Belonging Project Podcast

Fiorenza Rossini (00:52)
Today I’m sitting down with Sam Almond-Riggs. Sam is a devoted husband and father, a keen sports fan and book nerd. Professionally, he’s a hands-on marketer, determined to make things better and easier for parents. Hi, Sam, welcome. It’s great to have you here today. We were just chatting before we started recording the episode about potty training and all that. How old is your little one?

Sam Allman-Briggs (01:21)
Yeah, he’s 16 months. So yeah, it’s been a roller coaster of just over a year now.

Fiorenza Rossini (01:27)
it’s very hands on at that age.

Sam Allman-Briggs (01:30)
incredibly. He’s just starting to walk and his favorite words daddy. So it’s about navigating all the all the steps and the obstacles. Our sitting room has never been as both messy and clean, just trying to ensure that he doesn’t fall over and smack his head and we end up in a late night trip to A &E just because he’s gone. Yeah, it is the best thing in the world to be the dad. But yeah, I mean, the

Tricks and tropes are not one I would take lightly.

Fiorenza Rossini (02:01)
And quite quickly you’ll move into, look daddy, look at me, look daddy.

Sam Allman-Briggs (02:07)
We’re

already at the stage where I go into the kitchen to cook on a night and I’ve left him with my wife and then I look around and he’s the other side of the room and I’m like, how did you get there? my wife’s like, I’ve no idea. It’s one of those chaos moments and the talking is rapidly coming. We’re not going to get him to shut up soon or stop moving.

It’s exciting, it’s terrifying at the same time.

Fiorenza Rossini (02:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s just a different level of energy that it requires on us. And I have a question as you are a book nerd, and those are your words, by the way, book nerd and sports fan. Do you find any

Sam Allman-Briggs (02:42)
Yes.

Fiorenza Rossini (02:54)
parallels between the endurance of long sports season or a very thick novel and the early years of parenting.

Sam Allman-Briggs (03:05)
Patience. I mean, I’m a Leeds United fan and this season being in the Premier League for the first time in two years has been a massive test of patience and seeing you can eventually get good results but it’s just about remaining calm under pressure and it’s the same as parenting. is, you know, one minute you’re willing them to do something and the next minute they, it’s like they take a step back.

and it’s just about willing them and enjoying the process and enjoying the season or the book as it goes on and enjoying seeing your children grow up. I’m never going to see this time with him again and very much like you can see the highlights of a sports game but you’re never going to be in that moment again. Just enjoying it and having a lot of patience just while they…

They do stuff that comes so naturally to you, I think are the parallels, I see.

Fiorenza Rossini (04:00)
That makes sense. Right, and you are driven to make things better and easier for parents. Could you tell us a little bit where the drive comes from for you?

Sam Allman-Briggs (04:12)
Yeah, I guess it’s, um, when I, when me and my, wife, um, found out we were expecting, I looked anywhere and everywhere for, for, um, dad resources and, and, and stuff that would make parents’ lives easier. And there was a distinct lack of that happening and I ended up leaving a job, um, I worked at a membership body for two years.

And it naturally kind of came to an end in particular when we were when we were expecting and I applied for a job at a baby and toddler event. An actual one of these these shows that go to big exhibition centers. And I very quickly realized there that everybody wanted to talk to the mums, but nobody really wanted to talk to the dads. And this kind of backwards thinking for me sparked off this real

kind of drive an innovation and to change parents’ lives for the better. And that’s not just mums and that’s dads, that’s grandparents, that’s adopted parents and those going through surrogacy. I just wanted to work in environments and work with clients where I could really make that difference and make a positive change to the world.

Fiorenza Rossini (05:12)
Mm. Mm.

Sam Allman-Briggs (05:33)
I’m a keen advocate for a group called the Dad Shift who are trying to change paternity law for men. That was something that I particularly, I was particularly driven by the, the, what they’re doing and what they’re trying to do and Parenting Out Loud as well. And I just really wanted to kind of jump on that and change perceptions within a

very female driven environment to look at both mums and dads as well.

