The F Word at Work

Welcome to The F Word at Work - we share highligts of another epic week the night before we are attending the Northern Power Women awards ( fingers crossed by the time you hear this we've won!) We also mention the This Can Happen conference we're speaking at this week.

So we've got a few remaining episodes to share in this series, so we're going to be focusing on best practices from our clients. We're having more and more conversations with companies keen to offer training to their people leaders and ensure those going through fertility issues are better supported, which is so exciting for us as a start-up. Today we're delighted to share this conversation with Jo Riddell of Selfridges, Head of ER, Policy and Wellbeing.

Did you know that Selfridges is actually the first company that Fertility Matters at Work signed? Jo explains how she first heard about us and the amazing feedback Selfridges is getting as a result of the work they are doing.

We're delighted to share that Selfridges are now a fertility friendly accredited ™️ employer ( updated 12/3/2024 )

 What we discussed: 

• What led the drive for Selfridges to become fertility-friendly
• How Selfridges launched it's fertility friendly activity with a launch panel with a senior lead, talking about her expereince of pregnancy loss.
• The feedback they have been receiving since working with Fertility Matters at Work
• The impact of this education and how it is created an more supportive environment for colleagues.
• Selfridges plans for further awareness raising events.
• How representation is important
• How Selfridges have used surveys to gain employee feedback
• How employees and team members tend to share their feedback privately. 
• Selfridges relaunched its internal support network called, Family Matters to encourage people to share their stories. 
• Use of the Yama app to help them communicate and support each other despite the diversity and size of their organization. 
• How they ensure people feel comfortable and safe and that they are not judged regardless of what they are going through. 
• How Selfridges evaluated its policies to meet the different needs of its team members. 
• How using their social media to highlight this work has benefited their attraction and retention
• Selfridges aim to become fertility accredited this year. 
• How Selfridges wants to continue the conversation and to keep on looking for what’s next they can offer and how they’d be able to give support to their teams. 
• Have a look @fertilit_arty on insta

 WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FERTILITY ISSUES FOR YOUR ORGANISATION? 

 We have a few remaining places for our workshop on March 28th here. 

 You can also book a call to speak with us here. 

Find out more about our services and sign up to our newsletter here. 

 Follow us on Insta and find out what our community has to say. 

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This week it’s both International Women's Day and Endometriosis Awareness Week. To mark the two events, we're in conversation Sophie Richardson, aka theendospectrum who explains her journey to a diganosis of the condition, which took over 5 years from aged 16 to when she went to University. Sophie underwent surgery due to having severe symptoms putting her in bed for a week during her period. She is passionate about awareness raising and along with her blog she is speaking more frequently within the corporate setting to help more people understand this complicated condition which can take up to 7 years for a diganosis.

What we discussed:

• How despite Endometriosis Awareness and campaigns are increasing over the years there are still lots of misconceptions regarding the issue. it still It affects 10% of women 
• Sophie’s symptoms and experiences prior to her diagnosis, that she’d never heard about it, It took over 5 years to diagnose and she was struggling from 16-18
• Sophie’s struggle to open up her symptoms to her peers - she didn’t know what was her being dramatic and until it caused her to pass out that she realised how severe there were 
• Her symptoms were a month long and she had to have surgery for cysts on her Ovaries 
• Why Sophie is passionately talking about endometriosis, especially in the workplace
• How endometriosis affects Sophie in her day-to-day experience - her skin has suffered for over a decade, despite spending a lot of money on skincare and makeup. 
• Impact on her confidence, people looking at her skin and how it makes her feel unprofessional at work, confidence issues when meant more people 
• Swollen belly and how it can impact your wardrobe at work and how virtual working has helped and why it’s important for employers to understand 
• What is Endometriosis
• Misconceptions around Endometriosis and what it is
• How it can be found everywhere in the body
• The Endometriosis Spectrum is so different for everyone and it can change month by month. For Sophie, it’s in her bowl and in her chest.
• How it impacts internal organs 
• How she’s much better now but previously, she was unable to leave the house for over a week, couldn’t eat or drink 
• How employers need to understand how varied it can be and need to treat it with respect 
• What kind of things do employers need to think about period policy
• Why it's important to have external voices talking about these topics, how to think about time off, being adaptable, open stream of communication 
• Key things for women who have endometriosis in the workplace
• Reasons why Sophie decided to freeze her eggs recently

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FERTILITY ISSUES FOR YOUR ORGANISATION?

We have a few remaining places for our workshop on March 28th here.

You can also book a call to speak with us here.

Watch our FMAW 30-minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership

Find out more about our services here.

Follow us on our Insta and find out what our community has to say.

Join us on LinkedIn.

