Women Leading the Underground Movement to Support Caregivers at Work

6 amazing women who have quietly revolutionized the workplace to support caregivers

Since we began our quest to better understand why being a working mom is so difficult, we’ve met dozens of women who are quietly leading a gentle revolution to redesign the workplace to accommodate caregivers. They do it as side gigs along with their day jobs, as passion projects on top of already full plates, often wondering how it will impact their actual career. They work discreetly and often in isolation, yet the outcome of their work is powerful.

Since Covid-19 first hit, Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders have been doing more than ever: surveying employees, creating programs and resources, and holding space for the unmanageable responsibilities many caregivers are managing. In this article, we feature six ERG leaders representing thousands of others in their dedication, empathy and advocacy. By spotlighting these women we hope to learn from their achievements, connect information silos, and create mini tactical playbooks for others to replicate, all while affording them well earned recognition.

Without further ado, presenting…

Sherrie Nguyen, on starting a Parents & Caregiver IRG

Henri Loh, on listening and elevating caregiver stories

Sarah Kettles, on revamping parental leave

Kamillah Knight, on creating custom programs and resources for caregivers

Genevieve Pearson, on the power of informal mentoring

Alison Crawford, on why and how to compensate ERG leaders

Sherrie Nguyen

Sherrie Nguyen, Started the Parents and Caregiver Inclusion Resource Group at Indeed

“I love speaking with people and understanding their perspectives. But what inspires me most is action.”

Biggest challenge: Remembering this is a marathon and not a sprint.

What inspired us most: During Covid, she launched the IRG and rallied company-wide support for parents and caregivers

How companies can help: Provide a safe space, mental health resources, and policies to support parents & caregivers.

All about Sherrie

Sherrie Nguyen is many things, including sweet, passionate and funny; above all else she is unmistakably driven. She is currently driven to advance the Parents and Caregiver Inclusion Resource Group she conceptualized and launched amidst a global pandemic. With 10,000 employees constrained to working from home, with schools closed, parents find themselves juggling work, caregiving, educating, and more. Sherrie acted quickly to create a safe space for parents to connect through Slack. She worked with Indeed’s leadership team to guide managers on ways to support employees during this crisis. “It wasn’t how I imagined the launch would happen, but this is honestly the perfect storm to highlight issues we already knew existed for parents. And I was so proud to know Indeed’s leadership had our back,” said Sherrie.

When she’s not working as Senior Product Marketing Manager at Indeed, she’s with her 3-year old daughter Amaya and high school sweetheart-turned-husband. She enjoys ballroom dancing and practicing yoga. She’s a woman who makes you think, “I found someone who actually does it all.” Until she tells you she doesn’t! In her efforts to bring transparency to the struggles of parents and caregivers at work, she notes, “The more we feel it’s our individual issue, the less service we’re doing one another.”

How she started a Parent and Caregiver IRG

Sherrie amazed us by sharing not just what she did but how she did it. She created a strategy, drew people to her vision and built a team. Here are the steps she took:

• Evaluated the need. First, she conducted a survey to collect quantitative data on the needs of moms at Indeed.
• Included caregivers. Applying advice she was given from the head of Diversity & Inclusion, Sherrie included caregivers alongside parents. Caregivers may include an employee tending to an ill spouse or aging parent. By broadening the group to address their needs Sherrie made her IRG more inclusive and relevant.
• Created a leadership team. After sharing her survey findings and announcing plans to start the group, she called for applicants for her leadership team. She conducted interviews, discussing applicants’ strategy and priorities.
• Collected rich stories. She also spoke one-one-one with parents and caregivers, asking, “When have you felt marginalized?” In the safe space she created, rich stories emerged, which she would later share anonymously.
• Learned from other IRG Leads. Other IRGs spend a big portion of their budget on food and drinks for events, but she proposed a budget aimed at raising awareness, sharing stories, and making policy changes.
• Interviewed potential executive sponsors. Instead of asking a leader to volunteer as sponsor, Sherrie turned the tables. She reached out to leaders she’d seen show interest in this space, and interviewed them.
• Brainstormed solutions. The leadership team has surveyed caregivers to understand their needs for support, crowd-sourced possible solutions, and provided a safe space via Slack to connect and be vulnerable.
• Partnered with HR. As subject matter experts on parents and caregivers, Sherrie and the team consult with HR to review policies and benefits.

