Neiman Marcus Group’s Post

In the Crafty Counsel Community Hub chat room, sometimes a post catches on and sometimes it doesn’t. Last year a member of our community posted something about the challenges of being a parent and an employee, and a feeling of not having time to do either job well enough. That post did catch on, and our community member received so many supportive messages from people who had had the same feeling, it was great. So we thought: why not do a series of 5 virtual sessions for in-house lawyers on this theme of parenting, parental leave etc? Topic 1 | Managing "alternative" routes to parenthood (IVF, adoption, surrogacy, fostering etc)  Topic 2 | "OMG - we are pregnant" - how / when do I tell my boss? Topic 3 | Preparing for Parental leave Topic 4 | Preparing to come back  Topic 5 | Juggling a job and children These sessions will be hosted by volunteers from the community for the community! Alex Bowtell, Georgina S., Hinal Patel, Esther Scott, Khim Kharaud, Hannah Jessica Claassens, Stacey Quaye, Romny Gray, Yoann LKZ, Amanda Little, Amanda Hall Thanks also to Rebecca Cowley, Hester Pooles, Vivienne Inmonger If you work in-house and would like to join these sessions, then please join the community on the Crafty Counsel web-site.

When considering options such as surrogacy, foster care, foster-to-adopt, and domestic or international adoption, it's essential to have knowledgeable professionals by your side. Our coaches provide personalized support, helping individuals and couples explore the possibilities, understand the intricacies of each path, and make informed choices. By facilitating these crucial conversations, we empower our clients to navigate the emotionally taxing and financially burdensome journey of family building.

⬇️ Leave policies. ⬇️ Are yours inclusive? 🤔 Updating leave policies are one of the easiest and most impactful things you can do at your startup. Most leave policies are based around the assumption that most of your employees are in traditional, nuclear, heterosexual families. These policies often: - Require primary and non-primary parents to be designated - Offer different amounts of leave for each designation - Exclude families that don't subscribe to traditional gender roles Parental leave policies should: - Be written using gender neutral language - Include the same amount of leave for birthing and non-birthing parents, so both can bond with their child - Apply to situations where neither parent gives birth to their new child, such as in the case of adoption or surrogacy - Include a return-to-work plan and expectations around keeping the employee up to date while they are away Bereavement leave policies should: - Cover the loss of *any* loved one (including pets and extended family) - Allow for more time (the standard three days is not it) - Include miscarriages - Be flexible (allowing employees to take days as needed) Let's stop making life *more* difficult for people in their time of need. 🪴 #lgbtqfamiliesday

Making the decision to have a child is momentous whether biological, surrogacy, foster or adoptive. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.   Those family meals, afternoons in the park, bedtime stories; the encouragement we give, the questions we answer, the limits we set, the example we set of persistence in the face of difficulty and hardship — those things add up over time, and they shape a child’s character, build their core, teach them to trust in life and to enter into it with confidence and with hope and with determination. And that’s something they’ll always carry with them: that love that we show not with money, or fame, or spectacular feats, but through small daily acts — the love we show and that we earn by being present in the lives of our children.   Set an example of excellence — because if we want to set high expectations for them, we’ve got to set high expectations for ourselves. We know that education is everything to our children’s future. We know that they will no longer just compete for good jobs with children from Illinois, but children from India and China and all over the world. We know the work, studying and level of education that requires. It’s up to us — as fathers and parents — to instill this ethic of excellence in our children. It’s up to us to say to our daughters, don’t ever let images in magazines, movies, television or social media tell you what you are worth, because, a father expects you to dream without limit and reach for those goals. It’s up to us to tell our sons, listening to streaming music or watching videos that glorify violence, that in our house, we give glory to achievement, self-respect, and hard work. It’s up to us to set these high expectations. And that means meeting those expectations ourselves. That means setting examples of excellence in our own lives.   We need as fathers, as parents, to pass along the value of empathy to our children. Not sympathy, but empathy — the ability to stand in somebody else’s shoes; to look at the world through their eyes. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in "us," that we forget about our obligations to one another. There’s a culture in our society that says remembering these obligations is somehow soft — that we can’t show weakness, and so therefore we can’t show kindness. We need to show our kids that you’re not strong by putting other people down — you’re strong by lifting them up. That’s our responsibility as fathers, as parents.   Life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children — all our children — a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime.   #fatherhood #fathersday #parenting

When considering options such as surrogacy, foster care, foster-to-adopt, and domestic or international adoption, it's essential to have knowledgeable professionals by your side. Our coaches provide personalized support, helping individuals and couples explore the possibilities, understand the intricacies of each path, and make informed choices. By facilitating these crucial conversations, we empower our clients to navigate the emotionally taxing and financially burdensome journey of family building.

