Does fatherhood transform the way you lead? We spoke about this further at the Life Ready Conference: The era of father leaders – New styles of leaderships one year into the pandemic. Here’s what our panel of senior management and father leaders had to say.
“Just like fatherhood is evolving, leadership is evolving too. At the start of my career, leadership was very formal. Managers wanted a lot of control, there wasn’t a lot of discussion or shared communication. Today, everything has changed. If we want employees to journey with us, we need to comunicate, share information, be empathetic and help them to know they are part of something bigger. We’ve moving from the idea of being authoritative to being influential. It’s an important step forward.
There’s not a universal recipe though. Everyone’s character is unique. We also need to be able to understand the person we have in front of us and adapt our behaviour accordingly. Now we’re working remotely, these skills need to be developed even more. We don’t want to do our employees’ work for them. We want to be able to support them to do their best work.”
“Why is it so important that we ask new questions? Fatherhood brings a sense of responsibility for our families, it’s our power. The same thing goes for leaders. We’ve seen that old leadership models don’t work any more. We need to break the barriers that stop us from bringing these attributes to work and vice versa. Leaders have the opportunity and responsibility to do so. We need to ask ourselves new questions in every context.”
“When we find ourselves in a flat organisational structure, humility becomes quite natural. If everyone believes they’re at the same level, it’s like being part of a big family. You need to listen to people and develop constructive relationships. Of course, if you don’t experience that in the office, your own home and children become a great training ground.
I think it’s important to realise that we all make mistakes. It’s not a problem if you make a mistake – the problem comes if you keep making mistakes on purpose. Mistakes can also bring innovation and change within a company. You can try this out at home with your children. Children have to try new things, make mistakes and try again. This concept becomes key when we apply it in the workplace. It’s about being unafraid to make mistakes.
We need to be a role model for our children. We need to show them the way that they need to go, to motivate them to energise them. When we apply that concept at work, it changes the way we lead our teams. In emotional leadership, people look for safety, direction, support and energy.”
“I agree, leadership is changing. The era of authoritative leadership is over. This style of leadership doesn’t value diversity, and therefore doesn’t promote the company’s survival. What’s more, we need to make space for new experiences and different voices to enrich our companies. It’s as if every individual person is a colourful decorated tile. When we truly come together, we can create a beautiful mosaic that brings out the rich hues and fine detailing of those around us.”
This blog is part of a series on leadership and fatherhood. Excerpts have been translated from our recent Life Ready Conference held on the 17th March 2021: The era of father leaders – New styles of leaderships one year into the pandemic.
The pandemic has changed our working routines and rhythms. But it’s also pushed us to look at ourselves more, understanding our daily challenges and strengths. It’s pushed us to reflect on the socio-cultural changes that are happening around us. When we look at the challenges that working mothers have faced over this time, society can learn what needs to change to evolve and adapt to the people that we’ve become.
This is just one of the points that emerged from the virtual Life Ready Conference 2021 organized by Lifeed in partnership with Il Sole 24 Ore and AlleyOop, moderated by Lifeed CEO Riccarda Zezza. Six managers who are also mothers took part in the panel.
Starting with the Lifeed survey results, we started discussing the question: “How have working mothers reacted to the pandemic?”. The data painted a picture of mothers that have become stronger through the experience. After all, mothers are used to facing transitions throughout their personal life. Riccarda Zezza highlighted that “this period of pandemic has revealed the natural leadership skills that mothers have”.
When asked “Has this transition improved your leadership skills?” addressed to new parents, 71% of the participants answered yes. In particular, in mothers the perception of improving their leadership skills through their care roles is higher (74%) and in new mothers it reaches 79%.
As the whole world is going through a phase of transition, women’s change management skills have been incredibly useful for the business world. We now need to change the cultural and social paradigms: giving women a better representation in management roles to truly change the world of work.