Fiorenza Rossini (06:05)
There is often a narrative that is strongly for women and for moms and I get it.

Sam Allman-Briggs (06:15)
I had a conversation with somebody when I was working there and they shocked me by what they said. I can’t remember the name of them, but I asked them because I was doing a lot of research and I was doing a proposal to do a kind of dad zone within the show. And I was getting a little bit, doing a little bit of market research. I was doing something and they turned around to me and said, we’re not interested in talking to dads. And I said, why? And they went,

well, you know, it’s the mums that have bit longer maternity leaves. It’s the mums that are our core customer. I said, but you dads and sectioning off dads because the mums are your core customer. I went, that doesn’t build longevity because, you know, I’m thankful that I’ve got a very supportive wife. And I know that if somebody spoke to me in a derogatory way about my parenting style, she would jump in and back me.

And I saw a lot of mums do the same when I worked there. But the fact that there was this almost backwards thinking from somebody in the industry, I was like, how can I change that? How can I disrupt it? And I ended up having a good 15 minute conversation. And I had to walk away because at the end, I was like, I’m just not getting anywhere. You’re so fixed in your way that you’re not going to listen to what you’re seeing around you.

And hopefully they’ve changed their minds now because they’ve seen the work that that dad shift and parenting out loud and doing. But I don’t think it’s I think it’s it needs to change because otherwise we’re never going to get to a progressive system. And the work that is happening and the bright spark that we’re seeing with, you know, day one parental rights coming into action. And I’ll speak about that a little bit later. But these are so small.

steps to what we’re actually asking for. And we need everybody in the sector to be behind that. And if one person isn’t, we’re never going to get there.

Fiorenza Rossini (08:12)
And that’s it. It’s about having those working in the sector, in the baby sector, to actually be supportive, not even avant-gardists, right? You just want them to be supportive and embracing change so that it’s inclusive. What led you to get involved with the Dad Shift and Parenting Out Loud?

Sam Allman-Briggs (08:27)
and absolutely.

When we were pregnant, there wasn’t a massive load of things happening. When we actually had our baby, my wife had a caesarean after two failed inductions. And the length of time that doctors and the NHS recommend recovery for C-section is six weeks. I only got two weeks as statutory. And I actually think those

those six weeks would have been monumentally helpful. I’ve got a very loving and supportive family and my in-laws were around. My mother-in-law took in effect two weeks of, as she calls it, “Grand” maternity leave and helped my wife out when she couldn’t drive and drove around for another two weeks. But that left another two weeks after those four.

where my wife had to get and rely on public transport. Now around us in South London, that’s not a bad thing because we’ve got a bus stop literally outside our house. But for somebody else, if we were living further outside of London, if we were living in the countryside, that just simply wouldn’t be possible. And I, if we do have a second one, I don’t want to be in a position where I still have two weeks. I want longer term.

because the benefits and the research has shown that having a longer bonding time between father and child beneficially helps the mother as much as it helps the father. And I, yeah, I wanted to push and help institutions that are already pushing this so that we are in a much better situation as a country that we go towards the more European style rather than sticking with what is traditionally.

Western value. I would say now a Western value is more hands-on parenting and that’s what I’m seeing, that’s what I’m hearing, that’s what needs to happen.

Fiorenza Rossini (10:20)
I’d like to go back a little bit, There is something that you’ve mentioned to me before today is that you and your wife also experienced pregnancy loss. And that was…

another area that I wanted to talk to you about.

Lots of families, lots of couples go through pregnancy loss and often it’s not even something that we get to talk about in the workplace because we can’t take time off or because we don’t feel safe enough to mention it. Was it something that you brought up in your workplace?

Sam Allman-Briggs (10:50)
yeah, sort of. so we, we fell pregnant, over the Christmas 2023 to 2024. and we were getting married that September, September 24th. and it just so happened that, pregnancy was expected in, in that September. So we moved our wedding. We rearranged a lot of big life events.

