Challenging gender-based barriers and building a better future are at the heart of Jaguar's 'She Sets The Pace' funding initiative. They're also the foundation of Emma McLean's mission to tackle the "motherhood penalty", a term that encompasses the complex barriers that limit women's working lives, leading to lower pay, less progress, and unequal distribution of unpaid labour. "The motherhood penalty refers to how on average, mothers earn 12.5 per cent less than fathers of the same age and education over the course of their career," explains Emma. "Adding an intersectionality lens, the gap is even wider for Pacific and Māori mothers."
An issue that affects many families, there are many contributing factors. “The penalty shows up as a series of systemic disadvantages that mothers face in their career. Some of these include a lack of affordable, quality, and accessible childcare, non-existent part-time roles at senior leadership level (making it impossible to continue to build your career as you are a parent with unpaid work responsibilities) and the fact that only two per cent of the people who took government paid parental leave last year were men.”
It's something she has seen firsthand. “There is no doubt in my mind that I have paid the motherhood penalty. Since becoming a mother, my career and pay have been penalised in a way that my children’s father never experienced,” reveals Emma. “I saw a pattern amongst colleagues; once they became mothers, they would gradually “off-ramp” themselves into more junior roles — no people leadership, less hours, or out of the workforce completely. The reality is that working and having a family is hard. Working mothers feel like they have run out of choices.”
This experience led to Emma founding Works for Everyone. “When I first started my business, I knew that I wanted to positively impact as many working parents as possible,” she says. Challenging the motherhood penalty from multiple avenues, Emma provides support, coaching and advocacy for working parents, and their employers.
“When I am coaching my working mother clients, I create the space for them to figure out how they are going to build a career and have a family. Space that helps them to back themselves to continue to progress their career and to quieten down the guilt they can feel,” says Emma.
The Returning with Confidence programme is a key part of its offering. “The programme helps returning parents to navigate their new normal as a working parent, build their confidence at a vulnerable time in their career and equip them with new skills like boundary setting, saying no, playing to your strengths, career planning, and sharing the load at home.”
Beyond the individuals and families Emma coaches, Works for Everyone also consults corporate clients — including banks and telcos — on how to support working parents and create a more healthy culture. "I am the person that asks the hard questions. Where are the part-time roles? Where are the job shares? How do you support your working parents during the school holidays? What provision do you have for sick leave for working parents? When will both parents be eligible for your paid parental leave, not just the mother?”
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Advertise with NZME.One of the biggest things she believes that will help women and address the motherhood penalty is normalising working dads. “Only when we have equality at home will we have it at work,” says Emma. “Men are not taking parental leave. They are not coming out of the workforce for six to 12 months and falling behind in their career. They are not taking on the lion’s share of unpaid and caregiving work in their houses.”
Employment equality doesn’t stop at the office, and Emma encourages parents to address the balance of unpaid care work and household management. “A significant amount of unpaid work comes straight through your front door along with every adorable baby. Depending on what stats you are looking at, this can be between 30, 40 or even 50 hours of additional work that didn’t exist before you had children.” Frequently, this work falls on mothers. “The 40-hour work week was designed with the thought that someone would be at home doing everything.”
This mission to create a more equitable experience for working parents is why Emma was chosen for Jaguar’s second 'She Sets The Pace' grant, which sees the luxury car brand investing in changemakers and people addressing the status quo — providing funding for people challenging conventions, like Emma.
Applying for the grant was rewarding in itself. “It was a great opportunity to reflect on what I had achieved so far, but also to spend time thinking about what next. To think about the journey to date in my business, how I have continually honed my focus and through doing the work, become clear on my strengths and what I enjoy most,” says Emma. “Writing this grant entry actually helped me to clarify my strategy and to give me confidence that I am on the right track.”
Emma was chosen by Jaguar’s panel of judges — including Jaguar CFO Natasha Mannering, Viva editor Amanda Linnell, and motorsport figure Tiffany Chittenden. “Her experiences and this topic really resonate with me,” says Natasha. “I think that her programme needs more exposure, and by winning this grant I feel that there is potential to create some meaningful change.”
The grant money will add to the momentum of Works for Everyone, and help the organisation reach new people and businesses. “I need to further scale my business so that I can more effectively agitate for change and continue building the movement that will smash the motherhood penalty,” Emma says.
To do this, she will use the $10,000 grant money to create a podcast, interviewing people who are tackling this obstacle, and inspiring others. “This will be a practical, optimistic tool to inspire others to make change,” she explains, and the content will be “reflective of the community it serves and all the different kinds of families that live in it — including different ethnicities, hetero and rainbow families, co-parenting couples, and those parenting alone.”
This is the second of three rounds of funding Jaguar is awarding. Emma McLean and Hannah Hardy-Jones, a mental health advocate and the recipient of the first grant, will be joined by one more ‘She Sets The Pace’ grant winner, to be chosen later this year. The luxury brand has a history of supporting and collaborating with convention-breaking women in motoring, and this grant ensures that challenging conventions doesn't end on the racetrack.
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Advertise with NZME.'She Sets The Pace’ forms a key part of Jaguar’s wider mission for 2022 and beyond, supporting people to continue to break down barriers and stereotypes in their industry. That’s exactly what Emma wants to do. “I am holding up a mirror to how the system does not support working parents and agitating for change,” she says. “If we want to smash the motherhood penalty so that our children and their children never have to experience it (which is my mission!) we need paid parental leave to be available in meaningful amounts to both mums and dads.”
Are you challenging conventions?
Jaguar has one more $10,000 grant to award this year, and you could win it.
What's Jaguar looking for?
Someone who isn't afraid to fly in the face of common assumptions, has overcome barriers or obstacles to achieve success, and is making an impact. Entrants must show how they are challenging conventions in their field, and detail how they would use the $10k grant funding. The panel will consider each entrant's achievements, immediate need, future potential and more.
What's in the 'She Sets The Pace' Grant?
$10,000 cash: Each grant recipient will receive $10,000 to help them continue challenging conventions in their chosen field.
A profile in Viva: See your story in print with an article, photoshoot, and supporting content created by the Viva team, sharing your journey and helping inspire others.
Experience the all-electric Jaguar I-PACE: Recipients will enjoy the use of a Jaguar I-PACE for three months. Jaguar's first all-electric SUV, this model represents a new era for the brand.
Enter now on Viva.co.nz/shesetsthepace/