Our centre of gravity has shifted to focus on relationships. Shared responsibilities are perceived differently, according to Giovanna Della Posta CEO at Invimit: “I’m a working mother, but I prefer to say we’re a family that works. When we move the family’s centre of gravity, the mother’s ability to react becomes the family’s ability to react”. A change that can come through working on how aware we are of new milestones. “We can change this world by putting women in the driving seat to change these processes. It’s our job to change the culture, taking a step forward each day”.
Maria Laura Garofalo CEO at Garofaolo Health Care believes that women have the advantage in the pandemic. They’ve been able to react to uncertainty with “greater certainty, courage, sacrifice and empathy, in a practical and transferable way”. Attitudes that are needed to change the world of work, as well as building a more efficient and productive country. A system that excludes women from high levels of management and that doesn’t value them based on their professional worth. Real change can only happen “through greater awareness and sharing cultural points of view, as well as a system that honours people based on their merits”.
Teams are built on shared objectives and needs. Only those that are on the team can really make a difference to the culture, that “requires everyone to contribute – even those who are most privileged”, says Angela Paparone HR Lead Italia at Microsoft. An opportunity to become a positive role model for women, but most importantly to be there. “When we’re there, we need to have the courage to say hard things”. An active presence can generate change. “We need to be strong and aware of what we can contribute. We need to give a voice to new ways of working that can help women through their complexities”. Social responsibility that drives change.
A social, political and cultural change to drive our economies in a new direction. That’s why Francesca Polti, General Director at Polti Group has invited entrepreneurs to re-evaluate their human resources “because teams must be seen as true resources to bring variety to the company and understand the skills that working mothers can bring to the workplace”. It’s about rethinking our working and family models, “educating both genders” on positive models of shared responsibilities. As Francesca says, “we need to speak directly to the dads out there”.
Polti then asked mothers to believe in themselves more, expressing their abilities at home and at work. “Don’t be scared to show off your skills and let them be recognized”. According to Polti, we need to focus on anti-fragility, or rather the “ability to grow, improve and strengthen ourselves, not being afraid of change but learning to manage it, seeing risks as opportunities”.
Working to break down stereotypes is something that’s familiar to Luisa Todini, President at Comitato Leonardo and Green Arrow Capital. She underlined the importance of teaming up with other women to share in the same experiences. “Being a working mother is like a master’s and a PhD rolled into one. No academic training can teach us and leave a positive trace like being a mother can”.
The pandemic has been a sort of stress test for all. Women, above all working mothers, “have reacted with strength, revealing a natural disposition to face the changes that are born out of transitions”. As we gradually return to some form of normality, we’ll need “suitable structural tools that focus on long-term planning and less bureaucracy”.
The need to multitask means sharing tasks with our partners, as well as being patient with our family rhythms. But it also means managing our working time differently. For Laura Villani Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group, the pandemic represents a social watershed that “even in difficult times, it’s bought positive elements to the table and has confirmed how reactive women are”, when facing emergencies. Finally, Villani believes that we need to see time as being valuable: “I’d like to see a world that values time more, a world that gives everyone the opportunity to be a leader. A world that recognizes that everyone has something good to offer to the world that surrounds them”.
The pandemic has accelerated the evolution of corporate organizational models. Organizations have changed in three ways: digitalization, sustainability and consumer power relating to company choices and actions. During this period of change, ‘new’ dimensions have come into the spotlight. Dimensions such as wellbeing, trust, collaboration, respect, diffused leadership and shared objectives. All of which follow the Olivetti business model.
In fact, it was Adriano Olivetti that believed that people’s lives should come onto the factory floor. “Today we’re still living with a paradox in the world of work. It sees people as being divided between their private and professional lives. But we have the opportunity to extend the corporate map. We can understand the lives of those within the business”, explained Riccarda Zezza Lifeed CEO at Organizations for people or people for organizations? an event for the 50th Aidp National Congress. At the event, she spoke with Isaac Getz, professor at ESCP Business School, expert on the global corporate liberation movement.