Find us on Twitter.

Welcome to the latest episode of The F Word at Work, where we’re once again sharing a conversation from our F Word at Work series we shared on zoom in 2022. Here we’re speaking to Noni Martins, Noni is Zimbabwean British and her husband is Nigerian British and the pair have been trying to conceive for five years. Three years ago, they discovered that they needed IVF and they thought the issue initially was a male factor however further investigation has shown its a female factor. Noni and her husband are still on their journey and Noni has been doing amazing work as a blogger and a podcaster and she has built an amazing support network for black women called Unfertility It aims destigmatize this conversation within the black community and help overcome some of the shame and all the other kinds of hurdles that people have in their way when it comes to accessing treatment.

What was discussed: 

• How a huge part of Noni's upbringing was 'to be a wife'
• When she got married they had already started trying, but by year 2, still wasn’t happening
• She had grown up surrounded by a hyper-fertile idea that getting pregnant was easy
• Big part of her identity as an African girl was to have children , therefore she had a serious sense of shame. 
• Had pelvic pain in 3rd year which was when a nurse suggested she had more investigations 
• Catapulted into the world of IVF and all the focus on Noni she hadn’t mentioned her husband had been a dialysis patient - diagnosed with male factor
• Overwhelm of 3 failed cycles
• Her work was supportive and her husband was supportive but it took him a while to talk about his feelings. 
• Impact of Christmas and how it made them feel not being parents - how her husband actually talked about how he felt 
• Noni’s decision to talk about their experience publicly has helped with the unwanted questions from family yet people still make assumptions. 
• Difficulty in ‘answering back’ to comments made as it’s not part of her culture to explain that someone has said something offensive, as it's easier to say nothing than deal with the consequences of saying something. 
• How she felt about talking about her treatment at work over time 
• How she had to step back from her social presence as it wasn’t working for her, affecting her mental health 

SIGN UP to our workshop on March 28th here

Have a read of the impact blog we mentioned in this episode here

Thanks once again to our series sponsor Apricity.

Book a call to speak with us here 

Watch our FMAW 30-minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

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Welcome to another episode of The F Word at Work where we join Helen Letchfield co-founder of P&P coaching which she set up in 2009 based on her personal experience of the startling transition of moving from being a professional with a senior role, to a sleep-deprived, brand-new, home-alone parent – and then back again into the world of organisational politics and career demands – all on reduced hours. In this thought-provoking conversation Helen shares her insights on what has changed in the workplace well-being space over the last 16 years and what she thinks are key trends for 2023.

What was discussed:

• Primary and Secondary caregivers
• What has changed over the last 16 years in terms of workplaces understanding wellbeing - more about legal cases
• Now it’s around helping everyone back into the workplace after becoming parents 
• What it means to be a family-friendly supporting organisation 
• Importance of making people feel welcomed and supported at work
• Progressive organisations are using that for an attraction and retentions tool
• How the pandemic has helped to shifted the awareness around looking after new parents and leadership develop
• How post-pandemic both Mums and Dads were asking for flexibility ch
• How virtual sessions have enabled a greater reach with people feeling happier as they are able to have these conversations at home 
• The choice of partitioner can be determined by the coach, not location 
• Why employers are worried about giving ‘managers’ more to do - as senior managers hadn’t done the role play needed to coach middle managers - there was a skill and knowledge gap
• Didn’t realise the impact it has to be supportive
• How organisations are now more ready to look at the whole cycle - happy to look more at what family-friendly means - including looking at fertility issues and menopause, gendered ageism. 
• How different organisations in different sectors are in different places in terms of taking this whole conversation.
• Finance and Law sectors - lead the way, now more male-heavy, male-dominated sectors such as manufacturing are coming to talk about these issues as they are recognising the need. 
• Fertility keeps coming up time and time again as people recognise they want to break the taboo 
• Need to support HR, D&I, Managers in taking on these new roles 
• Ensure that initiates are put out for men and women
• Create an equal playing field 
• Trends in 2023 - work to prove that this work does support the attraction and retention route
• Gendered ageism - the impact on the over 50’s and the importance of this population 
• Making sure managers don’t make assumptions about anyone’s circumstances 

Thanks once again to our series sponsor Apricity.

Book a call to speak with us here 

Watch our FMAW 30-minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

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Welcome to another episode of The F Word at Work where we're sharing one of our original zoom conversations broadcast in 2022. An enlightening conversation with Mike Johnson-Ellis one half of Two Dads UK with his partner Wes and the pair have founded My Surrogacy Journey (MSJ) and the Modern Family Show. At Fertility Matters at Work we're delighted to be working in partnership with MSJ and you can find out more about what that looks like by having a listen.

