, you know, shifting into advocacy and then looking at, during my advocacy work, looking at policies and realizing that, wow, we really did not plan for care, we planned for everything else. And we really just ignored care because we've always just thought that somebody else was managing this well, that somebody else has been crushed and is crying out for survival. And so we have to shift this care burden and redistribute this care. And I think it was that “haha” moment when I realized that care wasn't, you know, it wasn't a woman's issue. It wasn't even just the government's issue, care was everybody's issue. And so the conversation then involved evolved from being an individual issue to everyone's issue. And so I like to think of, you know, the work that I do now as more of, you know, looking at the ecosystem and saying, who? How can we make sure that everybody, you know, does their fair share? How do we make sure that everyone does their fair share? How do we make sure workplaces can step into care without feeling like, oh, my God, we're just supporting. You know, a lot of time when I go into workplaces and, you know, this, you know, the HR people, they're always trying to, you know, be saying, you know, they're like, oh, my God, you know, like, this is just really amazing. She's helping women. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not helping women. This is economic value. This is business value, right? So coming into a new space for me where I'm thinking about this from an ecosystem perspective, I'm thinking about this from an institutional perspective, looking at economies and seeing what is common. So a very good example is recently in Bogota, Colombia, in Kenya and in India, we are looking at care policies, policies, national care policies, looking at policies and saying, look, if we actually just go straight to the government and we can incubate national care policies the same way we have the labor act, can we have the CARE Act? Can we have a CARE agenda for nations that really just says, look, in order for us to meet all of this economic and infrastructural goals that we have for our nation, we need a sulfur care. We need to make sure children, adults. The care workforce, for example, is a workforce that nobody cares about. It's invisible. Nobody sees them. It's like, who is doing your laundry right now? Who is out there making sure that there's always a babysitter? No one is looking at that workforce. So we're not looking at, okay, how do we take this and understand that this is a systemic issue? This is not an individual issue. Dad and mom are out there fighting, thinking, oh, you didn't pick up. You didn't drop off. It's because you didn't do X, Y and Z. Well, really, it is a systemic issue. If we have just solved for this on a societal level, then dad and mom can really just focus on having their best life, taking care of their children, spending more time with their kids and doing their best work. So the work has, like you said, evolved. What we are doing now is really looking at care, you know, solving for care through technology. Right, True media storytelling, these things are powerful. Solving for care through policy and advocacy, knowing that the only way for this to actually be a, to be solved systematically and methodology, method. The only way for us to solve this systematically and strategically is actually to change policies. We can do anything without changing policies. That is why we push for policies in the workplace, that is why we push for policies on the government level. Because quite frankly, if we leave it to the individual, nothing is going to get done. So. So yes, Paul, you're absolutely right. And I think, you know, what has made it possible is really just, you know, my problem solving spirit. I think whether it's, you know, from my years of, you know, being an engineer and just really looking at an issue and saying, how do we solve for this and not just, you know, get the result that we need, but how do we actually make sure that we go to the root cause and we solve from this issue bottom up. And it's not just, oh, we're just going to throw out some things and throw out some solutions, but actually fundamentally change how we all value care and that we all understand the value of that care to our homes, to our workplaces, to our institutions and to our economy. I think when everybody understands that. We had this conversation with, I went to a meeting with the IFC, with the International Finance Corporation and they said, Blessing, we want to look at, you know, can you help us with our gender strategy for 2025-2030? And I looked at everything and they said, you know, we're looking at women empowerment, we're looking at trainings, we're looking at skills. And I said, well, this is all great. And, and at the same time, this is, this is appalling because you all have done this for the past 20 years and in 20 years we've widened the gender gap. Nothing has changed. In fact, we've made matters worse. And one of the reasons we've made matters worse is because we are now looking at the biggest impact to women's well being, to women's careers. There's no woman that can scale a business without care. I mean, you can put all the laptops, all the training and power, do all the things that you want to do with that woman, but when she gets home and her husband says, where's my dinner? Why are the kids dirty? Why have you not changed their diapers? So we have to solve for care. And so when they started thinking about these things from that level, understanding that there's a systemic issue out there that we need to Solve for before we can even look at all the empowerment, all the trainings, all the things. And also looking at how men can step into care more properly. Because that is another big issue that I think, you know, is, is, is the biggest opportunity that we have. Even when we look at the four domains that I spoke about, right, which is the individual, the institutions, the markets and the government, who are the people operating and leading those domains? They are men. So the more men I can get to value care, the more I can change the perception of care in those places, in those domains, the more men that can push for paid leave, the more men that can push for childcare, the more men in workplaces saying, you know what? The next time you see a proposal from Bright Horizons or any other market provider, please approve it. The more mean I can get to do that, the better the society will become.

00:48:13
And I can certainly, I mean, from a marketplace standpoint, you know, the narrative that we're collectively trying to drive is to say there is health and well being, there is financial well being, and this is personal well being. Right. The care economy is personal well being, which is really your narrative to say that don't separate the human from their responsibilities. If you want people to be productive, you need to look after their whole self. And care is very much part of that whole self. Blessing, we can talk for hours about everything that you're doing and all the great work that you're accomplishing. More power to you as you navigate this across these various environments. Thank you so much for being here with us and for sharing your voice and your story and your mission and your continued evolution to see how you can drive change across various levels. It's always a pleasure speaking with you.

00:49:10
And Blessing, this is a thrill to be talking to as always, but it's a real reminder for our listeners the importance of your work and a reminder too that care is not a burden. It's a cornerstone for the future of the economy we're hoping to develop. So thank you again for being our guest today. I thought I loved her labeling the manager lottery. Early on, she won the manager lottery and our first guest this season was Suba Berry, who also talked about the importance of those managers stepping in. And that's wonderful when it happens for those individuals. But I think both Blessing and Suba are trying to find ways to institutionalize that, trying to make it so that companies can have policies that, as you talked about, you know, support the kids at all stages of life or support the worker at all stages of their caregiving journey. And when you institutionalize that, you don't have to hope you get lucky and win the manager lottery. You can say like, okay, my employer sees that there's value here. And that comes back to our whole conversation around infrastructure and redistribution, how we sort of bake it into what a company is doing for it's as she said, this isn't about moms or dads. It's about, know, economic benefit.

00:50:20

Yeah. And we've heard so many of our guests in the past talking about role modeling. You know, when you spoke about Dana Susskind, her husband, role modeling, this is really critical. So I don't know, when you have a family where both individuals work, I think there's a different empathy. So this notion of this balance between culture and policy, a caring culture as an organization, you know, redistribution as a principle, and the redistribution between the individual employer, government, and within the family itself. And then the third element around return on infrastructure, that was my takeaway, was treat this as infrastructure. Treat this as the long-term investment for prosperity of an economy, of a society, and of humans in general. How do you create a culture which is caring? And then how do you create policies that scaffold them and don't allow things to fall through the cracks? It was a really interesting conversation.

00:51:16
Yeah, it was a great talk.

00:51:17
And to all of you tuning in, thank you for listening to the work life equation brought to you by Bright Horizons

00:51:22
We'll be back next month with more conversations about how to thrive in all parts of your life. Until then, take care of yourself and each other.