To accommodate what we thought was going to be a really exciting prospect and we got to 12 weeks we got told that unfortunately our baby didn’t have a heartbeat and that and that broke us I Initially had only taken half a day off work and I came out of the room, you know crying tears dripping down my face or from the from the the scan center

And just messaged my boss at the time and just said, look, I’m not going to be in today. We’ve received some bad news. I need to take the rest of the day. And then explained that evening what happened. Thankfully at that time, she was quite supportive and said, take, take the rest of the week. I already had the half of the following week off because it was my wife’s birthday. So we were, we were actually planning to go away. So that was already.

booked as annual leave, the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I hadn’t booked off as in total. And I, when we, yeah, when we lost the baby, was really, it was heartbreaking. We’d rearranged our entire life. We were, know, as pregnancy loss is horrible, but I noticed something weird.

We were rushed into a room and they said afterwards, because we put in a complaint about the way we were treated, they said afterwards that most people find it helpful. And it wasn’t helpful. It just felt like we were just ushered into a room to hide us away from everybody else that was expecting. And I felt that really alien and weird. But I also noticed that nobody was talking about it. And in particular, from a male perspective, it was

it’s hushed and it was quiet. So when I went back, I made a very conscious effort to be open about it because I didn’t think, you know, the statistics of one in four pregnancies ending a miscarriage or stillbirth, I didn’t think that this should be hidden away and quiet and quiet and damp. Something positive I’ve seen since we lost our first child was

that more people are talking about it, which is great. But before we’d experienced it, nobody was. And I really wanted to change that, in particular for me. And I think it’s incredibly important to talk about it because it is detrimental to your mental health. It’s detrimental to your physical health. It is emotionally and physically taxing on you. Recently, my best…

my best man at my wedding, I’ve been best friends with him since we were 15. Unfortunately, him and his wife suffered a ⁓ very similar loss to us. But having experienced it myself, was able to be there for him and I was able to tell him, you know, don’t bottle up these feelings up, know, don’t be a man about it, you know, cry, talk to people, call people, speak to them.

Because that’s the only way that this A, this stigma is going to disappear and B, that’s the only way you’re going to feel better because you shouldn’t treat it as you’re just another statistic. That was your life. That was your baby. was your, you rearranged everything to accommodate this new life that you thought you were expecting. Don’t hide away and don’t shy away from what was going to happen.

and what you were expecting because it’s exciting and everybody gets lost in that moment. one thing I don’t think anybody talks about, and I don’t think I talked about it properly at the time, was that anxiety for those next 12 weeks that you’re carrying your next child after you’ve experienced a loss. Because that was the hardest 12 weeks, I think, of my life because I hadn’t…

That anxiety that you felt after you’ve lost that child, thinking it might happen again, not just hoping, is horrendous. And that also, I think, needs to be spoken about as well, because that’s a thing that never gets spoken about.

Fiorenza Rossini (15:15)
The anxiety that is very much present.

Sam Allman-Briggs (15:17)
Yeah.

Fiorenza Rossini (15:22)
How supportive was your workplace? Did they give you any time off other than, because what I understand is you had blocked time off for your wife’s birthday. So I’m guessing that was holiday time, right?

Sam Allman-Briggs (15:37)
Yeah,

so they gave me three days. I mean, I think I actually… They would have given me more. But after those three days and after my annual leave, I went back to work. The first day I was at home, which was fine, and I was able to kind of just take things easy.

I put up a LinkedIn status and I just said, you know, my, my my workplace has been great. I actually received a really lovely email from somebody. On a different department that I knew of, but I hadn’t hadn’t actually spoken too much. And he sent me, sent me a lovely, lovely email, saying he’d gone through the same, and you know, take it easy. And if I ever needed to talk to him, his office still was always open for me.

And the Thursday of that week, the following week, I went into the office because I worked in events marketing and we had our flagship event that evening. So I went in because I was expecting to work. And that was the toughest day I think I’ve ever experienced in any job. I only made it, I think I made it, lasted two hours in the building.

