Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefti. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children. For much too long, amazing people like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male middle class people leading our organizations. We must change this together and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast, I am the CEO and founder of the Social enterprise Leaders Plus. We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families. We have free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, shared parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple. We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back. Together, you'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family, and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement. They always impress me so much with the courage that they instil in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having family or apologizing for wanting that Top job. Details are on leadersplus.org/Fellowship. This week I have been chatting to Elizabeth Willett who shared with me about how to bypass AI when you're going for job applications, how to negotiate in detail when you made a job offer and especially when you applied for a full time role but actually want that role part time. We had a really good chat and I hope you enjoyed the conversation. There's a lot of practical stuff supporting the job application process for flexible roles. Enjoy the conversation.

So I run a company called Investing in Women, which is a recruitment company that helps people find flexible part time and home based jobs and those brilliant forward thinking employers across the UK that want to hire them. We also offer career coaching services to candidates that want additional help with CVS, LinkedIn, interview coaching and I've got a book that I know we're going to be talking about coming out in January called Flex. And who is in my family, I've got a husband called Henry and two little girls, Emily and Annabelle, and a Labrador doodle called Dougal, because I can't forget him.

And we've chatted about this before, but I was wondering if there are any new things, especially now having written a book that you've changed your mind on that you used to believe about combining a big career with young children that you don't subscribe to anymore.

I think I used to actually think it was quite hard to do it. And now writing this book, I've actually realized anything is possible. And actually you can find pockets of time to do things. So with the book, everyone was like, how did you do it? How did you find the time? And the trick for me with the book was to just break it down into really small, manageable chunks of time. So I wrote every day for 30 minutes. I'd often do it after the kids went to bed. Yes, I was tired, I didn't want to do it, but I just wrote and set a timer on the Alexa, listen to the radio and you know, in the end I wrote a book in 30 minute chunks. It took me less than six months to do it. So actually I think it's just about being really intentional with your time. You know, don't waste time scrolling through Instagram or, you know, the Daily Mail or whatever you do. It's actually thinking, I've got this pocket of time, I'm gonna fill it. You know, you can all set a deadline like I did that 30 minutes, which really then focuses you. You do so much within short periods of time. So I think, you know, anything is possible if you're just quite intentional about your time.

Interesting. And did you sit down one day and just decided, I am going to write a book and this is the title. Or did you just start writing and see what came of it?

No, I never had any aspirations to write a book. It was definitely not on my bucket list at all. But I was by chance on someone else's podcast and it came out about this time last year, we're recording now, aren't we? In November. And by chance an editor at Wiley which is a publisher. They publish the books. The Dummy's Guide to listened to that episode and reached out to me and asked if I'd consider writing a book. At first of all, it went even into my junk folder and then I fished it out and I sat on it for a few days thinking this isn't like, this must be like a joke. And eventually got back to them and no, it was true. And they were like, be really interested in you writing a book. And it's like a career sort of playbook strategy. Playbook about really, you know, what to do, how to get a job no matter what life throws at you. So I had to write a pitch. Never done that before. Write the pitch. And they sent me some examples and then it got approved. So that was it. And then I was even at that point I was like, do I have the time that you know, running a business, do I actually have the time? And then I listened to another podcast which was how to write a book fast when you have no time. That said, about breaking it down into 30 minutes a day. And I spoke to my business coach at the time and she said, you can't turn down this opportunity. And I'm so pleased I did it. I mean, obviously it's not been released yet. We don't know how it's going to receive. But I'm just, just to see my name on something tangible is lovely because working in a digital business where I'm speaking to people on Zoom, it's so nice to actually have something now to hold. So.

Oh, do you have an actual physical copy yet?

I haven't got it yet, but I've seen all the covers and I can't wait to get it. Yeah, once I get it, I'll be holding it up. I'll probably not stop touching it.

Exciting. Exciting. And what do you think flexibility is?

