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HR and diversity professionals.
Our neighbours
We love our new offices. It genuinely feels like a little hub of enterprising young businesses nestled in the southern most corner of Fulham.
The anchor tenant is an outfit called Clarion Events - the UK's largest event organiser. Our new neighbours are the reason, by a happy coincidence, that I came back from holiday and was whisked straight off to the Baby Show - one of Clarion's flagship events - to talk about work-life balance and childcare options.
I'm not sure if flicking through speech notes on a freezing chair lift counts as work-life balance or if it was just a lesson in how to get frost-bitten hands but needs must.
The show itself was a big success. Absolutely massive, far bigger than I imagined and outshone the Beauty Show, run in parallel next door, by a country mile.
The Baby Show
Wandering around I was struck by just how few men were there. And the ones that were there seemed to have been dragged there under pain of death and were, for the most part, grumpily being used as recalcitrant pack horses for loads of essential new baby kit.
Why is that? I mean I always thought that women gradually took control of the parenting after the baby arrived...
It's the first few weeks when the mother is biologically more involved and that's when I presumed that most of the damage to gender equality in the workplace gets embedded. My Baby Show experience made me question that assumption. It wasn't so much the women taking control - I mean I've always thought that women tend to take control better than men in any case.
But why did the men seem so disinterested? A baby is usually planned and these days it's supposed to be a joint enterprise?
Well maybe not.
Perhaps we need to have a look at the various maternity coaching programmes we run and introduce a pre-planner session "Thinking of getting pregnant in the next 2 years? Here's what you need to do now".
Yes, I'm sure we can come up with a better name but starting to talk about what a maternity break will mean for your career after your pregnant might not be early enough. If my Baby Show insight is right, the packhorse has often already bolted!
And as for my speech
I think it went OK. Open auditoriums are a bit bizarre but at least the advice from the large My Family Care contingent present was useful, "keep your jumper on - it will show you're sweating less".
Ben Black