I went in and cried. my director, my managing director came in and spoke to me and just said that he’d gone through something similar and he was really sorry and, was really nice to me. And that ended me in tears. I then had a meeting with my direct line manager and she was great at that time.

And she said, look, you you’ve done your job. You’ve got people in the building. You have sorted out all of the assets. know, as far as your contribution to the event goes, you’ve done yours. Go home, be with your wife. You know, take it easy. If you need to work from home for the rest of week, do.

you know, take it easy. that was really helpful. I didn’t end up going to that event, which would have helped because I probably would have been in the corner crying while everybody’s trying to celebrate. yeah, for the initial, I would say, week to two weeks after, they were great. When we then got pregnant again, I don’t think they were great. And this is my truth.

And I know people would probably disagree with this, but my truth was that there was no understanding of the anxiety that happened. There was no understanding of what I might be going through mentally and struggling and why my eye may have slipped off the ball on a few occasions or why I may not be achieving to the best of my ability. And I don’t think that

that was dealt with right and in an appropriate way.

Fiorenza Rossini (18:30)
At that point, did you feel that it was safe to have a conversation?

Sam Allman-Briggs (18:33)
No, I didn’t. There were

things that happened where I snapped at colleagues because of the mental toll that I was under, that I…

felt I wasn’t able to talk to people. I mentioned, we were having a conversation just before this, I mentioned about honesty and integrity being two very key aspects of my personal belief system. And I had a colleague who I worked with in the marketing department, who I was very good friends with.

She then moved into a role that sat parallel. Whereas I was the events marketing manager, she was the events manager. So I did all the marketing for the event, she did the overall operations side. And when she stepped into that role, there was a massive personality change. And I, on a few occasions, butted heads with her and she would do things that

Fiorenza Rossini (19:32)
Right.

Sam Allman-Briggs (19:47)
would be seen as sniping or make remarks under her breath that I would catch out with. And I wasn’t very good at that point at biting my tongue and I would snap back. Unfortunately, her best friend in the company was my direct line manager. And I felt that there was a lot of nepotism because if I snapped back, there was no recourse as to why I snapped. It was my reaction that was

caught, not the reason for my reaction. And I’m, yeah, that was really tough. And I didn’t feel I was ever able to have that conversation with anybody because if I did, it would be just, you’re not performing to your abilities. She’s just trying to do her job. Yeah, that was really tough to deal with.

Fiorenza Rossini (20:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, I can imagine. Were you in that role when your child was born?

Sam Allman-Briggs (20:41)
No, no, I had left that role in the August 2024. My child was born in December and I did have a another role. And that was actually the role. The I worked at the baby event when my child was born.

Fiorenza Rossini (20:58)
And was that the behavior and the dynamics of your colleague who became the events manager and then the allyship with your own line manager that led you to lead that role?

Sam Allman-Briggs (21:10)
Partly, I felt like my time was up. I’ve been doing it for two years. I was coming into my third cycle of events and I was trying to push for some changes that necessarily weren’t agreed with, which did cause a bit of friction with the team. Ultimately, my time was up at that place for…

mutual reasons I decided to leave. was, was a, yeah, it was, yeah, I wasn’t gonna last because I just, I, my heart wasn’t in it. The anxiety was thought provoking and because I, because my attention had shifted and my, you know, my Ikigai had moved to, you know,

wanting to be there for my wife and my new baby.

Fiorenza Rossini (22:03)
So you took this other role, so that was the baby and child show. So, and you were in this role for only a few months when your little one was born.

Sam Allman-Briggs (22:08)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I started in the September. My little one was born on New Year’s Eve. So it’s New Year’s Eve, baby. Yeah, so I’m deaf three, four months, I think I was in the role.

Fiorenza Rossini (22:25)
How was it being new in a role and having a new baby? How did you find that time in your life navigating between the two?