Flexible working? I think it means, I mean there's obviously lots of different flexible working patterns. I think it means anything that's not the standard 9 to 5, Monday to Friday in an office or in a workplace. So it could be hybrid working that works for lots of people. It could be full time, but fully remote. Obviously part time, job sharing. Those are just sort of some of the things. Compressed hours, nine day fortnights. I think anything that's just slightly deviates from that. Strict, rigid. You have to be in by such and such a time on a Monday morning. You can't leave until after such and such a time in the evening, even if you're just sat there wasting time because you're just clock watching, waiting for the clock to reach 5:30.

Absolutely. So I guess flexibility is relatively acceptable for some role, especially back office roles. But the roles with real power and what I mean is senior roles that don't just have director in the job title but also have real power to make decisions about people, about how resource money is spent, there it's actually, it's harder, it's a lot harder to get flexibility. What have you learned about getting to roles with power with a flexible working arrangement? Because clearly it can be done. I mean you and I, we both obviously we have an agenda here, let's be honest. But yeah, how do you get those roles?

I think it obviously depends on the organization and the culture. I mean my husband, I mean speaking about him, he's like really senior and runs an oil trading company and it's just embedding that from the top. I think obviously having me as a wife probably like banged on at him. But they have, you know, considering it's like financial services trading, they're all hybrid working, they're really flexible in terms of people can come in, you know, whatever times it works for them. It's about trust, isn't it really? It's actually about trust. It's about judging people on outputs rather than presenteeism. So if you're in a sales role and actually if you're making sales, I would personally be really relaxed about you making those sales in a way that worked for you and whether that was in an office or not, you know, if you were then speaking to somebody in an evening, a client close sale, then I would not necessarily expect you to be in then really early the next morning just for presenteeism sake. I think it's about that trust, isn't it? Probably also about maybe being a bit more careful with hires, that process as well. Because you want to make sure that if you're an employer, you're hiring those people then that you can trust. But I think it's just all about creating that adult environment. I understand that FaceTime is important for a lot of roles, but it doesn't have to be, I think 40 hours worth of FaceTime necessarily Monday to Friday and it's just about actually hiring the right people then that you know are going to work well.

I agree. I think there is something about that productivity bit because that is the crux and that's quite easy. It's quite easy to show that you're as productive in a sales role as someone who is, you know, you're bringing 80% of the clients, but obviously there are roles that are. Their job is to create thought leadership for the organization or their job is to create a new impact reporting strategy for the charity. And that's where it's really hard to measure that productivity. Have you learned anything while writing your book about how to show that your delivering a great deal when it's in that fluffy environment?

I do know what you mean because I've got people as well that work for me. They're not necessarily making sales and it's actually, it's things that make will feed into sales at some point. But I do get that, you know, back office roles are a little bit harder to measure. I think when you're writing, you know, a CV or trying to demonstrate that the recruiters are interested whatever role you've had on that impact that you've made. And that impact could be on obviously sales, whether you have directly got those sales or you have created collateral that fed into that sales. So it'd be something like I've created a thought leadership report that eventually was used to bring on these X number of clients or retain these number of clients or it was used to upsell for these number of clients or if you have saved money, so maybe you've worked in procurement or you create a new process that reduced the time it took to complete a task and therefore that would have saved money. So it's something like that. Anything you can demonstrate. And numbers are always so universal.

I think that is true. Numbers are helpful and I appreciate, you know, you're coming from recruitment so you will have a really good numbers brain. But I know there are people who are listening who are working for the civil service or in a charity where actually you do have accountability on top of those numbers. And I think the really important thing there is just to make sure that you are very clear with your manager and you both agree on what is the value add of this role, what is the main purpose and how do you then quantify that? So is it writing one report a year that is being picked up by one major newspaper, you can still I think translate that into measures of success?

Absolutely. I think that is it, isn't it? It's like writing the report and then what I always say to my CV clients is so what? Okay, but then you got that report, it got picked up by a major publication which increased brand awareness or XYZ definitely is really helpful to do that. I think that so what as you're writing your CV but also then as you're speaking to your hiring manager. Because actually, as you're achieving things, even if you're not looking for a role, definitely keep documenting that because it really helps then because you'll forget people, you know, their life's busy. Then, you know, if you come to look for a role in a year, so it's time you can see all the amazing things you did. And it also helps with performance reviews as well. You can come back to your manager and say, look, I did this, that the other.