It shouldn’t feel so strange to talk about altruistic companies in the current age. But before remote working became the norm, people’s lives had been left out of the offices. “The complexity in our lives was already there before. But now, it is now much more visible”, highlighted Riccarda Zezza. “In the past, it seemed normal to have to ‘balance’ work and life. But looking after others is a part of our human nature. It’s a primal instinct for our race that reveals responsibilities. It makes us agents for change”.
‘Egoistic’ companies leave this concept at the picket line. But people’s resources are already very present within our companies. “To reframe the situation, we don’t need to add new forms from the top down. Rather we need to make space for people’s identity dimensions. By bringing life to work, we can build an altruistic economy and society”.
So, how can companies translate this into their practices today? According to Isaac Getz, altruistic companies have three main characteristics. “They care for all members of the business ecosystem. They work unconditionally throughout all of their processes and core business. That’s how we can grow our bottom lines”. With their ethical actions in relation to stakeholders, focusing on sustainability and human values, these businesses achieve positive results.
On the other hand, 87% of Millennials believe that business success can not be measured in revenue alone. 89% of consumers would be ready to stop buying from a brand in order to favour another with a key social focus.
Focusing on social value is key. “People, clients, suppliers, communities. The mix of all these ‘ingredients’ really adds the finishing touches to a business: financial results that emerge from a caring business ecosystem“.
According to Getz, managers and HR directors are called to change organizations. They need to abandon the idea of top-down leadership and leaving their egos at the door. Instead, it’s time to move towards an altruistic vision, with core business processes that offer social value for their clients, suppliers and communities. It’s all about improving the lives of those that ‘live’ in the ecosystem.
People often see caring for someone as detracting from their everyday work. Particularly when it comes to caring for elderly and dependent parents. Some companies even consider caregivers’ activities to be a ‘distraction’. Many believe that these activities have a direct impact on employee productivity.
But the opposite is true. Caregivers develop skills and attitudes (from empathy and problem solving to leadership) through caregiving activities. People can also apply those skills at work. This impacts positively on their productivity.
The number of informal caregivers is on the rise in the UK. Currently, around one in ten people are caregivers, contributing £119 million to the economy every year. What’s more, according to recent government research, 64% of people caring for parents are also in work.
“We all have complex lives. But when we leverage our life experiences, we can boost our capabilities and acquire new transferable skills that are often in demand in businesses today”, explains Riccarda Zezza, Lifeed CEO, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Avvenire.
It’s time for companies to start considering caregiving as an opportunity, rather than a problem. Workers have the opportunity to maximize their caregiving experiences at work, “developing their resilience, listening, empathy and leadership skills as well as a greater awareness of their resources”.
UniCredit has seen this double advantage for their employees and company. As part of their welfare initiatives, they have chosen to implement Lifeed Caregivers. Monica Carta, Head of Welfare at UniCredit, told Avvenire that the journey “gave good results in terms of new energy and skills made available by working caregivers”.
Lifeed programs have also been useful for Enel employees, with over 530 people taking part. It’s created opportunities for people to “reconcile their identities and manage the complexity that caregivers face”, says Raffaella Poggi D’Angelo, People Care and Diversity Manager at Enel.
What needs to fall into place so women can work? Something just isn’t working. As the BBC reports, the pay gap still exists, with women more likely to earn less below the living wage compared to their male counterparts. What’s more, The Economist publication hosts an annual Glass Ceiling Index across 29 developed economy nations – taking higher education, labour force, pay, caregiving and representation in senior roles into consideration. Northen Europe fares quite well, but Britain only ranks 20th out of 29. Italy doesn’t fare much better.
In Italy, women have had the right to vote and be elected in parliament since 1945. Another parameter that the World Economic Forum uses to measure gender equality is “the number of years that a country has had a female head of state”. In Italy, that number is ZERO. We’ve been voting for 75 years, but we’ve never had a female head of state. What does that have to do with anything? It can’t be a coincidence.