What was discussed:

The lack of empathy that Mike expereinced when he talked to his work about his plans.

How they had no understanding of infertility or why he would want to attend appointments with his Surrogate

How Mike had no emotional support, nobody asked him what he needed or what he was going through

His colleagues were far to afraid of saying the wrong thing so they said nothing resulting in Mike not getting any support and feeling the pressure of doing his job as he was distracted by what he was going through. t

How everyone in his work environment couldn't believe he wanted a baby

The Toxic masculinity

Lack of awareness in organisations - 10 years on from when same sex marriages became legal. At that point in time businesses should have started thinking about what that would mean and what people would need and they didn't.

How a basic employment skill is knowing your business and your people and the importance of how we learn by our curiosity - asking people within an organisation what they need support with

Why surrogacy fills people with fear -it's not just for same-sex couples it is for women who can't carry

Explaination of Intended Parents (IP's)

How organisations who proudly say they support LBGT communications - need to ask themselves has the conversation has gone deep enough to find out what they really need

Lack of people talking about policies so we need there to be more conversations

Use staff networks, ideas captures, and forums involving different groups. to raise awareness of this and get the conversation started, you can do it anonymously

The issue with the use of word adoption being used when people are going through surrogacy, you aren't adopting it you are having a biological child

Policies are very heteronormative

Why surrogacy fills people with fear -it's not just for same-sex couples it is for women who can't carry

Thanks once again to our series sponsor Apricity.

Book a call to speak with us here 

Watch our FMAW 30-minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

Join us on Linked In  

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Welcome to the first episode of The F Word at Work for 2023, where all three co-founders Natalie, Becky and Claire have come together to reflect on what was an epic 2022, and to tell you bit about what is in store in 2023 and why becoming fertility friendly should be a key part of your wellbeing strategy with good reason. 

What was discussed

• Going to Parliament for the launch of Nickie Aiken’s Fertility Workplace pledge and to further discuss the work we have done to support the Parliamentary Bill for paid time off for it to become a statutory right for paid time of fertility treatment appointments 
• How our business has grown in it’s first year
• The impact we’ve been having and the many thank you’s we’ve been receiving
• Our nomination for the New Statesman Positive Impact award and meeting Joeli Brearly from Pregnant then Screwed
• Why focusing on this area of well-being will benefit your organisation and the ROI will be that good people want to come and work for you and stay working for you as they are properly supported by you as you can empathise with them due to having a better understanding of the impact of fertility treatment on all people needing it to grow their families. 
• When we’re talking about paid time off and people needing to go to appointments, we’re not asking for days and days meaning an organisation isn’t going to be able to function, we’re talking about flexibility.
• There’s already a cost to business as if people are going to go through it whether they can get paid time off or not. It’s much easier to manage planned time off rather than someone just going off sick.
• Important to understand that with fertility rates declining this issue of people needing help to have a baby isn’t going away
• The ongoing issue of Intended Parents not being included in workplace policies.
• How different generations of workforce need different things
• Our exciting press coverage in ITV News and Red Magazine
• How we’re going to be working with Liberty’s
• The issue for Intended Parents not being included in workplace policies.
• Northern Power Women Awards nomination for Small Organisation category

Are you ready to discuss your plans for 2023, even if you’re not quite ready to start, lets talk about how you can move forward in helping those going through it and uphill your managers, Mental Health first aiders, ensure your HR team fully understand and the right kind of language is being used in policies and guidance. 

Thanks once again to our series sponsor Apricity.

Book a call to speak with us here 

Watch our FMAW 30-minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

Join us on Linked In  

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Welcome to part three of this bumper podcast episode which is sharing our Diversity and Inclusion in Fertility Round Table conversation which was held on Zoom on 8th November 2022 with the aim to help you understand how many different people are impacted by fertility challenges in a number of different ways and also to give you a better understanding of the how these communities who are impacted. If you’ve not listened to Parts 1 & 2 yet, that's fine although we do suggest you give them a listen to give you a better context of the conversation. 

In this final section, we are starting to address some of the areas of intersectionality as Fertility is not one-dimensional but intersects with many of the other challenges that workplaces face when it comes to the Diversity and Inclusion agenda. One of the important nuances to consider is in relation to the impact cultural aspects have on people who are facing fertility challenges and in this final part of our conversation we spoke with  Dr Christine Ekechi, Co-Chair of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Race Equality Taskforce and Noni Martins, a fertility patient and founder of Unfertility, supporting black women to break the silence, stigma & shame around unconventional fertility journeys.  

