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Work and family aren’t two separate lives—they’re one reality. Welcome to Parenting at Work, the podcast exploring the human side of business. Join us for a warm conversation with leaders redefining employee support. Each episode offers stories and strategies for building workplaces that care. This is serious coverage with serious heart.
This podcast is brought to you by Juno, the modern safety net for working families.
Learn more at junokids.com
maggieruvoldt-2026-6-12__15-1-30-CFR
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Lindsey HOST: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to Parenting at Work. I am very excited today to be speaking with Maggie Ruvoldt. She has spent more than three decades in human resources, most recently as the chief human resources officer at Learn Behavioral, a national network of ABA therapy providers serving more than 5,000 children with autism across 19 states.
Her workforce is thousands of behavioral technicians and clinicians, frontline workers who show up in person and work directly with kids and families. She also operates in an advisory capacity to women and HR leaders to help them share their stories, support women across the life cycle, which I love with appropriate benefits like fertility, parental leave, and menopause care.
So she is no stranger to what working parents need at every stage in life. Maggie, thank you so much for being [00:01:00] on the show today.
Maggie GUEST: Well, thank you so much for having me. , It's always an honor to have these kinds of conversations, and they're important conversations that I don't know that we have often enough. it's, there's always more to talk about when it comes to parenting and how everybody's balancing work and, and their responsibilities outside of work
Lindsey HOST: Absolutely. So I, I wanna jump right in and learn a little bit more about you, and I wanna learn more about your philosophy and approach to being a people leader. Do you believe that HR has to be the experts of all of the things? Tell us about how you approach your journey with being a people leader.
Maggie GUEST: Happy to share. So as you mentioned, I've been in people leadership, in and out of people leadership actually for about three decades. I can't believe that's what's happened, and I think the HR field has changed an enormous amount during that period of time. And, . to share even more about myself 'cause we're talking about parenting, I am the mother of two kids who are largely grown and flown.
We've built our family through adoption. And, when I think about [00:02:00] parenting, I know something about caregiving more broadly, and I'm sure we'll have a chance to talk about that later today. But who I am as a parent and who I am as a leader and a family member and a sister and friend, they're all intersected.
It took me a long time to get really comfortable with bringing who I am to my people leadership. It is so true - people leaders are expected to know what to do in every kind of situation. You get a call and people are like I would love your advice, and here's the situation."
The assumption is either I've seen it before or I know what to do. And I lean into, in those moments as I approach all of my leadership around, okay, how can I be empathetic? How do I understand from the other person's point of view what's happening there? And often there are two sides, more than two sides, to every story. And as a people leader, I think listening is your biggest tool, and actually hearing what everybody's saying and what everybody's experiencing in that moment. And as a CHRO, I feel like my job is to provide [00:03:00] perspective as a business person who happens to do HR for a living and for my team to make them successful and to give them the tools that they can be to be successful.
And, talking about here at Learn in particular, when I have the opportunity to go out to one of our centers and watch the work that those technicians and clinicians are doing I realize that our job in the people team is to support those people so that when they're working with a child every day,, that their focus is on that child because they're not worried about all the other things that are happening in their life if we can support them as much as we can.
Lindsey HOST: You have said a lot in that, that I look forward to unpacking. One of the things that stands out to me immediately is talking about the difference in hearing and listening. I think that's such a big difference. So often I feel like we've found ourselves in a situation where you're telling somebody something or trying to share with somebody, and you can tell that they are just...
They're just listening and waiting to respond to you. And so I think really hearing [00:04:00] your team , that is powerful. So admittedly, of course we did a little internet stalking prior to meeting with you today, and one of the quotes that I found that really stood out to me you said, "People don't stay at companies for money, and they don't stay at companies for perks.
What they're looking for is the feeling that the work they do every day is valued." 13 years later, in a world with remote work, quiet quitting, and the Great Resignation has this held up? How do you look at this now? Are we rethinking any of that?
Maggie GUEST: That is a blast from the past quote. Thank you for that.