The Italian prime minister said that “to guarantee a level playing field between genders, we need to work on the pay gap and welfare“. It’s like we’re on a running track, at the starting line next to our male counterparts. Only where the men have a clear path ahead, the women have to jump over the hurdles in front of her – clothes to wash, part-time contracts, a slalom of prejudice. Is our end goal to really have “a level playing field“?
Are we trying to pave the way for women so they can run like men?
If that’s the case, it would be better to work on services available to lighten the load for women in those 315 minutes dedicated to “free domestic labour” each day (compared to 104 minutes spent by men). It would be a case of removing those extra obstacles to leave space on the track to use it as intended.
But what if we needed to change the track all together? If 50% of the country is struggling, is that not a sign that the system isn’t working for anyone? What if the fact that half the population is managing to move forward is actually creating an illusion that our economy is working? Let’s take a break from the screen for a moment and then come back to that thought. The way we work hasn’t changed much in the past 50 years. A pandemic needed to happen before we could take a step forward together.
Before it risked our health, we thought it was normal to sit in traffic every morning to be able to clock in on time. Before remote working showed that we could do our jobs without being physically in the office, the number of hours we spent at work was seen as a good measure of how solid our career felt. Actually, presenteeism has taken on a life of it’s own in lockdown as well. It’s never been talked about, because our countries don’t champion guiding a corporate culture, they prefer loyalty.
What’s more, the working day ignores what happens at school: schools seem to forget that parents work (for example, in the summer). So adding more services isn’t enough. Paying people more wouldn’t be enough either: we’d have to ask companies how much they pay women, and to demonstrate if and why they are paid up to 30% less than their counterparts. The pay gap is a consequence, not an intention. It’s the consequence of a culture that sees the problem as a series of obstacles on a race track, so their first thought (without actually putting those thoughts into action) is to remove the obstacles. In that way, women can run and experience “competitive conditions”, just like men do.
So shall we make a list of 100 things to watch, measure and act upon to close the gender gap? Or shall we just accept the idea that this gap is a deafening sign that the system isn’t working for anyone? Everyone is limping along – just some limp less thanks to the fact others are limping twice as much. Could our running track look different? Maybe we could work in a different way so we don’t have to increase the amount of services available to keep us happy? Maybe we could work to making society happier in general? More nurseries to allow women to work as much as men, or a different way of sharing tasks, hours, compensation, dreams? Are we going to be more competitive so we can win first place, or are we going to invest more in “human capital” so the track welcomes everyone, even those who can only walk instead of run?
Maybe we can see this as an opportunity to make radical changes to the way in which we work. An opportunity to observe 100 things that are stopping women from progressing, connecting them and seeing how they are stalling politics and our economy. Women are the symptom of the ‘problem’, but they can also be the cure. By listening to them and giving them a level playing field, they’re not “competitive” but “contributors”. They don’t take something away from society, they contribute to influential decisions, radically pushing us towards a change that we can no longer live without.
When women will be able to work and live as they want to, and not like men do, we’ll have started to build a more sustainable future for everyone. If that’s what we want.
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
Going into business to offer new and diverse solutions. Getting used to talking about money, because financial independence protects us and frees us. Getting familiar with the concept of female power, even if it’s something they never showed us at school – even if it’s existed for centuries according to the archeologist Marija Jimbutas. A few ideas to escape the dead end that gender equality (or lack thereof) seems to have designated for us. It’s a bottleneck that doesn’t just slow women down, but rather the evolution of the entire species. Our limits are risking the sustainability of the entire planet.
Pointing the finger at the problem, the pandemic for example, is something we’ve started to see in governing conversations. But it’s a mistake to look for solutions in a single direction. Through the pandemic, we’ve paid the price of choices made by entire groups of people. The same group that’s guided our countries for the last 50 years. Because making decisions also means taking responsibility.
