Ode to Working Women: American Business Women's Day
This subject is obviously very close to me: I’m one of the eight million business owners mentioned above, and my team is made up of mostly women (a staggering 84%). From day one, my agency has been built with women at the core—Black Sheep is female-founded and female-led. I’m committed to mentoring and developing the careers of women who want to make an impact. I feel very lucky that we have an eight-year track record of recruiting and retaining highly talented women. That is not to say I don’t recruit, retain and value top male talent as well, but this industry isn’t known for holding men back. It’s known for running women into the ground and making them choose between their personal lives and their careers. Female agency owners like myself and top-level agency staff can help change this ratio by giving women opportunities that were previously denied to them.
I believe that our flat hierarchy and the flexibility of our work attracts top talent. The fact that you can walk in on day one and have an impact—I think that this appeals to women the most. Why? The track record of agencies that marginalize women, discount their ideas and promote men over them means something is broken about traditional hierarchy. That flatness is part of our foundation. We value each person who works here equally, and each has opportunities to uniquely contribute to projects they believe in. Beyond that foundational belief that your gender or past experience shouldn’t be a barrier, we have a lot of "flexibility perks." We offer unlimited vacation, flexible schedules and have a great maternity and paternity policy. We have a structure in place that allows people to live their lives and work here. That's critically important. You hear again and again about young women burning out and about mothers leaving the workforce because of the strain traditional agencies put on their personal lives.
We empower our team to figure out how they can live and work at the same time, meaning that they get to choose how they get their work done while meeting client deadlines. Because that’s what it’s all about, right? The idea of work/life balance is wildly inaccurate—do you know anyone who has a “balanced” life? Everyone’s life is different, and Black Sheep works within that chaos, not around it. We ask a lot of our team, but we give a lot back in return. For me, the biggest part of that is flexibility and clarity of expectations coupled with a human view of HR policies. We want to be an example of how you can support women in their lives and still produce amazing work.
On American Business Women’s Day, take a moment to think about all the women that came before us. From the ones who lived that Mad Men reality and for some of us that still do, we should celebrate working women from across the U.S. Today, I’ll be taking a moment with my team to talk about how we can all support each other and lift each other up.