Revolutionizing Workplaces: Marny Requa's Parental Leave Advocacy
“You can pivot to take on action-oriented topics that can change your life.”
Marny Requa, shared her recent transition into new research and related consulting work during our photoshoot.
"The beauty of academia is the ability to follow your interests as your career develops. I'm currently taking my gender equity work in a new direction."
“My career has really spanned a lot of professional environments – law, academia, nonprofits, government, media, you name it. I also had the opportunity to work in a lot of places like Ireland, San Francisco and NYC. This breadth of experiences allowed me to learn about different environments and the impact of culture and policy on women and work. Even across professions and borders, there are commonalities.”
“As part of my recent shift, I became a certified parental leave consultant and coach through the Center for Parental Leave Leadership. I also started my own consulting firm this year called Shift Work Life Consulting. Parental leave is one piece of the puzzle. It’s a major economic issue at nearly every level – for the country, businesses, individuals, towns, families. Not to mention the need for other policies supporting working parents and women of different backgrounds. Culturally, we need to normalize everyone taking the time off to be with family. It makes everyone happier, healthier and more productive.”
“One of the key things I hone in on when working with an organization is that they look at parental leave as an opportunity for people AND the organization. It’s an opportunity for professional development, leaning into the strengths of their employees. If supported in the time leading into leave, while on leave, and during reboarding, employee productivity is actually stronger—and it makes for a stronger organization, stronger families, and the ability to retain strong and dedicated workers.”
“Even for people who are entrepreneurs or self employed, wherever they are, life transitions provide an interesting opportunity to lean into strengths to learn new skills. To drop what’s not important and shift into projects and work that they find more meaningful. Take stock and rethink.”
“This is really about doing gender equity and DEI work, trying to shift culture for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community in the workplace. Whether people are parents or not, having a program that supports the community and parents that are working is important for every organization to keep up with the shifts that are happening in society. Quite often, people have strong commitments as individuals, but the organizational culture doesn’t give them space to act on those commitments – women, men, whomever.”
Thank you, Marny, for sharing your journey with us.