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Parental leave is often treated as a checkbox issuehandled quietly by HR, focused on paperwork, and confined to a narrow window of time. But Amy Beacom, founder and CEO of the Center for Parental Leave Leadership and author of The Parental Leave Playbook, is reshaping that view. With over 25 years of experience in executive coaching and organizational development, Beacom, who has an EdD degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Columbia University, partners with leading companies to transform parental leave into a strategic advantage for retention, equity, and leadership growth. In this conversation, Beacom unpacks some of the biggest misconceptions about parental leaveand shares best practices and innovative strategies for companies of all sizes to better support employees before, during, and after this critical transition. What are some of the biggest misconceptions organizations still hold about parental leave today? First, that parental leave is solely about paid time off, administration, and compliance. When seen only through this limited lens, leave remains siloed in HR, and its broader potential is overlooked. In reality, parental leave can be a powerful driver of talent retention, employee well-being, DEI-B goals, leadership development, organizational culture, brand reputation, risk mitigation, and more. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} Second, that parental leave begins when a child arrives and ends when a parent returns to work. The full employee experience often spans over a yearstarting before leave is announced and continuing long after the return. Without meaningful support across all three phasespreparing for, during, and returning from leaveorganizations risk losing talent and falling short of their intended ROI [return on investment].And third, that parental leave is only about moms. Leave benefits should be offered equally to all parents, not just mothers. Parental leave also impacts managers, teams, clients, and HR. When its seen not as a personal issue for moms but as a professional experience many employees will face, it becomes clear that leave is a standard part of the employee lifecycle. What are the core best practices every organizationregardless of sizeshould follow when it comes to supporting employees before, during, and after parental leave? Treat this time as unique and sacred, because for your employees it is. Begin with generous, gender-neutral paid family and medical leave benefits to create a strong foundation. Create a clear, centralized, and well-communicated intranet webpage that includes anything and everything leave-related. Include your policy, all benefits, expectations, assessments, coaching, training, templates, resources, etc. Provide structured guidance and planning support to both the employee and their manager before, during, and after leave. Train managers to understand the law, but just as importantly, train them how to confidently navigate the leave and return process with intentionality, empathy, and clarity. Normalize parental leave and return as a predictable part of the workplace experienceone that warrants consistent support and unlocks valuable opportunities for learning, growth, and leadership developmentnot as a disruption. Larger companies often have more resources. What innovative or exemplary approaches have you seen from bigger organizations when it comes to parental leave planning and reintegration?At the enterprise level, we help organizations integrate parental leave into leadership development, link manager support to performance goals, and use data to track and improve leave experiences across teams and regions. In some cases, we’ve scaled manager training across dozens of countries; in others, we’ve leveraged our digital coaching hub to build community and learning at scale. One of the most impactful and growing strategies we recommend is coachingusing certified RETAIN Parental Leave Coaches to support parents through leave and return, administer perinatal mental health screenings, and connect them to resources. Weve also helped organizations implement peer-based support like leave buddies and return-to-work cohorts to foster connection and ease the transition back to work. One area were currently focused onalongside several large companiesis designing effective leave coverage systems that double as developmental opportunities for high-potential employees or team members. We’re also exploring new ways to structure compensation and performance metrics that feel both fair and motivating. These arent just perkstheyre strategic tools for driving retention and performance Smaller organizations often cite resource constraints. What creative or low-cost strategies have you seen smaller employers use to support parental leave well?At the root of it, employees want to know they matter, especially during unpredictable times, and that simple act doesnt have to cost anything. The smaller employers we work with often shine through personalization and flexibilitythey use recognition in ways that feel meaningful and genuine. I also recommend using tools like shared planning templates and checklists for leave transitions, designating an HR point person to act as a leave concierge, and holding team-based planning sessions so responsibilities are clearly handed off and reintegrated. A warm, proactive conversation and a culture of support go a long wayeven without a big budget. Managers are often the linchpin in a parents leave experience. What support or guidance do they need?They need clear expectations, practical tools, and a safe, judgment-free space to ask questions. Most managers have never been trained on how to handle parental leave and return transitions and are afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Our evidence-based trainings provide communication frameworks, timelines, compliance essentials, and emotional intelligence skills. On top of training, the most impactful support we recommend is one-on-one coaching with a certified parental leave coach. When managers have confidential access to expert guidance, they feel more secure, parents feel more supportedand both are more likely to stay engaged and avoid burnout. Given the current political and cultural climate, what trends are you seeing in the future of parental leave policy and practiceand what might organizations need to prepare for?Theres growing recognition that leave is more than a benefitits a driver of long-term organizational health. Thirteen states plus D.C. have passed paid-leave legislation, and momentum is building toward federal standardization, and risin employee expectations are prompting companies to act ahead of mandates. Were also seeing a shift toward intersectional strategies that connect leave to leadership development, career growth, mental health, and caregiver support. Organizations that treat leave as a core talent strategynot just a compliance taskwill be best positioned for the future. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
In the mid-1920s, most Americans ate light breakfasts. Edward Bernays, who would eventually be considered the father of public relations, was hired by a company that sold bacon to promote the idea that a hearty meal including bacon and eggs was more scientifically beneficial. Bernays conducted interviews and then carefully framed the results that led to a shift in public opinion. Americas iconic breakfast is now bacon and eggs. In the 1950s, the Keep America Beautiful campaign was launched by a coalition of corporations whose products were often littered (soda bottles, plastic packages, etc.). Their iconic moment was 1971s commercial with actor Iron Eyes Cody as a Native American shedding a single tear about litter and pollution. Both of these campaigns were carefully crafted propaganda designed to focus on individual decisions and actions. They relied on imagery, symbolism, and emotion, not raw facts. And they werent designed to explicitly sell bacon or guilt. Public relations storytellers shaped public opinion like artists and nudged enough behavior change that the entire culture was impacted. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} Artful vision and the power to reframe Propaganda is an idea or allegation crafted not to inform neutrally, but to influence behavior and belief. Art is an object or image shaped with skill and imagination to evoke emotion and meaning. Its useful to learn from people who create art and propaganda. In my workplanning transportation systems with a bias toward human flourishingI often say I create propagandart to save the human race. prä-p-gan-därt (noun): ideas, allegations, and aesthetic objects produced with the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, spread deliberately to further ones cause or to damage an opposing cause The people best equipped to influence behavior arent just marketers or policymakerstheyre propagandartists. The photographer who shapes what you notice. The muralist who reclaims public space. The meme creator who distills frustration into a punchline. Each is practicing a form of strategic persuasion. Each is shaping not just what we see, but how we feel about it. Whether youre pitching a startup, selling a product, or reshaping a city, you’re competing with ads, reels, renderings, memesall designed to influence perception before youve said a word. To win the room, you dont need new tools nearly as much as you need to master an old one: the art of influence. Consider a fine art photographer and a meme lord. One crafts a single frame with obsessive care; the other floods the internet with viral punchlines. Both are propagandistsstorytellers who deliberately shape how we see and feel. If I want to create walk-friendly, bicycle-friendly places that increase the smile density in my city, Im only going to reach that goal through persuasive storytelling. Every photograph is a lie. Photography isnt objective. Ansel Adams didnt just capture Yosemite; he framed it to evoke awe. Gordon Parks didnt just document injustice; he gave it emotional gravity. Whats left out of the frame is as important as whats inside it. Thats the lesson: direct attention with intention. Dont pitch the product. Show the life it makes possible. The relieved parent, the joyful commuter, the profitable small business, etc. Great art doesnt just showit sells a version of reality. Remix culture and the new public square For urbanism innovators, shaping imaginations is a vital part of the playbook. Launching a new cargo bike, pitching a housing policy, or designing a bus transfer hub requires persuasion. If you cant shape public imagination, your product, policy, or vision will be dead on arrival, no matter how brilliant the data behind it. Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979 on display at the Brooklyn Museum, ca. 2007. [Photo: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images] Artists reframe the past, present, and futuresometimes in an effort to change culture in some way, sometimes just to be irreverent or entertaining. From Shepard Faireys Hope poster to Judy Chicagos The Dinner Party, art can create appetites for ideas the mainstream hasnt developed yet. A speculative rendering of a car-free downtown is an example of a prompt for belief. The High Line in New York began this way: a vision, illustrated and circulated, that turned an abandoned rail line into a civic treasure. Applying lessons learned from the art world doesnt require training to become a great artist yourself. Memes are fast, cheap, and culturally potent. Theyre the digital ages most accessible form of propagandart and we all know they can sometimes look sloppy and haphazard. A meme doesnt explainit distills. The Distracted Boyfriend image reshaped debates about loyalty. Bernie Sanders in mittens became a viral fundraiser. Memes bypass logic, persuading with speed, irony, and emotional friction. For builders and changemakers, memes offer a strategy. Want to communicate the absurdity of legacy infrastructure or bloated software? A meme can do in seconds what a slide deck does in 30 minutes. Memes can help energize a movement or reframe a dull category. The trick is to stop thinking of them as