We tell ourselves that we need numbers. “Proof” that tells us if what we’re doing is right or wrong, if it works or not. Even if what works isn’t necessarily right, and what works less well could be less wrong. Then we see those numbers again: the new World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report tells us that the UK could do better, and Italy even more so. Of course, if it was a leaderboard we’d be cheering ourselves on. Italy is in 63rd place (an embarrassing position for the 8th strongest economy in the world, for a country where women have been able to vote for the last 76 years). Italy climbed 13 places compared to last year thanks to a political evaluation that increased the number of politicians. But it’s still one of the 81 / 156 economies in the report that have never had a female prime minister. Don’t you think it’s a bit strange?
Actually no, we don’t think it’s strange. It seems stranger to see two politicians “argue” over who is going to be the party whip. We think of them as fights because it seems so strange that women should talk about it when men usually hold this role. Rather than hold conferences and investigations as to why women can’t break the glass ceiling.
The data from the report tells us that women study well, even if they often choose the “wrong” subjects. It tells us that they have more or less the same chances of being physically well and surviving as long as men. But when it comes to finances and politics, we’re still lagging behind – in Italy and in the rest of the world. We make progress – education and healthcare is increasingly available to more people. But culture remains at a standstill. Culture is the longing and knowledge of how to make space for diversity.
We need to want to change things, not just to make progress: the direction might change, we might slow down and the objectives may vary.
This happens when people mix and enrich each other. It’s not an acquisition process, it’s a fusion process.
It’s clear that we’re struggling with a need for change. Last week, I started the day by talking about gender equality with 80 managers of a company. They asked me how they could avoid talking about diversity as a politically correct issue. I told them we have to know “why” we were talking about it.
It’s important to know why we’re talking about women and money. Girls and pocket money. Our aversions to risk. The inherent ability to innovate. It’s why we spoke to 30 high school girls about their thoughts on STEM subjects and why they considered studying them – after 90 minutes, 70% said they wanted to! The gender gap is still evident, it’s the distance between the opportunities for men and women that continues to progress. If we continue the way we’re doing so, it will take us 135 years to become equals. That’s compared to 99 in the previous report.
There’s a film from 1981 where Massimo Troisi tries to “bridge the gap” between him and a vase, solely by using his thoughts. If the vase moved, his life would change. But just by thinking “come here”, the distance remained the same. Troisi is fortunate though, because at least for him the distance stayed the same. Unfortunately we can’t say the same for the human race and a concept of gender equality that’s slipping out of our hands.
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
Rethink. Redesign. Transform. These are just a few key words that have emerged from companies when describing the post-pandemic new normal. In this scenario, future skills at work are constantly evolving. HR Directors play an important role in valuing their people’s true potential.
Any form of forward-planning risks becoming obsolete very quickly. Transferable skills, linked to the ability to learn and think, are the only ones that we can plan for. They are truly needed across all sectors, even the most technical ones. But the ability to know which skills will be useful in future can’t solely be a top-down exercise. It’s much more effective to engage collective intelligence, so that people can discover their own attitudes.
To do so, we need to “widen the map”. It’s precisely what Riccarda Zezza, Lifeed CEO, spoke about at the Strategic workforce planning event, organized by HRC. It means understanding that a company’s ‘what’ and ‘how’ may change, making it ever more important to focus on ‘why’ they do what they do. This is where data comes into play. Aside from behaviors, People Analytics allows us to value our talents’ identity dimensions and characteristics. We need to adjust our line of vision to include these dimensions in relation to life experiences (working on both Big and Small data). In this way, HR can become “map experts”, valuing the true potential of their employees.
On the other hand, “HR teams are no longer just business partners – they’re essentially the business itself” explained Alessandro Agosti, HR Director at Findomestic. “HR accompanies transformations and can decidedly accelerate change by anticipating the need for new skills”.
According to Andrea Bellina, Head of Talent & Organization at Engie, strategy is guided by business. But it’s a close contact with HR that can make strategies a reality through training and upskilling journeys. Many companies are now looking for data management skills to understand the current situation and predict future trends.