Absolutely. So I want to throw a challenge at you. You are a CV expert and you talk in your book about how to get a good cv. There is AI in the picture now that filters out CVs automatically. You might have a career break in your CV. And I know there are different AI systems, some better than others, and hopefully some of them are more inclusive than others, but you could be faced with a bad AI system. What is your advice to make sure your CV is standing out and gets through that AI screening?

I think it's mostly important. The most thing is important is to demonstrate your relevance and that's whether it's being viewed by AI or a person. Because I get lot of CVs and a lot of them, it feels like somebody has just sat and applied to every single role that they've seen over the weekend or whatever that maybe they're not suited for at all. So it's actually if you were as well wanting to make a slight career change, it's then pulling out all that most relevant experience and making sure that's the top of your cv. So for example, if you are wanting to apply, we'll just use an example. For a pure HR role and you've previously done had more recruiter roles, you would be needing to actually pull out the HR experience that you've had and highlighting that, putting that as the top bullet points rather than the recruiter experience, for example. So it's actually thinking about what is important to the end hiring manager, why are they recruiting for this role, what do they actually need and what skills and experience I have that will match that and can help them fulfill, you know, the responsibilities in this role. And then it's just me demonstrating that in your cv. I know we've spoken a little bit just now about impact. Anything you can show in your CV that's quite unique to you and is very impact driven. I always think try and use the STAR technique, maybe include a key achievement. So be specific about any task you have done in the past, what you achieved and the results will always help you stand out and against the other candidates. But that is something I think that helps. I mean, obviously you can tailor your CV to each job description. Make sure you're using any keywords that are in that job advert because if it is an AI system, it's probably been pre-programmed to pulling out those keywords. So make sure you're using the actual words and phrases that are used in the job ad because that will help your CV pull through.

I think there's something really practical about having a separate skill section which Tracy George told me about, just as a really helpful way to make sure that you can put the words down to filter out. What are your thoughts around listing career breaks?

I personally don't think they're needed because I just don't think they add anything to a cv. I think A it depends how you feel about it because some people don't want to draw attention to it. So if you don't want to draw attention to it, why put it in there? Because if a recruiter has like 50 CVs that they've come into for a role that morning, they're just going to be scrolling quickly through that cv, each CV and they might not even see a career break, but they're going to see it if you spell it out. You know, even if you're fine with your career break, I just don't think it adds anything to a CV at all. I think as a recruiter we want to see, you know, what your skills and experience are and if you can do the role that we're recruiting for, that is the most important to me. Career breaks don't matter. I'd much rather see your experience and what you've done. And so it's just taking up space. That's my opinion. If I can see you've had a career break, I would maybe ask you that about that on the phone. But yeah, I don't think you need to waste the space, Addie, like between jobs that you are on a career break.

And I guess a lot of the people listening to this are working parents and they will see a full time job and want to apply for it to get a flex solution. Would you advise to put that in the Cover letter or would you say actually raise it much later?

I'd personally raise it a bit later because sometimes they may have had, you know, spoke to the hiring manager, the hiring manager said it's full time only especially it's like a recruiter that's recruiting it and therefore if you put that in the Cover letter, they may instantly Reject you, and I don't want that to happen to you. And actually, a lot of roles are much more flexible than specified on an advert. So I would apply. And actually, personally, I spoke to a recruiter about this Yesterday, a big FTSE 100, and her advice was to actually get a job offer and then negotiate for flexible working, because then you know that they want you and you can negotiate at that point. Personally, I would say I probably do it after the first interview when you've gone in, you've demonstrated that you're a really good candidate, that you are relevant for the role, you can add a lot of value in the position and at that point, once you've done that, then they'll be, you know, if they really like you, they're going to want to try and accommodate you. Her advice was to job offer, I think either or, but I probably wouldn't do it, you know, before you've actually had a chance to demonstrate that you're a brilliant candidate for the role. But I would say definitely apply because most roles are much more flexible than is specified in an ad.

Definitely. And, you know, you always think when you see a role, oh, I can't fulfill these roles. But you never see the headache of the person recruiting who is desperate to get the right person on, who really would give a leg and an arm to have that position filled by someone where they don't have to worry about it later.