Sam Allman-Briggs (22:36)
Tricky. mean, nobody everybody tells you that the late nights are one not to worry about but until you’re in that situation it is you don’t recognize it. Getting up, having to set your alarm at 2am to feed your baby or if he doesn’t sleep we had a

We had a couple of weeks where he just wouldn’t sleep from about half two to about half five in the morning. And that was, that was, you know, if I was on the night shift to let my wife have a little bit of sleep, that was tough. Um, yeah, I found a new love for, for wrestling on Netflix at that time. But it was, yeah, it was, it wasn’t easy, but yeah, it’s part of being a parent. That was the, that was the kind of the key aspect that I.

kept on trying to drill and that, you know, coffee is a wonderful thing.

Fiorenza Rossini (23:34)
Yes it is. Did you get the two statutory weeks off or did you have more time off?

Sam Allman-Briggs (23:44)
I had the statutory. What was interesting and what I found was, until I left my previous role and joined that role, I didn’t know that you weren’t eligible for two weeks statutory leave unless you would work to the company for X amount of time. And whilst I was in negotiations for joining, I requested

the parental leave documentation, just so I had a copy. And now looking back in it, that should have triggered warning signs because they refused to send it to me. And my first day, I asked for it and they had a conversation with me and they said about, you know, I wasn’t actually eligible, but because they,

needed to be seen to be helpful to new parents because of the industry, they would gifted me it. And that was the phrasing that was used. Now, that triggers massive alarm bells for me. If anybody said that, I think anybody would be like, whoa, hang on, gifting.

Since then, it is now a day one right, which is fantastic, but it is up to the company whether people get paid. They thankfully paid me statutory paternity and they were good during those two weeks and they good in the lead up apart from one day. But yeah, was a weird, weird

thing that looking back on it is a bit weird at the time. just kind of didn’t think anything of it.

Fiorenza Rossini (25:15)
And you had mentioned to me when we connected that you were meant to be holding the fort or you were kind of on duty between Christmas and New Year’s and you were in hospital.

Sam Allman-Briggs (25:28)
Yeah, so on the Sunday before Christmas, my wife had noticed no movement for a few hours. Now at that stage, that is alarm bells swinging, get yourself to the maternity unit, get yourself checked out. Annoyingly, as soon as my wife was strapped onto the thing, he moved, which was like, great, okay. But we, she,

developed hypertension during that last week, which is one step down from preeclampsia, which was kind of setting alarm bells off. We were kept in on 22nd, no, 21st, I think it was, for a number of hours. We then had to go back the following day. And from then we were told over that week of Christmas we needed to come in every couple of days. And one of those was

on Christmas Eve. I had used up all my allotted annual leave because when I joined I already had a baby, we already had our baby booked so that took all my annual leave for that time and I said to, on Christmas Eve I was the only one that was working because the other two

members of the team were on annual leave one long term, the other managing director of the business was also taking it off. had everything on my phone. I was working, checking emails. I could take phone calls if I needed to, but I was very honest. And I said, we’ve had to go into the hospital for…

Fiorenza Rossini (26:52)
No.

Sam Allman-Briggs (27:06)
checks because my wife’s got hypertension, we just need to do it. We weren’t expecting to be in there for as long as we were. We ended up being in there for about five hours. We were only expecting to be in there for an hour. But that was treated as a massive inconvenience. And at that point, all I’m wanting to do is be there for my wife and potential baby that could arrive at any time. ⁓

Fiorenza Rossini (27:27)
Yeah, and the anxiety, right?

Is that yeah.

Sam Allman-Briggs (27:31)
And there was nothing urgent that, I mean, that we were dealing with an issue of a retailer that had gone out of business and people weren’t happy. They were due any day soon and orders had not been fulfilled. we were in that kind of, we were trying to deal with helping those people out. But there was nothing that I could do immediately

that needed or warranted the kind of level of inconvenience that I was made to feel. You know, I was still emailing people, I was keeping my boss up to date, I was taking any phone calls that came, I was doing my job, just albeit from a hospital room. Yeah, it was just very, very strange behavior at that point.