I think that is still absolutely true. People wanna feel that they're valued. I remember years ago,, see, there was a snowstorm when I was living in northern New Jersey at the time, and, the mayor of New York City came on and said, "All non-essential workers can stay home." And I remember thinking, "That's not a very nice thing to call other people." Like, my job is essential. [00:05:00] Um, and when I think about work, , everyone's job, you can connect it back to whatever the mission of the company is, whatever the company's's trying to accomplish. There are no unimportant jobs. They all contribute in some kind of way, and people want to have that sense.
, Because it's a sense that the time that you spend away from your family, and however family is defined for you and away from your personal life is spent at work, you should feel valued in that time
Lindsey HOST: Yeah. That is language that often is being used, especially I think post-COVID. What is essential, what is not. And I think that it's really good to call out that what people want is to all feel essential. We all want to feel meaningful and important and, your workforce, they're not sitting at laptops, as you mentioned.
They are technicians, they're BCBAs, they're in clinics, they're at home. They are not just like in a home, but they're in the homes of parents who are really clinging to the support and the needs of their [00:06:00] children, and that is such a high-pressure situation, I would imagine, for a lot of your staff.
I have shared on this podcast pretty openly that my child has pretty significant disability needs and, so I have experienced firsthand what it's like, when you have therapists or clinicians,, just people in your home, and the pressure and the eyes on those folks. So what I wanna ask you about is, how do you think about supporting people who can't flex their schedule but are often dealing with these really intense roles at work?
How do you balance that?
Maggie GUEST: What I try to do is, ask, "Okay, what could we... What are the supports that are possible?" If you look at what's not possible, they have to show up in the centers, in the homes, in schools in order to do that work. And this has been true in every organization I've ever been in.
There are people who have roles that have more flexibility than others. And what does that flexibility mean? Is it time flexibility? [00:07:00] Is it location flexibility? What's meaningful for that person? But if I can't offer that because of the nature of the job, and you think about, we were talking about essential workers before, nurses, firefighters, police officers, all kinds of, essential workers, what can we do around that?
How do we support their mental health? Are there ways in which we can support any amount of flexibility? Sometimes you can think a little bit out of the box when it comes to those kinds of things. Maybe it's in a time off kind of way. How do you support them financially? And not only financially with dollars, but how do you support financial wellness? One of the programs that we have helps people find ways to reduce student loans that they may have, and that relieves a little bit of a financial burden. And when you can, relieve some of the financial burden, maybe that opens up other opportunities for them to get flexibility. Even if it's not in that job, it may be it's in accessing support they might not otherwise be able to afford because they're taking those dollars towards a student loan, as an [00:08:00] example. So we try to think as creatively as we can around what are all the different things that create, an opportunity for somebody to be able to balance things differently than they're able to balance it today.
Lindsey HOST: It's very meaningful when you can look at your employer and realize that they are attempting to do that. I think none of us expect perfection. We know that there are difficult decisions being made. There's expenses and finances have to be considered. But I love the idea that there's other ways that may not be as obvious that can still provide just a bit of lift, a bit of reprieve for the families that are working so hard.
Does leading HR for a company that literally serves children and families change how you think about what employers owe their employees who are parents?
Maggie GUEST: That's a great question. I don't know that I have thought of it that way. I think what it has... what it does is it keeps it more front and center because it does remind me that [00:09:00] everybody's parenting journey is different, and that people's parenting needs in any given moment vary. I had my own parenting journey but what that looked like isn't necessarily what it looks like for you or for, my best friend or I have a very good friend who was a military wife for a really long time. It is a good reminder that everybody's journey is very different, and that's, that kind of goes back to the listening. It reminds me we had a benefit a few years ago that we were convinced when we put it in place, like this was gonna be the thing working parents needed. They needed access to this particular benefit, and I don't wanna name it to disparage it in any kind of way. And then we found out nobody used it. Very few people. Company thousands of employees, I think we had less than 50 people using the benefit. And when we dug into why, it just wasn't, it wasn't solving the problem that we thought it was solving or, and they didn't value it, so we swapped it out for something else. So it's also a reminder of don't assume just because you've been there that you know [00:10:00] what people need in this time.