Exactly, Yeah. And I think it works other ways as well because I like you, I've been recruiting for my team, so I recently recruited a marketing manager and I thought I needed less hours than I did. And then I met an Amazing candidate and she wanted more hours and actually I thought, you know what, I can make it work, I'll offer her what she wants. Because I wanted to hire her, I wanted her to stay. So it sort of works both ways. So I thought, you know, maybe if she'd come up, that would been the first thing on her cover letter example, I might have thought, oh, no, I can't do that. So I think it works both ways. But yeah, definitely, you know, if, like you said, a recruiter or a hiring manager could have been recruiting for this role for months, and if you are perfect, they're going to want to try and accommodate you.

Definitely. And I think it also depends where you're applying to to decide when you're going to raise it. So I quite often get people asking, can we do this job as a job share or not and see this plus. So I'm always open to that and hopefully people would know that we're always open to that and it won't be difficult. But if you perhaps apply to a more traditional organization, maybe it is better to wait for longer. I mean, I don't think there's a recipe of how to do it right. But you definitely. I think the most important recipe is to apply, isn't it?

Absolutely, apply.

Don't think in your head you can't do that role part time.

Yeah, apply. And I think so much more organizations are open to it than they ever would have been.

Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. And just. Sorry, I'm getting onto this topic of cvs, but I've just recruited, so I'm really. It's on my head. Any really common mistakes that you see people make.

Yeah, I actually think there's. Yeah, I don't feel you need a photo on your cv. That's something I see a lot and I think really just. Yeah. Why? I don't think why. He's taking up space and you know, I'm not biased, but somebody might view it and be biased. You never quite know you can open yourself up to that. And I think actually sometimes I think people are so fixated on getting their CV down to two pages and I don't recommend having like reels of pages, but I think you can always go down, go, I don't know who made this thing. Oh, it's only two pages. So I think you can go depending, you know, if you've had a long career. You know, I spoke to somebody yesterday who's been working for like 30 years and she'd got it all down to two pages still. And I think you can probably go to two and a half because then you're missing the detail of actually what you did and what you can bring to the role. It was really, really high level. So I think if you need to go over two pages, don't fret. I wouldn't do more than two and a half. I would rather see that you have included some of that detail and that impact and that value than it just being really, really high level that I can't really see what you did.

And you also offer some advice in the book about negotiating once you do have that offer. And I think that's really important because there's evidence and it's not women's fault. But I know that quite a lot of women listening, also men. But there for women, there's evidence that they negotiate less because we've been conditioned that we shouldn't be asking for that. So if you're listening to this just to say this is not a criticism of you but it's more of a, you know, systemic societal thing. So you've supported people to negotiate. What are some of the phrases that have worked really well? If someone comes back and offers you a job at let's say 50,000 to pick out a number from a hat, how do you say. Well actually no, I want more in a way.

I'd be specific about what you wanted. So I'd be like I want 55 for example because I believe, you know, this role on the open market is paying 55,000. I can do this, that the other, you know, my skills and experience I believe are worth whatever, you know, whatever it is. Maybe you know, what did you do for a previous employer that you can then demonstrate? I suppose if it's something like sales, it's quite easy because I, no, I can bring in X number of money into your organization or if you've done something more back office, I know I can revamp all your systems which is going to save you X number of hours or money, et cetera. So trying when you're doing your cv you actually is this impact thing is then once you come to the negotiation you've got all that as sort of evidence of what you can do. Yeah. And definitely come back with an actual figure rather than a range because they'll always go at the lower end of the range and it just makes you seem much more confident. So yeah, it's just demonstrating about what the open market's paying, what you believe the role is worth, what your experience is worth and what you can bring to them at that level. If they can't budge on that because maybe that is their budget, you could ask for things like a sign-on bonus or you could talk about, you know, a guaranteed bonus if you hit X targets etc because obviously there's not an annual cost to that. So they may be more willing to offer that, that but that might be something on in your back pocket that you might be willing to take instead.

Interesting. How common are things like sign-on bonuses? It sounds to me like something out of the tech entrepreneur type world, but I might be wrong.

