Let’s have a word about the people in your workplace who are quietly spinning all the plates. They’re chairing Zoom calls while booking GP appointments. Reviewing budgets while mentally planning dinner. Managing teams at work and tantrums at home. Some are parents, some are caring for elderly parents, some are doing both and wondering when […]
We talk a lot about glass ceilings, and rightly so. They’re real, they’re frustrating, and they’ve kept far too many brilliant women from rising to the top. But let’s get honest for a minute. The real challenge? It starts long before any woman even gets close to the ceiling. It starts at the skirting board. […]
The Pressure to Partner: Why “Leftover Women” Is Everyone’s Problem There’s a term floating around in China that made me stop in my tracks: “leftover women” – or shèngnǚ in Mandarin. It refers to women who are still single by their late twenties. Not divorced. Not widowed. Just… unmarried. And that apparently makes them leftovers. […]
The other day, I was chatting with someone and she said something that really stopped me in my tracks. She said, “The biggest secret no one tells you when you have kids is that you have to say goodbye to yourself, park yourself in a long-term car park, and only come back for yourself once […]
Let’s have a proper chat about wellbeing at work, shall we? Because somewhere along the way, the word “wellbeing” got hijacked. It’s been polished, packaged, and in many cases, watered down to mean yoga at lunch, a mindfulness app no one has time to open, or a fruit bowl in the staff kitchen that’s empty […]
Let’s be honest—flexible working still gets treated like some kind of reward. Like it’s a little pat on the back for good behaviour. But here’s the truth: it’s not a perk. It’s the foundation we need if we’re serious about building fairer, more inclusive workplaces. The old way of working—that rigid 9–5, in-the-office-every-day setup—wasn’t built […]
Matrescence and the Workplace: Why We Need to Talk About It Everyone is going on about the Netflix show Adolescence. Well there is another word we don’t hear often enough—Matrescence. No, it’s not a new skincare trend or the latest corporate buzzword. It’s the process of becoming a mother, a transition as profound as adolescence. […]
I once had to give an underperforming employee a review. She booked Friday in my diary for the review and I moved it to Monday. Why? Because I knew I wasn’t going to give her good news and I didn’t want her to spend her weekend building a failure story in her head about it. […]
Kate Winslet said on the Graham Norton show once that she hasn’t been on a trampoline since having kids. A lot of mums can identify with that. Something to do with the pelvic floor allegedly. Let’s talk about pressure, shall we? The kind that makes your eyes water and your legs cross at the […]
There’s an old Italian saying: “Anni, Amore, e Bicchieri di Vino – Non si contano mai.” Translation? Years, lovers, and glasses of wine—these should never be counted. And honestly, the Italians might be onto something. We live in a world obsessed with numbers. How many hours did you work this week? How many steps did […]