How companies can help

• Companies should create an ERG specifically for parents and caregivers. Working parents and caregivers are marginalized in the workplace daily. A dedicated parent/caregiver ERG can help create a culture of belonging where parents and caregivers can show up fully and succeed, especially when the boundaries between work and home life have dissolved.
• Parent Data. Like most companies, Indeed doesn’t collect data on parents, which makes it difficult to assess the impact of being a parent on things like employee engagement and attrition.
• HR Feedback Loop. As IRG lead, Sherrie listens to sensitive stories and discerns latent needs. IRG leads should have a direct feedback loop to HR so they can brief the company on employee concerns.

Resources

• National Partnership for Women and Families — How Lawmakers and Advocates Can Help Meet the Promise of Paid Leave
• Parents & Caregivers ERG Application Template
• Here to Help: Sherrie Nguyen, Co-Lead Parents & Caregivers Inclusion Resource Group
• Work from Home with Kids Guide
• How to Support Working Parents During Covid-19

Henri Loh

Henri Loh, on how to listen and elevate caregiver stories

“I think creating any sense of community makes mothers’ lives a bit better.”

Biggest challenge: Volunteer-based work isn’t sustainable for comprehensive and systematic change.

What inspired us most: Henri’s empathy, compassion and ability to hold space for others.

How companies can help: “Take a comprehensive approach, including culture, policies, growth, benefits. Parents have all of that complexity all the time.”

All about Henri

Henri Loh is a master of holding space for moms at work, helping them find the right language, making sure they feel heard, and always thinking about their humanity. She spends countless hours checking in with moms throughout the office, from the moment they share their pregnancy. She sincerely asks how someone is doing before diving into work and keeps a pulse on how parents are feeling. Henri is a mom to two boys, ages 5 and 7, and she enjoys cooking and gardening as forms of meditation. She is also involved in the Parents in Tech Alliance, where learnings from Airbnb have helped inspire, guide and scale support for moms across the industry.

What she did

Henri conducted research and organized a listening session with leadership to elevate the caregiver stories. In doing so, she created a safe and constructive forum for caregivers to share their challenges and ideas. She lives and breathes her passion for supporting parents, telling us: “If I leave Airbnb and if my only legacy was that I was a voice for parents to be heard, I’ll be happy with that.”

How she listens to caregivers and elevates their stories

• Reignited the moms’ group. Henri started monthly meetings to hold space for moms to show up as themselves. The conversation accommodates whatever moms need to talk about. Challenges are discussed and moms support one another.
• Spoke up for parents. At a company event, Henri shared her experience as a working parent having to choose between two lives, which encouraged others to share their stories.
• Created a survey. To identify themes and elevate challenges to leadership Henri created a simple survey, with just 3 questions:

As a parent at [company], what works well?

What isn’t working?

What’s something you would change?

• Designed a listening session. As fifty people sat in a circle, they presented key themes from the survey. Parents shared personal stories of a “day-in-the-life”,reflecting survey themes, and leadership was better able to empathize. To Henri, “It’s that moment of connection where change happens.”

How companies can help

• Invest in ERG work at a company-level. “Volunteer-based work isn’t sustainable. It has to be treated like any other priority and companies should put their money where their mouth is.”
• Collect data on parents. “Gender disparities are not the biggest pay gap. It’s parenthood that sets people furthest apart. Are parents’ experiences the same as their peers? Are they growing at the same rate? Are they leaving the company?”
• Conduct listening sessions. Facilitate opportunities for leadership to truly hear the experiences and challenges involved in the daily life of caregivers.

Sarah Kettles

Sarah Kettles, Revamped parental leave policy at The Zebra to 5 months fully paid leave with $5,000 baby cash and a month-long flexible return to work

“[I want to] build the world I want to live in.”