Fiorenza Rossini (28:20)
Is there anything that perhaps a simple sentence that you wished people would have told you or a simple act, simple thing that would have made the whole thing look different and feel different for you?

Sam Allman-Briggs (28:37)
It’s so simple. Don’t worry about it. Do what you can. That would have gone a massive way. Christmas Eve is also my mother-in-law’s birthday. So we were going out in the afternoon for a meal anyway. I had been gifted half a day annual leave to take on Christmas Eve.

You just to just to nobody else was working. I was the one holding down the floor, you know. A little bit of humanity, just just to say, you know. Be with be with your wife, just keep me updated. That’s that’s all that’s all that that that’s what should have happened. That’s looking back on it, that that is exactly what I needed at that point.

Fiorenza Rossini (29:21)
I’m sorry that didn’t happen. ⁓ Tell us what happened after that. So your baby was born on your eve. What happened to you after that? How was the whole experience at home and at work?

Sam Allman-Briggs (29:31)
Yep. Yep.

At home amazing two weeks it was fantastic went back to work on a Thursday that Thursday and Friday work were quite nice then back into the the office of the following week and it was more it was very much like we go we go again

ignoring the fact that you’re now a dad, ignoring the fact that you might be sleep deprived, we go again, we do this.

Fiorenza Rossini (30:05)
Here comes Sam,

unchanged.

Sam Allman-Briggs (30:09)
Yeah,

in a way. And yeah, was, you know, it’s tough being a new dad and having to go away for four nights for an event that is that’s tough. And that’s that’s challenging. And there were there were things that happened that year. All those four months.

before I was actually, I was made redundant, that I look back on with real kind of anger. You know, we, one example, we moved a holiday, we were, we go, we try and go away every, every New Year, Christmas, between Christmas and New Year and over New Year, we like to spend New Year in a different place. And we booked a holiday to Crasta in Northumberland, which is my wife’s family’s

ancestral home, beautiful place in the world. And we had, we’d moved it because we were due, we were due our baby. So we moved it to March, just the week after my wife’s birthday. And I had made it very clear and

because of how big 2025 was, you know, we had our wedding, we were gonna go on a mini moon, then we were gonna go on our honeymoon later. And we also had this holiday that I would be as open and upfront as I was about my annual leave. And I was expecting the honeymoon because it hadn’t been booked to be the trickiest one to navigate because…

of a really weird and stupid rule they had in place. And it wasn’t. It was the March holiday that we had booked that came under a lot of heat. And I was basically told that I could go, but I would have to work at least three half days. And I said,

This is my first holiday with my baby. I explained why what happened about us moving here. And I said, if I’m forced to work three half days, there was no there was no real honest truth in me going. If you need me to, I will be flexible enough to work for an hour a day. And I could do that. You know, I did that between 830 and 930.

in case anything urgent popped up. On one of those days, I ended up working until midday, simply because something that could have been handed over to somebody wasn’t. And there was a reluctance that it was almost a, you know, punishment because I had gone away and booked this holiday that I was letting them know well in advance what was going to happen. And that, yeah, that left a really sour taste in my mouth.

The rule was you weren’t allowed to go on annual leave or use any of your annual leave entitlements eight weeks before an event. Which for somebody who is not married and doesn’t have children, that’s absolutely fine. Because within that time you could go June, July, know you could go May, June, a little bit of July.

November and December. They were the five months that you could take annual leave according to this policy. my holidays didn’t fit with that policy. And it’s a silly policy. I’ve never worked in a place where a policy about annual leave has been so implemented.

