271. Pay, Leave and Power: The Paid Leave Conversation - Orli Cotel
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This Episode is part of our Pay. Leave + Power Week on the Podcast. Explore the Full Series
Overview
Meet Orli. She’s a founding leader of Paid Leave for the U.S. (PLUS), a nonprofit focused on winning paid family and medical leave. PLUS has helped win paid leave for more than 8M people, and Orli is bringing her knowledge, tools, case studies and adapting it all to the nonprofit sector. She’s also sharing how to create a work environment that promotes work-life balance for employees as we build a movement where personal life comes first.
💡Learn
Current paid leave landscape
Review best-in-class paid leave policies in today's modern companies
How can nonprofits afford to offer competitive leave benefits? (Spoiler: they can't afford NOT to at this point)
Activation steps for those wanting to advocate for better leave
Today’s Guest
Orli Cotel, Senior Advisor, PL + US
“If we want to create a world where everyone can be their best self, can be there for their families, can have their needs taken care of, how can we create that in the world if we can’t even create that in our own workplaces?”
Episode Transcript
Download Full Episode Transcript Here
Episode highlights
Orli’s story and journey to where she is today (3:00)
Overview of the paid leave landscape in the United States (7:00)
Where to start with this topic and get the right conversations started (13:00)
Getting involved with legislation (21:00)
Examples of best in class paid leave policies (27:00)
Cost Benefit Analysis Resources from PL + US
Toolkit and Template Proposal from PL + US
You're never going to be the kind of visionary organization to the world if you can't be that kind of visionary organization to your own team: moving away from scarcity mindset in the sector (37:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Orli’s life (39:00)
Orli’s One Good Thing: Low ego high impact. (42:00)
powerful quotes
“It’s only in the United States that that amount of leave is considered generous.” -Orli
“1 in 4 new mothers is going back to work less than 2 weeks after childbirth.” -Orli
“There are over 100 million people that don’t have a single day of paid leave.” -Orli
“In the past decade or so we have seen more and more states adopt statewide paid leave policies.” -Orli
“So right now, it is totally legal, for many employers to fire someone for having a baby or for attending to a family member in the hospital.” -Orli
“I can tell you there is a lot that the nonprofit sector can learn from the private sector here.” -Orli
“For profit employers, the best ones, understand that their number one resource they are stewarding is their talent.” -Orli
“We knew that public policy is downstream of corporate practice. So it was very important to us to change what was happening in the private sector, and then figure out how to harness that energy and mobilize those companies to advocate for change in Washington, DC. “ -Orli
“If you can be there for your family, you're going to be able to be there better at work. And that's just truth.” -Orli
“If you're an employer that cares about equity, and you're only providing unpaid leave for your employees, then you're not walking the walk. Because essentially, what you're saying is that an employee who has family money should be able to spend time with their newborn, and an employee who doesn't should have to come back to work because they won't be able to afford to take unpaid time.” -Orli
“So if you're committed to equity, you need to be able to provide paid family leave paid time to care, so that everybody has equal access to the most important moments of their lives.” -Orli
“I think we often don't think of nonprofits as employers, or as small or medium sized businesses, but we are, we employ people. And so there are a lot of things that we can do to show leadership in that space.” -Orli
“You have an obligation to follow through on your commitments to equity and inclusion to make sure that folks can be there for their families, and that it's not a perk that everyone in your organization have the ability to be there for their families.” -Orli
“In the age of the pandemic, we've all learned that you can't separate your personal life from your work life, these things are intertwined.” -Orli
“There are nonprofits that have strong paid parental leave policies, but I have not seen many examples of nonprofits that also provide leave for family caregiving.” -Orli
“I think that one of the challenges we face in the nonprofit world is people really operate from a scarcity mentality.” -Orli
“we're trying to envision and make possible a world of abundance, and so we have to start by modeling that at our own nonprofit” -Orli
“If we want to create a world where everyone can be their best self, can be there for their families, can have their needs taken care of, how can we create that in the world if we can't even create that in our own workplaces?” -Orli
“That's what it means to have really bold vision as a nonprofit, you can't aim at what's in sight, you have to aim at where you want the world to be. And I think that applies to the fight for paid leave for how we had to change the corporate landscape in order to be able to create the terrain that would be you know, ready for public policy.” -Orli
“Who do we really want to be even if it seems hard and impossible. Now let's chart the course for where we want to get and not just aim at what's possible.” -Orli
“You're never going to be the kind of visionary organization to the world if you can't be that kind of visionary organization to your own team.” -Orli
connect with orli
connect with PL + US
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Studio Selfie
Julie Confer, Orli Cotel, Becky Endicott & Jonathan McCoy