Yeah, no, I mean we used to offer them a lot at Deloitte. They're quite common depending upon- I mean it will be really common in financial services depending upon the industry you're in. If you are walking away from a bonus at a current employer then you need to let the new employer know that you are walking away from a bonus and how much that bonus is worth and therefore really they need to be paying that bonus for you to move. Try and as much leverage as you can. Also, if you've got other offers on the table, I would be telling the recruiter that, you'd be, I'll be telling the recruiter how much those other offers are paying. Nothing like creating a bit of sense of competition over you.

It feels very cutthroat. I guess that's. I do know recruitment is quite an intensive.

Yeah. But it obviously helps you. If you know you're due a bonus in April and it's pro rata and you would be getting such and such in April, then you should be asking your next employer to compensate you for that loss of bonus.

Absolutely. No, I completely agree And I think if ever you're unsure, just look up the average gender pay gap and for organizations with more than 250 employees you should find that easily. And if you're a bit worried about asking, I think then you just take your salary. Look at what the other, you know.

Yeah, they may say no but I think people get so frightened because they're worried they're going to lose their job offer. I have never ever, ever seen that. I'll be very. That's, I think why people are so frightened because they worried they're going to just lose it. I've never seen that happen. They may say no, but you're then in no worse position than you are now just by asking. And often you've not even, It's often through sort of a third party, whether it's the recruitment consultant or an in house recruiter that is doing that negotiation anyway. So it won't necessarily sour the relationship with your ultimate boss.

And what's your advice regarding applying for new flexible job during maternity leave?

Yeah, absolutely, go for it. If you don't want like your current job, if you don't want to go back to your current job and there's nothing to stop you from applying elsewhere. So I would, yeah, it's a good opportunity. Often people reassess, don't they, what they're looking for. Their priorities may shift. They may, you know, they may realize that the role that they were in wasn't for them for whatever reason. They may be worried that they're going to go back and be side-lined because of the culture. So it's a really good opportunity. You know, while you maybe have, I say have time, you probably don't have time being on maternity. I know what it's like but you know if you've got a bit of time then you can apply for roles.

Definitely. I think it's also okay to negotiate for a, you know, to say towards the end of the offer that you're coming back from maternity leave and for example, if you need a phased start or something like that to negotiate for that.

Yeah.

And it can be a really good thing because you might have been a workaholic who worked all long hours and then all your colleague will still remember you as that. But if you apply for a new job it can be a way to reset the expectations with people who never worked with you before, so.

Absolutely, And actually also often people think it's easier to go back to their current employer. My experience, and this is obviously personal, it wasn't that easy because everyone had changed anyway. So I was working in a new team or in a new office so it felt like a new job anyway. So I wouldn't necessarily let that hold you back from applying because you think it's going to be more comfortable going back to where you currently are. If you didn't like it, definitely look elsewhere.

Excellent advice. I'm interested in your vision for flexible work and what you think is next because we're still talking about flexible work. I see it is a thing. I'm really hoping that in 10 years time it's not a thing anymore. What are your emerging ideas for the type of models that we need in our society to make it possible for parents to have senior roles and see their children?

It's so difficult, isn't it? Because you know what I think it's, I think generally the pandemic post pandemic has been fairly positive for a lot of working parents, particularly women because I've worked on roles, big senior roles that have been hybrid that people have been able to consider that they may not have been able to consider before. Particularly when they're hybrid I find when they're two days in an office rather than three and then you know, it's that balance and people can really make that work, and particularly if it's a really nice employment employer where they're quite flexible about doing school runs etc. So I would love to see more of that because that definitely enables people, you know, really if to maintain a career and maintain that salary. They don't have to take a cut for a pay for a part time role, they're not taking any cut on pensions etc and I would love that to be the new full time normal. Obviously we do. There has been a lot of rumbles, haven't that in the News about return to the office like Boots did the big thing last year, everyone was returning five days a week and other organizations are checking slight swipe passes to see actually how often people are in the office which is about presenteeism. But we've had quite a difficult year in recruitment. It's not been yeah generally as an industry it's as a lot of people listening to this will probably know that it's not been candidate friendly market this year there's been a lot of redundancies particularly in the tech industry. So there's been a lot of candidates applying for just one role. So it's been a lot harder for candidates to negotiate what they want. But things are so cyclical it's going to change. Interest rates are starting to reduce. We've obviously had quite a lot of elections this year. You know, whether or not you agree with results, the elections have happened which will create more certainty in the markets. And I think the job market will change and become a lot more positive for candidates in 2025. And therefore employers are going to have to, to attract and retain that talent. They're going to have to be a lot more flexible and regards to meeting what candidates want because candidates want flexibility. It's not just parents, they want flexibility. Actually when you speak to candidates it's a candidate wide thing and a lot of people will have been sat in jobs at the moment looking at the job market and been too nervous to move this year. They may have been sat in a job that they have outgrown for several years now. Next year they'll move. So there will be a lot more vacancies and a lot more than you know and therefore it will, it will shift and clients will have. Employees will have to be much more accommodating like I said to, to retain that talent or attract that talent.