Biggest challenge: Collaborating across leadership; it was difficult to make decisions and execute, including designing a complicated roll-out plan.

What inspired us most: Her business-forward and go-getter approach, aligning on the shared goal of retention, with keen expertise for involving stakeholders.

How companies can help: Leadership speaking up, and encouraging allyship.

All about Sarah

Sarah Kettles is known for her to-do lists, which always include above and beyond tasks and always (always!) completed. She is the Senior Director of Research at The Zebra. When we chatted, she was wrapping up a week-long Hackathon for seven high school juniors, and was excited to surprise them each with compensation she secured for their work.

Early in her career at Facebook, Sarah recognized the value of being around other women. She carried that value with her to Airbnb where she founded the women’s ERG. And, no surprise to anyone who knew her, after only 3 months she created the “Shebras,” the women’s ERG at The Zebra. Experience had taught her she can’t do it alone so she had a mock election where women voted for a core team, and in the first year, all 30 members touched a Zebra initiative.

Sarah enjoys “building shit and breaking shit” in a home she bought two years ago and lives with her fiance Brett and their pets, Woolly, Tako and Belle. Sarah loves backpacking in the wilderness since it’s the only place where she can truly “turn off life.”

What she did

Working with a cross-functional team of 10 people, Sarah revamped The Zebra’s parental leave: for primary caregivers, 5 months paid leave with $5,000 baby cash; for secondary caregivers, 4 months paid leave that can be used any way they choose. Both primary and secondary caregivers have a month-long flexible return to work.

How she revamped parental leave at The Zebra

• Initiated the change. Sarah polled the women’s Slack channel, asking the group to “React to this is if you want to revamp our parental leave.” For five months, they met unofficially, discussing the desired scope of the policy, how to balance business needs. Then aligned on the ask.
• Created employee survey. The survey asked about participants’ current life stage, the likelihood of starting or growing a family, how they felt about parental leave as a perk, and the likelihood of their continued employees over time.
• Drafted presentation. Collaborating with two fathers in leadership positions, they illustrated how the policy would benefit the company’s goal of retaining employees. They cited evidence that a longer parental leave means healthier babies, and if the company honors the mother-baby bond, then the employee will value the company more. A strong parental leave also shows potential candidates that The Zebra values the whole person, and their life outside of work.
• Pitched to leadership. Their first presentation went so well that the CEO said they didn’t go far enough; he suggested they work with the CFO on cost estimates for a longer leave, include mental health support for postpartum mothers, and consider how hourly employees could use benefits.
• Maintain a strong relationship with the CEO. The Shebras provide quarterly updates on how they used their $16,000 budget, and their plans for the next quarter. They’re very responsive to employee feedback, both supportive and unsupportive, and continue to align on what’s best for the business.

How companies can help

• Leadership shouldn’t underestimate the power of their voice. Encouraging men to be allies, and giving their endorsement of things like unconscious bias training really goes a long way.
• Encourage employees to start ERGs, and accord them credit. When Sarah talks to people about starting an ERG they’re often hesitant since they don’t think they’ll get credit for their work. “You can have such an impact,” she shares, and “by leveraging a group of people to work with you, it doesn’t become overwhelming.”

Resources

• Documents and templates for starting an ERG

Kamillah Knight

Kamillah Knight, on creating custom programs and resources for the parents BRG at Unilever

“One of the challenges is really trying to understand what everyone is going through. My experience is my experience. There are shared experiences but everyone is going through something that is a little different… That’s why it’s important to put these resources out. Someone has experienced it and that incites the conversation, being able to do your job a little bit better.”

Biggest challenge: Trying to understand what everyone is going through.

What inspired us most: Kamillah’s nimbleness and cross-organization approach to supporting not just parents, but all employees.

How companies can help: “By listening to caregivers, telling them that there’s a community waiting for them and that they’re not alone.”