Like my kids are grown, the needs have changed. So it's always that kind of reminder
Lindsey HOST: How are you bridging that gap? You obviously shared that you put something out there, it didn't work, you pivot, you make changes. I would imagine there were some other learnings and takeaways about how to make sure that the benefits were in fact meeting the needs of your community or your employees
Maggie GUEST: It's a lot about asking them directly. You can do all kinds of surveys. People will tell you that they need a certain thing, but you see it by what- whether or not they're utilizing it. But really being out there and asking individuals, because in a conversation, unlike in a survey, you get so much more information about what's wrapped around all of those things. So I think that's it. It's also, my team gives me great feedback. It comes from... Accept feedback on this from anywhere that you can get it and create an environment where people are [00:11:00] comfortable saying, "Hey, I don't know why we spend money on that. It'd be much more useful if we did this or did that." I think the other thing to remember, you were talking about there's always competition for resources. One of my favorite expressions is you can only spend a dollar exactly one time. And I look at, when I think about benefits, the benefits pie, that's what it is.
You've gotta figure out different ways to slice it up. And nobody wakes up in the morning and says, the one thing we should spend more money on is benefits." So you have to think about how do you responsibly spend that money? And then as transparently as possible, tell people, "This is why we're making these choices.
This is what we heard from you." That's... I think that's the best you can do.
Lindsey HOST: And I think that depending on a company's culture, if the s- the community feel like they can actually come to leadership and have those transparent conversations, especially in a lot of the parenting groups that I belong to, where there's a lot of focus on children who have disabilities, oftentimes there's a situation where [00:12:00] only one parent is able to work outside of the home because somebody else is caregiving.
And certainly it is not an exception to just that. Obviously parents are aging, and so employees are helping that community of people. There's lots of pulls on employees, and especially parents. And I think that not always do employees that are stressed or now feeling the financial burden of taking on caregiving for so many other people, more dependents, they don't always feel comfortable and confident saying out loud, "This is what's happening in my life," or, "This is what I need."
Or they really don't know what they need. So it's wonderful to have people in positions like yourself to be able to come up with some of these ideas and just really continue to try to have that conversation.
Maggie GUEST: I'm glad you mentioned caregivers 'cause we, we think and, and, people who are taking care of not just children or children plus or others, you know, people who are caring for siblings, [00:13:00] people who are caring for elderly parents or aging or unwell parents. you know, My kids were small my mom had, , early onset Alzheimer's, and so I had a period of a number of years where I was trying to balance helping care for her, along with my father and sister, and raising small children, and working full-time.
I think caregivers spend so much of their time, so much of our time, thinking about everyone else. Somebody needs to be thinking about the caregivers themselves. And that's where I, you know, I, I try to think And I ask my team, and I have a wonderful person who runs our benefits who herself is always, you know, thinking about what is the employee experience about, how are they balancing all the things.
One thing I know about caregivers is wherever they are in any moment of time, they feel the pull of the other places they should be. Whenever I was with my kids, I felt the pull of my mom and the pull of my job. Whenever I was with my mom, I felt the pull of the other two. , And so you're never really 100% present in the place you wanna be because there's many, many places you need to [00:14:00] be
Lindsey HOST: That's heavy. That's a lot. And I know that you are not alone in the journey that you have been on, and I appreciate your openness in just sharing it and calling it what it is. One of the things I was going to ask you was to share with me a moment in your parenting journey, and I think this is a good spot to interject this question.
Tell me about a time when you couldn't balance it all or where it really came to a head. Whether it was during the time you were helping to care for your mom, or it could be something completely different with your children. But, tell me about a time that you, even as an HR professional, had your worlds collide.
Maggie GUEST: Sure. I have this very specific moment, , that is not my favorite memory, but it's one that I think is important to share. And I think it's important for, uh, those of us at different parts of our career, and certainly those of us in positions of leadership, to share our stories. Because by not telling them, you're holding something back.
It's not about [00:15:00] authenticity and, and, "Oh, woe is me," but it gives other people permission to feel like that's... I see... I can be seen by this person because they have a similar experience, and I can share my story because that person felt comfortable sharing their story. , So this is many years ago. My son was about nine at the time.
, And we were sitting on the beach, and I had my cellphone in a Ziploc bag at the beach because I was checking... We were on vacation. We took one beach week a year. , But I was checking all the time. and at the same time you know, my mom was ill at the time and couldn't be with us and, and this beach that we go to every year, it was the place that I- my mom had taken us when we were kids. And my kids remembered being there with my mom, and now we were there, unfortunately, without her. And we had been talking earlier in the day about memories with her, and so I was particularly missing her on that day. And my phone buzzed, and I picked it up to look at it, and my son looked at me.