I think we'll always, it will always change and that's the important thing to remember.

It's a very cyclical but if we keep making those moves in the right direction each cycle then eventually I think it will become new normal and especially we're speaking to like a lot of, you know, Gen Z, they, they grew up, you know, they did their university degrees online with a high degree of flexibility. That is what they want and expect in the job market.

I'm really interested in shaping the future of work. So just saying it out loud in case someone is listening and has interesting ideas or is working on an interesting project because I think there have been some very innovative solutions in the last few years. You know, the four day work week, the job shares. I am sure there are other solutions bubbling somewhere in society that if they're scaled up it will really change work. And I do think work is going to continue to change. Like we can't assume that in the last 50 years there's been absolutely very, very quick change, especially in the last 10 years and now it's just going to be stable. It is not. But we have to work together to create that change. And I think you are part of that. You're part of that very much so because you're one of the few organizations actively saying yeah, you can agree with great people, but guess what, you also need to make it flexible.

Which is, yeah, I think what's going to be really interesting actually and I thought there'd be maybe more changes this year and then it has because it was so hyped last year is AI and how that is going to change the workforce as well. And actually it will reduce, I mean the promise is obviously I'm not very Techy, I'm not ChatGPT founder owner, but the promise isn't it's going to reduce all of humans workload. Therefore you know, hopefully that will actually then, you know, also feed into flexible working that there's going to be such a big change. I think in regards to that and what it actually means for people.

I think a lot of jobs are going to be replaced and I think actually your job is probably not going to be replaced by an AI, but you might be replaced by someone who, who doesn't, who knows AI or uses it. And I think that it's very, very important. Even now there are certain groups who use AI less than others and one of them, well groups I'm saying like half the population on average, women use it less. And I got really annoyed with this and so I started off my own personal AI learning group essentially just told someone oh yeah, it was so much fun, we're still doing it. So obviously I'm very lucky in that I have lots of people who, who are interested in learning. So I got some of our fellows and mentors together and as an AI learning lab and we all experiment with AI, we share resources because first I was looking for a book on it and of course any book or any online course is going to be outdated.

By the time it's uploaded quickly. Yeah.

So we just experiment and I think that's the secret. We just have to experiment, we have to learn, share with others, not be too scared, use the AI which is most applications Nowadays have AI inbuilt and your company applications will have those as well. So trying to use them. Funnily enough, we're recording this on Riverside and apparently Riverside and I have not tried it because I'm too scared, but this is the one thing I haven't tried. But Riverside can actually create voice, as in it now knows my voice. And it will be say, let's start a new neutral. Okay. We can say really bad things in my voice.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. That's quite frightening. It's like a deep fake.

I know, I know. However, I think we can manage it, but we need to learn about it anyway. Sorry, bracket of AI promotion closed. But I think that is important for making sure that we stay competitive in the job market.

Absolutely, yeah.

Anyways, we were talking about your book. Tell me, what's your the biggest learning that you've had? I know you're an expert in all things flex, but I'm sure there are things that you've discovered writing the book that surprised you.

