My journey to motherhood and our new Parents Group

• May 8, 2022
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By Nicole Grant, Vice President

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It has been said – to me and whispered within the agency world – that you can’t have a family and be successful.

That’s a myth that needs to be busted. You can absolutely do it, but you need an agency that has your back.

Today is my first Mother’s Day as a working parent, which has me reflecting on almost 10 months back from mat leave, and what my values look like these days. I know I’m not alone. We’ve never had more working parents at North Strategic and Notch Video than we do today. More than 20 per cent of us have kids, from pandemic babies right up to young adults heading off to university.

I’ve been with North for 11 years, and all along we’ve tried to build an agency with a culture that supports and nurtures our team. I’m proud of what we’ve created: an agency where working parents can thrive, connect and succeed. In fact, my team and I just launched the agency’s first-ever Parents Group and I can’t wait to see how this will add even more value and support for our people.

As we enter a new phase of the pandemic, the rules around working – and being a working parent – have been reset. At North, we will continue to support our teams around flexible work. As a parent, that is absolutely something I embrace. It means slower mornings with a coffee and a family walk to daycare, not a mad dash to get everyone out the door and a fight to beat every red light on my commute. While I love the energy of being in the office with my teammates for the moments that matter, I like that I can choose which days work best and visit the office during off-peak hours.

Support for our teams extends to those on journeys to parenthood too, a stage of life that is incredibly personal for me. I went through five years of fertility treatments while working full-time at the agency. It was a major physical, financial and emotional load to carry, but North was a safe space to openly share the challenges with my team. They helped take work off my plate when I needed it, rolled with the uncertain schedule I needed for appointments, lent an empathetic ear (and more than a few Kleenexes), and provided benefits that helped cover much of the steep financial burden of the process.

Last fall, North added $5,000 per lifetime for fertility treatments to complement existing coverage. We also recently partnered with former North teammate, Emily Getz, in her Day 1 Fertility Membership program. While six months pregnant Emily unexpectedly lost her second child. Emily and her husband have struggled with secondary infertility for years since then, and it led her to start the Day 1 community. We’re proud to partner with Emily and hope this is another welcome resource for those on our teams who may need it.

I was fortunate to go through all this and become a parent. When I welcomed my son, North’s support extended to my mat leave too, as it does to our dads on pat leave. It allowed me to focus completely on that time with my family and provided me with a generous parental leave salary top-up.

We’re going to keep supporting our working parents so they can succeed in their careers, without sacrificing family. I look forward to many more Mother’s Days as a working mama.