He was right in [00:16:00] front of me playing in the sand, and he looked at me and said, "I hate that thing." And whenever my kids used the word hate, I would always say Hate's a really strong word. You should reserve that, like, for when you really hate something." And he looked at me and said, "I really hate that thing." And I like, "Ugh." It, it was just... And I still remember that story. I bet you my son doesn't. But it was this moment where I thought, as I said before, like, I'm not fully present anywhere , and I needed to figure out ways in which to be fully present in that moment. , And I have lots of wonderful memories of being at the beach with my kids, obviously. , But that was definitely a moment where I felt like I had these... the pull of all three things were happening, and I almost needed him to say that so that I could see from his point of view. I was like, "I don't want this to be his memory," is mom sitting in a chair checking her email while I'm playing in the sand.
I wanted to be able to be present for him, so it was actually a gift in the end, as painful as it was.[00:17:00]
Lindsey HOST: Out of the mouth of babes. Isn't that what they say?
Maggie GUEST: Like it's...
Lindsey HOST: you can always count on the kids to just be so brutally honest.
How did that change the way you led your team? How did that change you when you got back to work? Did it create, actionable differences or was it more of, a personal change that happened?
Maggie GUEST: There were definitely actionable differences because I realized I was modeling horrible behavior for the people who worked for me. And even though I said to people, "Don't do what I do. Don't check in, you know, when, uh, you're on vacation. I wanna give you full permission," because I wasn't modeling it, they really didn't have permission, didn't feel it. , So I was much more careful about not responding to things unless they were truly an emergency. And it even changed when I was back at work. I would ch- you know, I would look at emails on a weekend. , I used to use Sundays, I'm very good at this now, I do not do this, to prepare for Monday, and I would send, uh, you know, a [00:18:00] bunch of emails.
And I was like, "You know what? I'm not gonna do that anymore. I'm gonna schedule them. I'm gonna do it because that's how I take care of it, but I'm not gonna have... I'm not actually gonna send the emails. I'm going to schedule them, and I'm not gonna schedule them all to show up within 15 minutes on a Monday morning.
I'm gonna think about when do I actually need... Like, this could wait till Tuesday. I'm gonna schedule it to go out on Tuesday. That person doesn't need to hear it till then." , And so I became much more mindful of what I was modeling. , And then later I thought a lot about the language. When somebody would say, "I'm gonna take this PTO."
"Okay, I really hope you turn off. What do you need from me or anybody around you to make sure you can really protect this time, this important time?" , And I was just trying to be more purposeful around that.
Lindsey HOST: That's incredible. I grew up with a dad who was a business owner, and I remember Sundays were the catch-up day, and I very much can relate. Had I grown up at a time when my dad had a cell phone, I can [00:19:00] imagine that might have been a moment that we had in our house, and it's a both/and.
You're modeling this incredible leadership and the hard work and the work ethic, and then finding that balance to be present. I don't think that's easy ever. But I appreciate, I hear you talking about you have to be able to model it, and I love the piece around language. Both of those things feel right, and they feel very actionable.
It's something that somebody can actually do. So I want to go back a bit because I skipped around, and I did not get to one of the questions I had written down earlier. So when I was researching a little history on you as well you have done some incredible things. I was so excited reading about you.
You have founded Mentoring Mondays at 2U and co-founded Eve Was Framed, a women's health media company. You have talked about supporting employees and women, and we talked briefly in the opener about you, that you look at this as like [00:20:00] across the life cycle meaning the right benefits and conversations at the right moments.
Please tell me about this. How much of this work First of all, I'd like for you to tell us about that work, and then I would love to see how it ties back to conversations around the culture and what you're bringing into your current role from these other roles that you have.