Business and HR inputs can find a balance between research into market resources and valuing internal skills. In this sense, “plug-and-play approaches don’t work, it takes time to transfer and develop new skills, even from an intergenerational point of view”, stated Alessandra Rizzi Group HR & Organization Director at BFF Banking Group. “HR management alone won’t be able to anticipate these skills. They need to team up with top management, finding ways to not lose skills and guarantee people’s employability levels throughout this delicate phase”.
Time is a key factor. “We need to get ready for when business will change in line with consumer trends”, underlined Silvia Sulpizi, Senior HR manager Global Supply Chain at Baker Hughes. She believes it’s useful to analyze behaviors (not just hard skills) that will be needed in future transitions, allowing us to understand who will be ready to take the next step.
Workforce planning is closely linked to corporate strategy: for Luca Barbera, Head of Planning & Organization Global Power Generation at Enel Group, “we need to understand the main business drivers that will allow us to plan the evolution of internal resources. HR can create value within the corporate strategy, with the aim of being able to foresee the future of work”.
In this context, technical skills don’t go far enough. People also need “the right attitude, a startup mentality and a data-driven approach”. When people focus on behaviors, they can change their working environment and still find new opportunities. It’s why it’s so important to broaden our knowledge, especially in this transition we all find ourselves going through.
We don’t speak a lot about time. Time that passes, the phase that we’re living in. Time is an implicit concept that underpins everything. It risks becoming invisible. But there are three reasons why it’s still important to talk about time, a reflection that helps us see things in a new way, considering it more.
First, for the first time since the dawn of civilization, the whole world is going through the same time period. The world wars didn’t even touch the whole world in this way, they didn’t stretch to every nation. From Italy to the UK, Brasil to the US: everywhere is sharing in the pandemic experience. There have been other pandemics, but we couldn’t communicate with everyone back then. It wasn’t a shared experience. The third decade of the third millennium has put us all in the same boat. Well, we were already on the same boat, but we thought that we had a right to own our own point in time. It’s created a moment in time where we’re all together.
The second reason is that, currently, we don’t have access to the places that we would meet each other usually. What’s a Zoom meeting if it’s not in a temporary room, where space has a defined duration? We’re not together in a place, but at a time: from this minute to that one. We’re all in different spaces.
Digital calendars are our new maps: we’re in the same place and we move to the next event. We only move in terms of time. When we set a time, we put a mark on the map. Everyone agrees to see you “there”. Not in a space, at a calendar appointment. In time, we don’t arrive in the physical sense, but with the mind. Isn’t it funny how it’s the only movement that’s allowed at the moment when we’re protecting our physical health? Over the last year, we’ve established that our physical health is more important, or more fragile, than mental health. It comes first, alone. And in this way, our minds sustain our still bodies.
We can be in the same room with someone but be far away in terms of time and not understand each other. The moment we’re living in can influence our ability to listen and understand, what we’re ready to be. Giving ourselves an hour to meet isn’t enough: we also need to make sure that we’re there, present in the same moment. At least enough time to make our own map a little bigger. It’s not about asking where you are but “when you are?”. What moment of life are you living through, irrespective of where you find yourself?
Lots of questions have changed over the past year. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ask people what plans they have, even more useless to ask where they are. But the question “in which moment are you in?” could open new horizons. Because we’re all going through a collective transition, translated into a personal transition for all of us, where time and things meet each day. It’s life.
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
Life has an incredible ability to hone our skills. Everyday experiences can have a huge impact on people’s motivation when it comes to learning. The soft skills that are most in-demand in today’s world are often difficult to train in the classroom. But those same skills can be developed through our private experiences, developing a new awareness that allows us to transfer and apply those skills between our personal and professional spheres. Digital is key to making this a reality. Riccarda Zezza, CEO di Lifeed spoke about it in a #BecomeWhoYouWantToBe interview for GoDaddy Talks, talking to digital leaders in the sector. Here’s what she had to say.