Research into consumer culture can also show us that institutions move much more slowly than society: "Modern Western life offers a wide range of possibilities of what “family” can be: single parents, rainbow families, patchwork constellations, co-parenting, adoption, surrogacy and partnerships without children. Family forms are diversifying and extending beyond the traditional. In many ways, the landscape of this fundamental institution is changing faster than laws and other institutions that can accommodate. As a result, certain online platforms are now seeking to bridge the gap, connecting individuals who are interested in forming non-traditional families and seeking guidance on how to do so." A must-read article by Joonas Rokka, Dr. Lydia Ottlewski and John Schouten via The Conversation France #research #lifestyle #family

Congratulations to Norton Rose Fulbright for renewing their certification as a Family Inclusive Workplace for 2023-2025. In 2023, the firm introduced new and improved policies to better support their people and their families including an even more generous Parental Leave Policy and a new Cultural & Religious Leave Swap Policy. The refreshed parental leave policy is now more flexible and some of the key features include: - 26 weeks of paid leave for all primary carers - New leave provisions for fertility and pregnancy loss - Inclusive practices for surrogacy, adoption, short-term and long-term foster care, as well as kinship care “We are delighted to have been re-accredited by Parents At Work this year. We know that the journey to parenthood looks different for everyone. Our refreshed parental leave policy is generous, flexible, gender neutral and inclusive." - Chief Executive Partner Australia, Alison Deitz. Want to be a more inclusive workplace? Start by completing the free benchmarking assessment to see where your organisation stands: https://hubs.la/Q02d1D8v0 #NortonRoseFulbright #DiversityandInclusion #FamilyFriendlyWorkplace

Following on from the launch of our Kinship Friendly Employers scheme in Autumn 2023, Correla has become one of the first Gold Standard Kinship Friendly Employers. Correla is a leading Sofware as a Service and managed service provider to the energy and utility sectors, and they’re also leading with their approach to supporting their workforce. Maggie Fox, Head of People Services, Wellbeing and Reward at Correla said: “At Correla, we know that all families are different. We already have an inclusive parental leave policy which offers 26 weeks fully paid leave for birth, adoption, surrogacy and long-term fostering. It is gender neutral and includes those who identify as male, female, non-binary and same sex families. Standing by our principle that we want our benefits to be inclusive, we also offer Kinship Carer Leave that mirrors our parental leave. "Becoming a kinship carer can happen suddenly, and often at a time of crisis. Being a kinship carer makes a huge difference to children’s lives, but it can also be challenging practically, emotionally and financially. Correla recognises how important family is and how becoming a kinship carer can be incredibly difficult. We therefore aim to be as supportive and flexible as we can. "We are proud to be one of the first organisations to do this and to be a Gold Standard Kinship Friendly Employer.” You can find out more about becoming a Kinship Friendly Employer and apply for our free toolkit here: https://loom.ly/4FRJdl8

Our careers and lives are meshing more than ever. In this episode of Every Step Judith Beck and I talk about: * Kids "killing" careers and the decision some women and couples are making to not have children at all. Whilst some have decided not to have children, we read a post on LinkedIn yesterday where a senior Google executive announced Google employees in certain parts of the world will "get reimbursed" for a range of "family building" activities including egg freezing and surrogacy. Interesting new policy especially since the costs associated with these can be super expensive! * Career cushioning - What is it and what is your career Plan B? * The troubling state of startup Founder mental health Head to your favourite listening platform to access this and other episodes. #kidsvscareer #everysteppodcast #foundermentalhealth #careercushioning