All about Kamillah

Kamillah Knight is a lifelong learner, about to return to Cornell University for the third bout, this time to get her MBA. She is a Diversity and Inclusion Lead and president of the United Parents Business Resource Group (BRG) at Unilever. She is almost impossibly active in her community, bringing along her 8-year old daughter to PTA board meetings, arranging programs for the Cornell Black Alumni Association, and serving as an ambassador to One World Youth.

What she did

As an ERG leader, one of Kamillah’s approaches is in offering information and providing resources to parents at Unilever. This has included CPR training, wellness and stress management sessions, practical resources for caregivers during Covid-19, and anti-racism education. She identifies what’s needed and expediently pulls together a comprehensive guide, delivering it in a timely manner and distributing it as widely as possible.

The Covid-19 guide she created included suggestions for talking to your family about Covid: cleaning and home care; managing schedules and expectations with your work and kids’ schedules; indoor and outdoor activities. Kamillah co-sponsored a conversation with executive leadership from different businesses on their personal experiences being home with their children, and then followed up with another talk which provided additional more insights and tools on managing related stress.

How she creates custom programs and resources

• Identify the need or opportunity. This can be inspired by external events such as Covid-19 or the call for social justice after George Floyd’s death, or general ongoing needs such as managing stress and CPR training.
• Listen to parents through conversations and surveys. Caregivers have shared experiences, but everyone is going through something a little bit different. Before her official role in D&I, Kamillah was part of three BRG’s so she has a good sense of how employees are feeling. She uses surveys and stays connected with parents to remain well-versed on their challenges and needs.
• Partner with others and gather feedback. Depending on the initiative, Kamillah considers who best to partner with such as other BRG’s and/or external experts and collect their input.
• Decide the best format. This can be custom documents, talks, facilitated conversations with leadership, or partnership with other organizations.
• Share it far and wide. Kamillah shared the Covid-Resources externally so that as many people as possible could benefit.

How companies can help

• Enable BRGs to share and leverage successes. Create a forum for BRGs to share wins and best practices with one another and with senior leadership.
• Promote benefits to new parents. Help new parents navigate things like medical insurance changes, breast milk shipping, and managing the finances associated with having children.
• Create a sense of belonging for caregivers. Kamillah recommends sending packages to employees going on parental leave, letting them know they’re not alone and that there will be a community waiting for them upon their return.

Resources

• Tips and Links for Caregivers / Parents During COVID-19

Genevieve Pearson

Genevieve Pearson, Lifelong mentor, on the bare essentials of offering genuine support to parents.

“The thing I care about most is reminding myself and others that we’re whole people. It matters, and the more we can remember, cultivate and protect that, the better able we are to show up for ourselves, our families and our kids.”

Biggest challenge: Being a mentor is not her official role so it’s hard to carve out time, especially since it’s so personal to her.

What inspired us most: How personal and time intensive mentoring is for her. She thinks about individuals long after their sessions, she carries their story with her, and she imagines possibilities for them.

How companies can help: Identify and recognize underground mentors. Create mentorship opportunities, help managers learn mentorship skills.

All about Genevieve

Genevieve Pearson sees incredible potential in everyone. She has mentored countless individuals over the years, affirming and reflecting back who they are and what they already know deep down. Genevieve is a single parent of two teenagers, and a Copy Manager at Strava. She feels most herself when she’s active outdoors– hiking, swimming laps in a pool or cycling in the Berkeley and Oakland hills.

When Genevieve learned she was pregnant eighteen years ago, she thought, “So, that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life.” She came to realize parenting is not her whole identity. “Kids grow out of you! It’s essential to remember you’re an individual even when parenting can make you forget that.” Now, she applies her deep empathy, wealth of experience and knowledge mentoring others, specifically parents.

What she does

Mentorship is a deeply personal pursuit for Genevieve. She loves helping others navigate transitions and find their personal best, even when the systems in place seem stacked against them. She notices a familiar thread of anxiety among the women she works with in tech. “Many women are afraid they’ll jeopardize their careers if they have a family, and many women who have kids are struggling to balance career and parenthood.” Mentoring, Genevieve believes, helps people find creative ways forward. “It feels like a real gift when a person shares what they’re going through and wants to talk about something so personal. Most of the time we already know what we want or need — it can just take someone reflecting back or connecting the dots to help us realize it. I love helping people make those connections.”