What I do is closely linked to who I am. The fact that I became an entrepreneur, that I have my own company that sells something that I’ve experienced in my own life, it all represents who I am. I often ask myself if I’m happy and convinced in what I’m doing. Up until now, my honest answer has been yes – it’s the right path for me. As long as that’s my answer, it’s all good.
True self-awareness is realising that you already have everything you need. These skills are already yours – it’s awareness that really makes the difference, across all life transitions. Even through the pandemic, the challenges that you’re facing can hone the skills that you already have. When you try to apply those skills in different contexts, you’ll discover that you have even more resources available to you.
When you put that concept into practice, you’ll also find that life gets easier. You no longer have to compartmentalise everything. You’ll realise that certain behaviours and mechanisms work everywhere. If you’re good at saying ‘no’ at work, you can become good at setting boundaries at home. If you’re a warm and encouraging person at home, you can bring those same traits out in the office. It’s all about building relationships with those around you. When clients onboard with us, they often continue to renew again and again. It’s because once they’ve grasped this concept, once they can see their people for all they really are, they find they get a lot more out of them. People will share with you the things that you can see. If you choose to not see parts of their lives, you’ll miss out on so much that they have to offer. It’s a revolution.
Female empowerment isn’t and end, it’s a means. We’re not focusing on empowerment for the good of women, we think it’s important because society needs their contribution. We’re wasting their resources. Women are champions of care: it’s an element that’s key to the survival of our race. Caregiving is key across all age groups. If we weren’t able to care for others, we’d already be extinct. So we can’t de-prioritize care, it can’t become less important than the state of the economy. Rather, it has to become an essential part of the economy, because it’s the only thing that will make it sustainable over time.
Our collective narrative needs to be updated, and we are all narrators. 73% of all employees are caregivers in some role in their life. The other 27% are probably still caring for another being in some way – it’s just that they don’t recognize their role in it yet. We all care for someone else. We all hone skills through these experiences. And if we don’t see those skills, it’s like we’re throwing them away. But we need those skills! This idea all stems from a culture of care, it’s at the heart of our existence.
Lifeed started out as MAAM – a classroom-based soft skills training program. After a couple of years in the classroom, we wrote a book, we became a bit frustrated. We couldn’t grow the business in that format, it wasn’t scalable. On one hand, I wanted to reach as many people as possible, while on the other hand I realised that the market offered growth avenues that would not otherwise be available to you. I wanted to grow in line with the market. So about 6 years ago, we had a lightbulb moment. We decided we wanted to take these learning materials online – the same content and questions that “switch on” this awareness for people. Digital is the best place for people to do just that. It means people can write about their experiences online, we can listen to them and then accompany them throughout the rest of their learning experience.
I believe digital is a powerful tool. But sometimes I think it’s easy for us to forget that we get to decide how it’s used. Over the past year, we’ve seen how it’s saved us. It’s allowed us to continue doing a whole range of things that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. But what will happen when this is all over? Will we continue to acquire knowledge at the same speed? Or will we stop and ask ourselves why we need digital? It’s important to ask those questions. Otherwise we risk that digital decides what we do, rather than us deciding for digital.
When you start a business, there’s always a chance that people blur into the background – you have to focus on numbers, sales and growth. As you grow, more people join you – both your team and the number of people who use your platform. Sometimes I ask myself if I’m changing the world in any way. It’s enough for me to know that I’ve encouraged one person to put themselves forward for promotion after returning from parental leave. 73% of our users say that their leadership skills have developed through their life transitions. It’s the truth – but it only comes out when you’re asking the right questions. Every person who takes part on a Lifeed journey will have an impact on the people around them. Everything has a knock-on effect.
What’s behind a CV? It’s a paradox in itself that it’s called a curriculum vitae. Literally it means “life career”, when in reality it only allows space for our work and not our lives. LinkedIn – perhaps the most powerful online CV tool that exists – demonstrates just that. It hosts 766 million CVs, but up until recently life events were seen as a “gap”. Unless an experience was connected to a specific company or professional role, it wasn’t possible to add it to your profile. The best option that LinkedIn offered was “housewife”. Just like those old-fashioned forms you have to fill in when you register a birth or marriage.