I worked in education establishments and educational technology establishments and the only month they said if you can avoid is the first two weeks of September because that’s when we see an influx in requests because that’s when schools go back. But I’ve had such strict implementations and when I am able to take annual leave. Doing my own research around it,

everywhere says annual leave is an entitlement, it is a gift. To be made to feel like it is a gift and you are being gifted even though you having to work whilst you’re on annual leave, that’s not right. That doesn’t sit well with me. In fact, when I got the job that I’ve recently just been made redundant from, one of my questions in the interview was around, is there any time when annual leave cannot be taken?

Fiorenza Rossini (34:17)
Yeah.

Sam Allman-Briggs (34:43)
And they were absolutely like, like, dumbstruck that I was even asking the question. And they went, absolutely not. You can take it whenever you want. You know, why? And they actually laughed about the policy because they said it was stupid. they said that actually it is unenforceable. It was weird. And it set up a lot of red flags for me that that.

didn’t sit right with me.

Fiorenza Rossini (35:08)
Thank you for being here. I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode. If you want to hear more about this topic, join me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/fiorenza-rossini

Fiorenza Rossini (35:26)
We often hear about the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood where actually while women might get some negative stigma or your career is now going to stall. You’re not going to be eligible for promotions. Research suggests that it’s the contrary for dads.

But listening to your story, it does raise ⁓ eyebrows for sure. What do you think of this research and how your reality looks like?

Sam Allman-Briggs (35:56)
It has its pros and cons. I think it is right because it is often the mum that does end up taking the tax and it is, you know, in certain aspects the mother will always be the ones that are going to be overlooked because they go on maternity leave. My wife works for the NHS and we were having a conversation about if we had waited to have our first until after she had qualified as a doctor, would she be able to move up to that early bracket?

⁓ you know, if we then had a baby once she’d qualified and, and, she’d taken that time out of maternity leave. And the answer is, is to that is she would have, she would have been held back because now she can go into a role when the majority of her colleagues would be going on maternity leave, she probably will not be because she’s already had that one. So she could

potentially move up into that next bracket quicker as a result. And that is true. It shouldn’t be like that at all because actually, you know, research has shown that women and people are more empathetic when they are parents than they will be without. I think, you know, in my case, there have been holdbacks and there have been…

things that have held me back on going through my career and moving into the step. I don’t think that’s necessarily down to me being a parent. I don’t think that’s helped. But I do think there are issues within the wider culture of a lack of understanding. Should it be acceptable that a father

of a four month old is made redundant? No. Should it be acceptable for a father of a one year old, a mother of a four and a two year old and a mother of a one month old are all made redundant because somebody wants to push the company into voluntary liquidation? Absolutely not. And

I think that is a lack of understanding and a lack of self-awareness of the real toll that redundancies can take on parents and a lack of understanding and a lack of commitment and willingness to help. And I think that culture, that isn’t just sector culture, that culture in our world needs to change.

Fiorenza Rossini (38:18)
Yeah. And I feel like there is probably regulations around companies when they restructure and employees are being put at risk certain amount of time and so on. You know, was the person was the employee on maternity leave, parental leave, paternity leave. But if for cases like

putting a company through voluntary liquidation I don’t think there is any I might be wrong but I don’t think there is any regulation around that.

Sam Allman-Briggs (38:47)
⁓ There’s no regulation. And yeah, you know, the two words that spring back to mind are honesty and integrity. Have we been told way before? Something may have come, but the fact that we weren’t, that stinks.

Fiorenza Rossini (38:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

So in 2026, hear, we hear lots about bringing our whole self to work, being who we are. Given your experiences, do you feel like you can? Do you feel that there is a push to wear a corporate mask?

Sam Allman-Briggs (39:21)
I feel there is still this need to wear a corporate mask because I think the people in higher positions are from a time where things were very different. They don’t come from ⁓ a time where parents are, and in particular dads, are much more hands on. And very willing to be hands on.

Fiorenza Rossini (39:42)
and willing to be hands on.

Sam Allman-Briggs (39:48)
This cultural shift needs to happen sooner because more and more dads are wanting to be. And I have seen all of my LinkedIn, follow loads of people who are new dads and the excitement that they have and the drive that is, you know, I had a late night last night. I love it.