fluff and start using them as signals. Organized persuasion Weve been taught to fear the word propaganda. But propaganda, at its root, is organized persuasion. And in an environment of infinite messages, intentional persuasion is a competitive edge. Propagandart blends arts emotional pull with strategys clarity. A viral video about your mission is propagandart. A campaign calling out industry greenwashing is propagandart. A cartoon satirizing the way zoning keeps Americans trapped in cars is propagandart. Decide what belief or point of view youre trying to implant, or what behavior youre trying to shift. Then use facts to create stories that move markets. From canvas to camera to meme, the artists role has never changed: shape what people seeand how they feel about it. This is true for shipping code, designing buildings, or launching a movement of kids biking to school. Your work and your legacy lives or dies by stories. With artistic tools in every pocket and publi platforms a click away, were in a golden age of propagandart. If you want your idea to stick, it needs more than a data pointit needs to be seen, felt, and shared. Just ask the campaigners behind Barcelonas Superblocks. Before reconfiguring traffic patterns or drafting ordinances, they shared speculative renderings of tree-lined streets, kids playing in former intersections, and cafes spilling into quiet roads once dominated by cars. Those images didnt just illustrate the plan. They created public appetite for changeturning skepticism into support. The power of propagandart is shaping not just what people know, but what they want. Picture a better world. Frame the story. Share it. If you can shape how people feel, you can shape what they demand. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
How do you feel about your work? Do its daily demands leave you burned out and drained of energy? Do you find yourself reducing how much effort you make to engage in some quiet or “soft” quitting? Or maybe you dream of taking a more decisive step and joining the “great resignation.” The prevalenceand popularityof these responses suggest that there has been quite a change in many peoples attitudes to the way they earn a living. Some think that this change stems from a post-COVID evaluation of work-life balance. Others say its an individual form of industrial action. However, these explanations keep the spotlight firmly on workers rather than the work itself. Perhaps the truth lies in a fundamental deterioration in peoples relationship with their work and maybe the work needs to shoulder some of the responsibility. Our experience of working, and its impact on our lives, is about more than what goes on within the office or school or hospital or factory that pays our wages. Even something as simple (yet important) as the number of hours someone works might be the result of a complex combination of national law, professional expectations, and an organizations resources. This is where something known as the psychosocial work environment comes inan approach (especially popular in Scandinavia) that examines the various structures, conditions, and experiences that affect an employees psychological and emotional well-being. Research in this field suggests that there are three conditions vital to the modern work experience: autonomy, boundary management, and “precarity.” Autonomy is about how much control and influence you have when it comes to doing your job and is key to how most employees feel about their work. Low levels of autonomy can leave people feeling overwhelmed and powerless. But high levels can also be detrimental, leading to excessive levels of individual responsibility and overwhelming hours. Ideally, you should have enough autonomy to feel a sense of flexibility and self-determinationbut not so much that you feel you need to always be available and constantly on the clock. Setting boundaries Boundary management is the ability to manage the physical and mental boundaries between work and nonwork lives. Achieving a suitable work-life balance has become even more important in a world of hybrid working. But in jobs with high levels of autonomy and responsibility, boundaries can become blurred and unpredictable. Phones ping with work-related notifications, and leisure becomes work at the swipe of a screen. All of this can lead to feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. The goal here is to set clear boundaries that bring predictability and clarity around work time and demands. This provides flexibility that is empowering rather than exploitative. Finally, “precarity” refers to a lack of stability and security in life. It refers specifically to a harmful state of uncertainty that is typically associated with job insecurity (zero-hour contracts, for example). This uncertainty and insecurity can dominate daily work time (and free time), leading to feelings of stress and anxiety. It can also have a negative impact on personal finances and career plans. Income and contract security can help here, although people working in insecure jobs often have little power when it comes to persuading their employers to make the necessary changes. But addressing the deteriorating relationship between employees and their work means confronting certain core conditions. Reflecting on the psychosocial elements of employment can help to identify the gap between expectation and actual experience. Before experiencing burnout or resorting to quitting (in any of its forms), this approach encourages employees and employers to reflect on two key questions. How does work make you feel? And what are the things that cause those feelings? Research on psychosocial work environments provides some guidance. It suggests that workers are more likely to thrive when they have autonomy that feels like control rather than abandonment, and flexibility and clarity that allows for a good work-life balance. They also need security that offers certainty in the presentand confidence in the future. John-Paul Byrne is a lecturer at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
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