Watch our FMAW 30 minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

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Welcome to Part Two of this bumper podcast episode which is sharing our Diversity and Inclusion in Fertility Round Table conversation which was held on Zoom on 8th November 2022 with the aim to help you understand how many different people are impacted by fertility challenges in a number of different ways and also to give you a better understanding of the how these communities who are impacted. 

We know that this affects 1 in 6 couples, 1 in 7 individuals and that the World Health Org defines infertility as a “disease of the reproductive system”. As you will hear, fertility treatment is also needed for social reasons, and as such is a necessary medical treatment to enable people to have a child, not a simple lifestyle choice as it is sometimes portrayed. Sometimes this is the only way for people to have a chance of a child, it’s also important to be aware that it isn’t a guarantee.

Here we discuss what employers need to know about being inclusive of other less commonly known paths to parenthood, such as solo parenthood, donor conception, adoption and then moving on to Surrogacy. The assumption when we think about fertility treatment is IVF – and normally with two people involved.  

You will hear conversations with Mel Johnson, HR Professional and Founder of The Stork and the UK’s first and only Solo Parenthood Coach and  Nicole Narracott, Adoptive Parent and Senior Business Change Manager. We also discuss how organisations can usualise, be inclusive of and supportive of LGBTQ+ family building with discussions with Wes Johnson Ellis, Co-founder of TwoDads UK, My Surrogacy Journey and the Modern Family Show and Laura-Rose Thorogood, founder of LGBT Mummies  

Watch our FMAW 30 minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

Join us on Linked In  

Find us on Twitter 

Welcome to this bumper podcast episode which is sharing our Diversity and Inclusion in Fertility Round Table conversation which was held on Zoom on 8th November 2022 with the aim to help you understand how many different people are impacted by fertility challenges in a number of different ways and also to give you a better understanding of the how these communities who are impacted. 

By inclusion we want you to start thinking about how you can ensure that any support you put in place for fertility is inclusive in both language and action. It’s about understanding your people and communities and how to create sustainable positive change that will represent and benefit those communities going forwards.  

In the first part of this conversation we’ll hear from  Emma Persand, Director of Lemur Health, qualified nurse and workplace health and wellbeing professional and Lina Chan, CEO and founder of Parla, a digital health company supporting people on their reproductive life journeys from periods to fertility and menopause with expert-led programmes and workshops discussing Reproductive Health and Wellbeing regarding Cis women and anyone with a uterus as it is this group that are predominantly the ones who have physical treatment and need to be present at all appointments, they’re affected by medication side effects and quite often can be all-consumed by the process.

We also spoke with Tom Webb, Director of The Easy Bit documentary Shaun Greenaway founder of Knackered Knackers, Male Support platform to discuss the importance of including and empowering men within the fertility conversation, with a focus on the cis-male experience of pressures from societal narratives leading to toxic masculinity and stigma. 

Watch our FMAW 30 minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership  

Find out more about our services here  

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say  

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Welcome to another episode of The F Word at Work in this episode we're talking about how a change can come about in support of fertility struggles, from employees driving the change. You'll hear two amazing examples. The first is Natalie Sutherland from Burgess Mee, who is the UK's first 'Fertility Officer' and has led the way for her firm to become the UK's first organisation to become 'fertility friendly' with our accreditation. Then you'll hear from Kelly-Anne Morris, an employee at Cadent Gas who we've just launched our services with.

What we discussed:   

• Kelly needed to have her fallopian tubes removed, so knew she was going to need treatment when she was ready to build her family.  
• Once she met her partner and was ready, she looked to see what policies what was available - she had a supportive manage yet nothing was written, so the approach wasn’t consistent 
• Women In Cadent - had leads on improvements within the workforce which is where Kelly got involved which was how she got involved in meetings.  
• Started speaking about IVF  - doing a survey to find out about other people’s experiences 
• First person she spoke to was in HR - at the time there was a lot of change happening in the company 
• Now at a point where all family provisions policies are being reviewed.  
• It takes time to find the right people 
• As Kelly was trying to put content together - she realised how much support she needed, such as regarding the LGBTQ communuty  
• How she came to FMAW for facts and figures  
• How it can be challenging at times, questioning whether she’s doing it right and has time to give it her full attention - when she doubts herself and then gets an email to thank her for what she’s been doing.  
• News articles from people sharing their stories have been mixed genders ( including Men in leadership )  
• Fertility Focus policy also cover partners - eg. if the Man works at Cadent and his partner doesn’t they hope to support the person wanting to accompany their partner.  

Watch our FMAW 30 minute demo on our services to find out exactly how we'd support your organisation with our training and membership 

Find out more about Natalie and Burgess Mee here

Listen to Infertility in the City here

Find out more about our services here

Follow us on Insta and hear what our community has to say

Join us on Linked In

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