Yeah, I think the early chapters were really interesting and I tried to incorporate that. It's about actually knowing what you want. And I delved into that in much more detail than I did before. And it has really changed my thinking because I think I just speaking to so many people, they're unhappy in their job, they hate their job, they don't like their job. And even if they got a better job doing what they're doing now, it still wouldn't be right because they didn't. Society has forced them into a career, maybe parental expectations, school and the way the education system is set up in this country. I think what's real, and I'm going to do it with my daughters is actually getting people to really think about what they're good at and what do they want. And I don't think people do that enough. And they don't do it early enough. And actually, I think it's doing it actually got children when they're picking their GCSes, when they're picking the A levels. What is an amazing book that I 100 recommend people read is called 'know your strengths' by Gallups. And it's fascinating. And it's basically the premise is that we all have like three or four really strong strengths that are unique to us. And those strengths are formed by about the age of three and society performance reviews work often focuses a bit on our weaknesses. So they'll say you're really good at this, but you could be better at this. And actually the greatest sort of minds and you know, if you think about Einstein or whatever, I don't know how good he was at English, for example, but actually, if you just focus on what you're really, really good at, you're going to be brilliant. So it's stripping out all that noise, getting a really strong understanding of what are good at. And often what we're good at, we will enjoy. Because there's nothing worse than doing something and feeling you're not good at it. And therefore it's just about actually narrowing, narrowing, narrowing down on those strengths. And then as you get further into your career, you can keep then delegating things that you are not as good at or you don't enjoy to other people in the team. You run a business, you outsource that. So it's just getting really, really narrow. It's like they, as an example about Richard Branson, who was interviewed on the Diary of the CEO podcast with Stephen Bartlett, and he gave an example about how he was dyslexic, he left school at 60 and then he was in a board meeting and his accountant was running through numbers and he must have had a really puzzled look on his face because the accountant pulled him to the side. He's like, do you understand any of this? And Richard Branson was like, not really. But what he's really good at is he's a visionary and he hires people into those roles that he can trust. It's all about this trust, isn't it, that he can trust completely. He has basic, basic understanding of finance, but he hasn't had to really overly develop that skill set. So it's just about actually knowing what your strengths are. And if you become a leader, then how are you gonna, you know, hire people to fill those gaps that you don't have and then identifying those strengths in those individuals and making sure that they are leaning into them as well. Because then I think you're gonna, you're gonna be brilliant, you're gonna have a brilliant team and then a brilliant company.

And one question we always ask at the end is about practical five minute activities that people can do following this podcast. So picture someone who's listening to this, who wants to transition to a more flexible role. What would be one or two five minute things they could do this week to get the ball rolling.

I mean, I think the first thing would be to actually think about what role it is you want to do. Regardless of whether it's flex or not, are you in the right role for you? And if you're not, how are you going to get There what, you know, actions can you take that is going to get you to that role you want that your dream role is. And then, you know, whether that's upskilling, do an additional qualification, getting a bit of work experience, whatever. And then in terms of flexible roles, you can obviously get in touch with me because we my job board investinginwomen.co.uk, we have lots of flexible roles on it. You could reach out to old colleagues, you could go, you know, create a LinkedIn profile, reach out to all colleagues, see, you know, they know of anything. Start building your network, then connecting with and contacting people within those organizations that you want to work with on LinkedIn, explaining that you're, you know, looking for a new opportunity, seeing they'd be open to meeting for a coffee. I think that's often a trick. And then actually also you know, telling people maybe at the school gate or that if you're a parent or, you know, if you're in a running club, wherever you go out, you know, outside of work, be quite open that you're looking for a new role because a lot of roles aren't ever advertised as well. So it's, I think all about building your connections and building those relationships, attending networking meetings and often roles and opportunities can come out as well like that.

Well said. And where can people find out about you about the book, about your work?

Yeah, so our website is investinginwomen.co.uk please connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Elizabeth Willits on LinkedIn and my book Flex is out in January.

Wonderful, great to chat again. Lizbeth, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just call to Verena Hefti and I'll be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi. Likewise, if you do feel passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review and share it with a friend. Just because at the moment podcasting is still a very, very male dominated environment. Most of the top charging podcasts are led by men. I really love all the people who've joined from the podcast, our fellowship program and, and if you want to do the same, then please head over to leadersplus.org/Fellowship in order to get access to a community of support to help you combine ambitious career with young children together with people who have your back. See you next week.