This is what it’s talked to me about B2B marketing. but it, it, this, I think it’s slipping and I do think it’s slipping as more and more of, of kind of our generation are stepping into, into those, those higher and senior positions. think more needs to be done. I think you, you, you don’t just have to be Sam the marketer and Sam the parent. You can combine them. You can be Sam the marketer who is a parent.

you can do two jobs because you when you get when you you pick when I pick my child up from nursery at 5 5 30 pm I don’t switch off I’m in dad mode you know until he goes to sleep you know before I start work I am in dad mode it’s not a it’s not a a mind shift mindset shift

Fiorenza Rossini (40:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sam Allman-Briggs (41:04)
know, if I get a call in the middle of the day saying he’s got a temperature and he needs to come home, I’m sorry, my child comes first. And that is changing. And I’ve seen that change. I’ve been part of that change. You know, my last company was great from a parenting aspect where, you know, I got a call saying my child had been sick.

And I went and picked him up and didn’t have to worry about client calls, client things. Clients understood because he was a parenting marketing agency where parenting was at the heart of it. And everyone, everyone got that. And it was great to be part of an industry and a company that had that as its core value. And that was, yeah, that was fantastic. So that, from that aspect, the corporate mask was never on.

because people understood it. In other industries that I’ve seen, you definitely have to wear that corporate mask at times, but it needs to slip and it needs to come off pretty soon.

Fiorenza Rossini (42:11)
What’s your number one hope for fathers?

Sam Allman-Briggs (42:16)
Potentially. I really hope that by the time if we do have a second one, by the time that comes around that I am having a minimum of six weeks off to support my wife, to support our family, to do the nursery drop-offs and the nursery pickups, the school drop-off or school pick up, whatever it may be, but also to be there

and be much more present in that moment rather than counting down, great, I’ve got two weeks to go and then I’m back in the work. Yeah, I hope that comes. I also hope that both maternity and paternity pay increases and that it’s not a financial hardship for families. And I hope parents get more rights.

You know, one thing I argue about is, you know, things are changing and things are going in the right direction. You know, everybody’s talking about the falling birth rate because the cost of living crisis and everybody’s wanting more babies. But when you have a baby, you’re almost punished for having that child because the pay doesn’t help. The leave doesn’t help. You get hardly any support. then they want

people to be having more children. So you can’t have one without the other. You need both in order to be financially stable in a world where prices are shooting up. ⁓

Fiorenza Rossini (43:43)
Yeah. And we are probably

the first generation that lives without family or immediate family so close to us, right? So you have to factor that in as well. Everything has a cost. Yeah. And then, know, retirement age is being pushed and pushed.

Sam Allman-Briggs (43:58)
Yeah.

Fiorenza Rossini (44:04)
which also, in some cases, means that you don’t have gun parents available to help because they’re still working.

Sam Allman-Briggs (44:12)
I mean

I’m very fortunate that 10 minutes from my front door my in-laws live and I you know we they have my child on a Monday and they are you know my father-in-law in particular was winding down to retirement and they’re loving it because they get to be full-on hands-on grandparents in the grave but my you know people don’t people don’t have that at all

And it, you know, my best, my best man and his wife, their parents live 20 minutes from either side. I’ve got friends where their parents live the other side of the country. And family that, you know, that live the other side of the country. It is, it is just a minefield. And that financial stability, yeah, financial stability. I just, I just hope that

Fiorenza Rossini (44:46)
Yeah.

Sam Allman-Briggs (44:57)
The work in particular that Dadshift and Parenting Out Loud are doing takes off and that in two years time, the conversation that we’re having about leave and pay is a distant memory and we can laugh and joke about it because it’s not happened. It’s much better and in a much more secure position and we’re much happier as a result.

Fiorenza Rossini (45:21)
Yeah. Thank you so much, Sam. Really appreciate your time and our conversation today.

Sam Allman-Briggs (45:24)
I think so.

Great, thank you.