Circle In is so proud to welcome Xero to our Circle. By partnering with Circle In, Xero aims to provide greater support to its parents, caregivers, and people leaders.
Here are some highlights from a recent chat between Co-Founder, Circle In, Jodi Geddes, and Global Head of Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging, Xero, Kasey Zun.
Why was it important for Xero to invest in a program such as Circle In?
It was really important to ensure that all of our people have the support they need to do the best work of their lives. For people who are carers and whatever their caring responsibilities may entail, it’s really important to us that we see them, we value them, and we aspire to support them in any way that we can. By forming a partnership with Circle In it’s really going to allow us to provide that level of support to our carers, and also our people leaders. They play a really big role in that support journey and also just our people across Xero who may want to understand what support they can offer to someone with caring responsibilities in their team, or if they suddenly find themselves with new caring responsibilities, so just having that available to everyone. It was really important to us.
That is a testament to you for providing such a fantastic culture, and genuinely wanting to support your parents and caregivers.
What are you most excited about the platform and the partnership with Circle In?
I’m looking forward to building a stronger sense of community for our carers at Xero. I’m loving the real stories feature, and that really goes to building that sense of community, because you’re looking at that, you’re hearing from people that are working at the same organization with you, and you share that common bond. Then you’ve also got similar challenges that can exist outside of work, so I think it’s really fantastic to be able to hear about that and learn from those people.
I’m also really excited about the diversity of the platform and its offering. The ‘just life’ section is a fantastic example of this because I think even with this one it doesn’t matter if you’re a carer or not. There’s so much helpful content and information on things that when life happens, and things just pop up really impact the way that we live our lives and the way that we work as well. So, there’s a range of things, but I think they’re probably two of the ones that I’m I’m really loving at the moment.
What does success look like for Xero in supporting your families and caregivers?
I’ve thought really long and hard about this and this was part of the conversations when we initially started speaking with Circle In and when we were having conversations internally, but for us, success looks like someone, let’s say heading off on parental leave and they’re actually feeling really excited. I’m sure maybe a little bit nervous, but excited about the journey ahead, and that actually comes from both a career and a personal perspective. They’re not having to worry about what’s going on at work, whether they’re going to be staying in touch, or how that conversation went with their leader because Circle In has been there every step of the way, both for them and their people leader. It’s also the people leader who decides to jump onto the platform when they find out that someone in their team is caring for a sick family member and they want to understand how they can better support. It’s having someone who might be feeling isolated with their care responsibilities and then sees one of the real stories pop up and thinks I might actually reach out to that person and you start building those connections. So, when people are using the platform to really better support others and also to support themselves, for me that that’s going to be a success, and really at its heart, it’s our people feeling more supported as caregivers, as people leaders, and as team members.
Why Circle In?
For us a really strong values alignment, it was really wonderful to partner with an organization whose mission is to provide greater support and tools for the caregiver community. We know they make up such a large proportion of the workforce and there are so many really unique and diverse experiences, so it’s wonderful to be able to partner with Circle In to work together to help our caregiver community thrive and, and that caregiver community, as I said, it extends to our managers, our people, leaders, and just the broader team, so we’re really proud of that and it was a great opportunity for us to partner.
We are thrilled to welcome Xero to our Circle and look forward to supporting their people in all of the moments that matter.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can support your employees, click here to talk to us today.