The work of parenthood is invisible — you’re always on, using your heart, mind and spirit. “What becomes invisible as well are the challenges, the isolation, and our individuality. Who we are as a person can get reduced down to a function.” For Genevieve, mentoring helps remind herself and others that we’re whole people.

How she creates informal mentoring opportunities

• Leans into organic relationships: For Genevieve, a mentee, “may be anyone I come across. When I see you, I see who you present, who you are right now and I see this awesome potential.” In her current role, Genevieve’s mentoring relationships are informal and apart from any structured program. While connections happen naturally through work or career networks, Genevieve emphasizes that it’s important to be intentional about reaching underrepresented women inside and outside of tech.
• Establishes the mentoring goal: Genevieve mentors parents across a broad range of changing topics. Examples include thinking through career trajectory, taking a promotion, joining a new company, navigating parental leave, incorporating being a mom into a work identity, and hacking work-life balance. Issues of identity, confidence, negotiation, and relationship management are typical themes that come up with mentees.
• Considers relationships to be seasonal: When Genevieve spots an opportunity to help a mom, an expectant mom, or someone anticipating a major transition, she schedules time together, usually over coffee. The number of these meetings and the span of time over which they occur varies. Some idea sprints need only one or two chats, some conversations extend over several months. Mentoring an individual isn’t “lifelong– it’s for a season of discovery or transition.”
• Reflects, more than advises: For Genevieve, mentoring never means, “approaching as if I have the answers.” Her practice is to listen and to reflect back what she’s hearing, affirming what is already known deep within. Genevieve is happy to share wisdom she’s gathered from her experience and that of others who have created ways to thrive, but in the end, she says “We all, and moms especially, are in need of validation that what we’re hoping for is okay.”
• Helps others imagine unseen possibilities: Genevieve is accustomed to hearing “I can’t ask for that” or “I won’t be able to get that.” She describes it as “shutting down possibilities, a kind of fixed mindset among women who often practice a growth mindset when it comes to their work.” She tries to push back on these fears, holding space to ask “What if it worked?” She offers an example of helping a mentee see an opportunity right in front of her. An expectant mom was ready to exit her design career all the while wishing other options existed. She wanted more time with her baby than her full time work allowed. Seeing no examples of flexible work for senior level designers at her company, she could only envision one option for herself: to quit. By encouraging brainstorming opportunities without fear, Genevieve helped her mentee define the amount of work she wanted and successfully negotiate a flexible contract role. A couple years later after baby number two was toddling, she returned to full time work with this same company at a higher level than when she went on contract.
• Formalizing the informal: After years of mentoring at Airbnb and helping design the internal mentoring track for navigating parenthood, Genevieve is now dreaming with Strava’s People Team about what mentorship might look like there. Though she believes it is the organic nature of true mentor-mentee relationships that boosts success, Genevieve hopes to help develop a program that will equip others with the skills, connections and recognition mentorship deserves. “Our People Team at Strava is massively supportive of parents, going above and beyond to make sure the pitfalls and setbacks that lead to career attrition — especially among women and people of color — are solved for as often as possible. We’re hopeful mentoring can be another piece of this support network.”

How companies can help

• Identify and recognize underground mentors. Within every organization there are people who quietly build up others with their own time and initiative– often without any formal recognition.
• Create mentoring opportunities, including a parenthood track. They can be informal or established networks, or meet-up groups. Providing opportunities for connection is key. Encourage ERGs that bring parents, women, moms and allies together and make space for mutual support.
• Help managers learn mentoring skills. Managers without children, or whose family situation differs from a direct report’s, may not feel equipped to mentor parents, but they can and should familiarize themselves with the challenges parents often both face day-to-day and over the course of a career. Learning how to listen well and cheerlead your direct reports on their journey can create a strong foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship. Finally, advocacy is paramount– managers can make or break careers, and manager biases or blindspots can set people back unwittingly.
• Define objective standards. Make sure those standards create the conditions for an inclusive workplace, eliminate favoritism, and enhance work culture for all employees.

