Perspectives: Navigating parental leave and its career impact
Having a baby shouldn't be a career roadblock.
This week's Perspectives is an interview with Ashley Coghill, a fierce advocate for working parents and Director of Enterprise Accounts at Parentaly. She has two kids, ages 7 and 4.
Ashley has spent most of her career in sales. I first met her at a meetup in Chicago. Since then, we've connected over LinkedIn, and I've admired how openly she talks about working while parenting. Ashley also has a podcast — Ashley & Katrine's Infinite Revenue Playlist — which aims to elevate the voices of women in revenue-generating roles.
Anna Burgess Yang: What was your working life like before kids? And how did it change?
Ashley Coghill: I would literally roll out of bed, start working, and work all day. I worked remotely and didn't really take any breaks. Then, after work, I would go to the gym and do something fun. Being completely interrupted, I was probably putting in too many hours—which was fine because I was able to unwind afterward. I was on sales calls for six hours per day.
After having my first baby, it was really rough. I felt a lot of pressure to get the same amount of work done. So I would cram even more into my working hours and tried really hard to start work at a specific time. I took advantage of a time zone difference between myself and the rest of the team so I could log off when everyone else was logging off and spend an extra hour with my son.
I had one of those bouncers, and if he was sick, I remember bouncing him with my foot and trying to make sales calls at the same time. My anxiety level was really high because of all of the things I needed to manage.
ABY: Do you think women, in particular, put a lot of pressure on themselves when they return from parental leave?
AC: I do. I think women put a lot of pressure on themselves in general. If I'm the only woman on my team and I fail, maybe they'll never hire another woman. Same with parenting. I was the only parent on my team when COVID happened. And I was struggling; it was very hard. I know I'm not the only person who puts pressure on myself. And there are the pressures of being at home and not messing up my children and making sure they eat good food. There are so many things that we have as far as pressure.
I helping the company interview another woman who wanted to join my team. The hiring people literally said, "Yeah, but do we want to hire another parent, because it's really hard for you, isn't it?" And that's very illegal, but it's a thought process that definitely happens.
ABY: What type of support did you get (or not get) from your employer at the time?
AC: Because it was a small startup, I was the first person to take parental leave within the company. When I sat down with HR to talk about what that looked like, they had to do research because they didn't even know. They gave me the option to take 12 weeks off but with no pay for most of it. And I was able to do that because I made a good chunk of commission in that role. So it was fine. But also, not fine.
When I came back, there was no onboarding process. I was working on monthly quotas at the time, and it was the middle of the month, so it was like, "I guess we won't give you a quota." But the next month, I had to be fully ramped up and 100% back to my quota. I did hit it, which was amazing. But looking back, I don't know how that was even possible.
I ended up leaving that job when my son was almost a year old. I would definitely attribute that decision to feeling a certain way about having kids and not really having support on my direct team.
ABY: How do you think companies fail to support parents?
AC: When my son was four months old, I had to go to an all-company meetup. I had to fly to a different city, pump, and ship my milk home. And I had to navigate all of that — like the hotel room not having a refrigerator. And having to go back to my room every three hours to pump. Little things like that: it didn't even cross their minds to try to support me.
I think a lot of it is just not being proactive in understanding that parenting is a thing that will happen because people are humans, and humans have babies. So, being a small startup and not thinking about it is a huge mess. Even if you're a tiny startup with three male employees, you should have a parental leave policy in place. And be proactive in communicating it because it's just so awkward and weird not to.
Of course, I think having paid leave is important. But it's not just about that. It's about making sure that someone feels the opposite of how I felt, which was like a burden. It's a cultural thing. If you're creating a work culture where men don't take leave and women do, you're failing. If you're creating a culture where it's all on the employee to figure out what to do when they become parents, you're failing.
ABY: What made you start talking about these issues publicly?
AC: One of my first posts that got a lot of traction was right at the beginning of Covid, during lockdown. It was a picture of my child, who was probably four or five months old at the time, making a really terrible face. And I had a caption, "Excited about my new coworker for the next few weeks!" (which is what we thought at the time). I posted that, and all of a sudden, people who were having the same experience commented on it or DM'd me, saying, "Oh gosh, me too."
I realized that if we get vulnerable and share these things — specifically on LinkedIn, for me — people start to feel like they're not alone. I was making real friendships with people instead of just stuffy business conversations. And that's how it started. There's a need to talk about these things, or there's just going to be shame or people who don't realize that someone else is having the same time. It is related to business, and it matters.
ABY: Tell me about the type of work you do now.
AC: I'm so lucky that I get to do work that matters to me. It's something I didn't realize how much I would care about until I was doing it. I work at Parentaly. We are a career-focused tool. It's a benefit that a company will offer to a parent — any parent, regardless of birthing or non-birthing — and is designed to help people navigate that huge career roadblock, that speed bump that happens no matter what you do.
The best companies offer good leave policies, like a lot of time off. For someone who's career-driven, it's a problem if you miss your review and then you don't get promoted. We're trying to help people not have as much of a career disruption. And we've landed on what works really well.
I see daily testimonials trickling in from people who are going through the program, and it's making a big difference. It's validation every day because they are actual humans, and their experiences will be different from mine. I had a massive career halt — just a screeching halt — when I had kids. I'm still recovering from that. So I think that's a very important mission. We're eventually going to impact gender wage discrepancies and things like that — things that are huge problems.
I'm excited to be part of an amazing mission — with a female founder! I could go on and on about why that's rare. And it's silly that it's rare, but women get 2% of venture capital funding. It's insane. And, in my limited experience, working for a female CEO is the coolest thing ever. She's super smart and driven. It's very cool in multiple ways, but I got here because I was just sharing on social and advocating for parents. It landed in a way that I could actually make a difference, and I'm grateful for it.
ABY: You said your career came to a screeching halt. How was it impacted when you returned from parental leave?
AC: I was a top performer, hands-down. But I got passed over for a promotion into leadership for someone who was literally on a performance improvement plan. And the reason for that was they didn't think I wanted it or didn't even consider me because I'd just had a baby. I've tried to get into leadership since then, and it's been really difficult. I put in three and a half years at that company as a top performer. Anyone else would have been a shoo-in for that type of promotion. Eventually, I left because I was frustrated and had to start all over at another organization.
I do take ownership of how I navigated that situation. I could have advocated for myself; I could have asked for it — I didn't know that was a thing. But at the same time, why? Why do women need to do these things? That's another problem. And it's a systemic one. We're told not to talk about money; it's uncouth.
Before I had kids, I was really fiery. When I came back, I was a little more chill. They were like, "We need the old Ashley back." But the change didn't mean that I didn't close deals. I just had a little more patience. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I was treated like it was a bad thing.
ABY: What are your hopes and dreams for working parents?
AC: In general, we need more women. Period. We need women to stay in the workforce and become leaders. We need to figure out how to get women to stay, whether it's coaching them with something like Parentaly or not expecting the entire world from someone who comes back. Women are often the ones bearing the brunt of these issues. We need their opinions, and we need their voices, and we need their everything.
In general, we need to stop having all these biases against women. It's not helping anyone. We need to celebrate people and support them.
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