So if we weren’t working and weren’t a housewife, LinkedIn didn’t offer any other options. For years these experiences have been vague, we haven’t defined them. But things are changing. A recent announcement shows that LinkedIn are trying to modernize their approach, making space for caregiving roles on our CVs. Is the idea that users can choose from 10 roles to define their period of… absence, gaps and career interruptions? Think maternity leave, illness, sabbatical, grief, caregiving leave. Anomalies, unexpected instances, life avenues that deviate from the linear nature of careers. They’re often unable to be defined in our professional narrative because they are seen as referring to a parallel universe, rather than experiences that naturally intersect with our work. Even before Zoom meetings became the bread-and-butter of our days, it was impossible to split our identities in two like that.
The past year has challenged our continuity. We’ve found it difficult to identify time spent “working” and time spent doing “other things”. Hands up if you’ve felt like you’re on a hamster wheel at any point: we get up, we log on, we work, we eat, we go to bed, we get up, we log on, we work… and so on. It happened because we haven’t been able to experience discontinuity, or rather the spatial boundaries that define our work and lives. We haven’t experienced distance or alternative settings.
And so it’s felt as though our schedules are “full”. Maybe, for the first time we’ve seen gaps in a different way: the event that we had to miss, to be somewhere else, to do (or go along with) other choices and continue to “be there”. It’s harder to measure the result. We’ve contributed to our “household” surviving. At the end of the day, economics means “organizing the home”.
So do we exist outside the way we define our CVs? Is it true that mothers that call who call themselves the family “Chief of Operations” have sparked a LinkedIn revolution? Do we need to keep evolving the way we define ourselves in order to feel represented, even when we’re using a platform where people still hold us up to “traditional” standards where we’re seen as anomalies? Think mothers, caregivers, fathers on parental leave, those on a year out, those who decide to take time out away from studying or working?
We call them career breaks, but what are they breaks from? Time moves on for everyone. Experiences accumulate, skills develop, life progresses and new dimensions arrive on the scene. A few days ago, LinkedIn user Masia Maria Gisa, talked about it as a “gap in her CV”. Her post saw over 10,000 likes and 400 comments:
There’s a gap in my CV.
At the beginning of the pandemic, my company let me go in the last three days of my probation period. I had invested a lot in what seemed like a dream opportunity. I’d turned down other jobs and moved to a new city.
Then another, bigger problem arose: my brother became seriously ill.
Over the course of a week, I packed up the boxes that I’d opened 6 months before, left my home, loaded up my car with stuff and prayers, and I drove straight to him while Italy was about to go into lockdown. I spent eight months managing a very painful situation, knowing full well that the time spent “out of work” would have been precious, as unfortunately I wouldn’t have been able to do it again. While attending doctors appointments, rushing to hospital, mulling over my fears and thoughts, I never stopped looking for work. Throughout the few – given the current situation – interviews I had, I never talked about my story, even though I was developing so many skills. Flexibility, the ability to manage emotions and the never-ending study and search for better solutions.
There’s a gap in my CV.
People ask me about it with suspicion and prejudice. I’m only talking about it now I’ve found work. Those of you that can see a gap can look beyond it, without being scared of choosing the “wrong” candidate.
Under that post, there are 400 other stories: our career “gaps”, the essence of our lives. All the moments and events that don’t fit neatly into the drop down menu on a digital CV. But it’s those experiences that help us grow, doubt, learn and choose again, perhaps in a different way or reinforcing the choices that we’ve already made. Outside of our CV, up until now, we had life. Linkedin’s recent update is powerful because it makes a new format available for an existing choice, evolving the perceptions of millions of people all over the world. Today more than ever, the way we talk about and define our experiences must change in order to allow alternative avenues to exist.
This article was originally written by Riccarda Zezza and published on the Il Sole 24 Ore blog, Alley Oop. To read the original article (in Italian), please click here.