Alison Crawford

Alison Crawford, Implemented an annual cash bonus program for all ERG leaders globally

“Diverse teams run laps around teams that don’t have it. [I try to] get people to recognize that.”

Biggest challenge: Localizing Diversity & Inclusion efforts outside of North America

What inspired us most: Her ability to empathize and advocate for the “onlys” in the room

How companies can help: Provide mental health service, and recognize the work that ERG leaders are executing

All about Alison

Growing up in Northern California, Alison was raised by “Two crazy Berkeley hippies who worked for the state”, a high-school principal and a fire captain, who shared domestic responsibilities equally. Entering the tech industry was “jarring”; as a female leader, married with a child and well into her career, it was clear that very few had the same values and perspectives she had.

Alison Crawford is the Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Ripple, where she runs all programming and communications related to Diversity and Inclusion. She has followed in her dad’s footsteps and works as an EMT on an ambulance four days per month, which has shaped and shifted the way she responds to others. Her upbringing, expertise in business development and deep empathy are a powerful trifecta. She recognizes the often thankless work of ERG leaders and enables others to be an ally to the “only” in the room.

What she did

Hoping to bring recognition to leaders tirelessly giving their time, Alison helped bring financial compensation to ERG leaders during her time at Uber. At Uber, all ERG leaders now receive an annual $5,000 cash bonus. This accomplishment is particularly compelling since the most common challenge ERG leads shared with us is not being financially compensated for the robust time they invest. Although Alison is quick to point out that this program was not 100% her idea, she did play an instrumental role in making it happen.

How she implemented a program to compensate ERG leaders

• Earned buy-in with HR leadership: From the start, Alison worked with the Chief of Human Resources. While HR didn’t have a budget allocated for ERG compensation, they were focused on recruiting, culture, diversity, and belonging, employee happiness and retention. Sharing a common perspective and goal proved critical to the end result.
• Developed strict guidelines: When compensation is involved, “Everyone gets really jumpy.” To earn buy-in, as well as ensure equal access, Alison helped create clear guidelines around who would qualify to receive the cash bonus. This meant developing an explicit definition of an ERG lead, the process to become a lead, specific areas of accountability, tenure as lead- and even a process for removing a lead not meeting requirements.
• Carefully considered nuanced details: Regardless of role or seniority, anyone can become an ERG lead. Always looking for the most equitable approach, Alison helped to ensure that the bonus was the same for all ERG leaders, regardless of whether they were hourly, salary, or the amount of their compensation.
• Created a crystal clear proposal: Once the guidelines and details were approved, Alison helped to create a proposal that was “airtight.” This proposal was ultimately used to align leaders within the company to agree with moving forward with the bonus.
• Continually advocate and promote ERG leaders and their work: Alison has a clear gift for encouraging empathy. By acknowledging privilege, and teaching language and skills, she creates training for how to be an ally to the “onlys” in the room, who have less access to mentorship, sponsorship and promotion velocity.

How companies can help

• Provide mental health services. Lyra Health and Modern Health provide mental health care available remotely.
• Create an environment where ERGs are welcomed. “So many people think they need a D&I officer, a budget, but it can be started by any number of employees.”

Resources

• Cleo — Future of Work
• White Papers & Articles on ERGs / The 4C Model
• Diversity Best Practices: Employee Resource Groups

With gratitude

Now more than ever, ERG leaders need our support. The emotional labor that ERG leaders carry beyond their already full day jobs can lead to burn-out and turnover– which is disheartening for them and a significant loss of institutional knowledge and efficiency for the organization. Companies can help by checking in with ERG leaders on how they’re doing, how to better support them. They can create official paths for recognition, career growth and compensation. To all the ERG leaders out there, we see you, we value you, and we thank you. If you’d like us to help celebrate you and your work or introduce us to other amazing ERG leaders, please reach out.