Maggie GUEST: Sure. Thanks for bringing all that up. So Mentoring Mondays was a mentor group for women at 2U. And it was not long before 2U put in employee resource groups and a more formal structure around those types of activities. But there were a group of women from across the company who I was mentoring in some kind of one-on-one way, and I thought, "What if I brought everybody together?" It was a little bit of a time efficiency play for me. I'm talking with, 10 women individually. What if I brought them into the same room? And we had a few rules. One was we didn't actually talk about the company - you know, we could talk about our careers, we could talk about challenges, but it was, it was sort of company agnostic. [00:21:00] Nobody on, in Mentoring Mondays reported to anybody else in Mentoring Mondays. So it was... Nobody had to worry about what they were saying in the room, and it was Chatham House Rules. Whatever happened in that room stayed in that room. And this,, it was also a number of women who actually didn't have a chance to work together.
The, the only way they knew each other was through this group. And it was really... Mentoring for me is always been important. I was, I was brought up to believe if you have skills, knowledge, or abilities, that is a privilege that you have, and it is your responsibility to share them as, much as you can with My grandmother used to complain about how much pro bono work my father and my grandfather did. They were lawyers in a practice together, and she'd be like, "Can we get some clients that pay?" , And so I sort of grew, grew up believing in that. But I get so much more out of it than I put into it.
Every mentoring conversation I learn something about myself, I learn something about the other person, I get a new perspective. , So I think that's why that work is important. , And for me, Eve Was Framed, which was, was a newsletter that we [00:22:00] did for a few years, was about educating women. , I kept calling it the Sex Ed 2.0 class that you never got. You know, and, , We had wonderful response to it, but it was again, you know, telling stories, making sure people got information that they needed. , And I did bring that back into the workplace because I learned a lot there that gave me more perspective about where people were on different parts of their, their individual journeys and their health journeys, um, and how, how could we be supporting that differently.
it was easy to check the box and say, "We offer medical benefits." , But If you don't have fertility benefits that cover same-sex couples, or because you need a diagnosis and a single woman wants to go and, and start a family on her own, we're not really covering everything. And if there isn't specific care in that knowledgeable, culturally competent care within your offerings, you're not doing... You really have checked a box. You're not doing enough. And Eve Was Framed taught me that.
Lindsey HOST: I feel like that is such a modern way of [00:23:00] thinking about benefits and about women's health, although it shouldn't be. I feel like just now we are starting to talk about these topics openly. Like women's health and menopause, I feel and maybe because I'm 45, it's everywhere, and so I appreciate that there are some honest conversations being had, and even just - listening to you go through the different list of things different places where you can meet people to make sure you're not just trying to check a box.
The fact that you all are thinking about that so that your employee doesn't have to, all of those things are ways that you all are just taking that load off and showing that you care. That's just such an amazing gift to be able to give to your employees, and I can't help but think they, they would feel that, and it just...
It's very meaningful.
Maggie GUEST: I will say as a solid Gen Xer, I am really grateful to the millennials because I feel like the millennials were the ones that started the conversation around perimenopause and menopause and really made it a [00:24:00] conversation that everybody was having that, they were forcing us to think about. And so I'm grateful for that generation's courage to say, "We're not gonna let this go silently, and , we're experiencing something that, that isn't getting supported in the ways that it could be." So
It's again, listening. Listen to what people are doing and when you see pockets of courage, support that and elevate it and amplify it and, find ways to solve those problems.
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, that's wonderful. One of my favorite parts of hosting this show other than getting to meet and hear all these amazing stories, is the opportunity for people in positions like yourself to be able to pass along a bit of knowledge to others who may be listening. So you have talked even just a moment ago about small moments of courage acting on something even when, you're not sure it will land.
What is one small moment of courage you'd challenge HR leaders to have when it comes to supporting [00:25:00] working parents?
Maggie GUEST: The courage to really listen And, , there was a time in which it was bring your whole self to work, and then I think we're retreating from that a little bit. Let's not retreat too far from that moment, and remember thinking about them not just as parents, but they're caregivers. And as we talked about earlier, they may be caregiving in lots of ways, and to not allow sort of us versus them, parents at work versus people at work who don't have children. Just because they don't have children doesn't mean they don't have responsibilities or caregivers, and, or aren't caregivers, and make sure that we're looking at that from a holistic standpoint. The other thing I would say is just because it was tough for us doesn't mean it's gotta be tough for the next generation. I am it really irritates me when I hear I paid my dues, and I had to figure out how to do this and that." Okay it was terrible then, it's terrible now, and you're in a position to make it not terrible for the next person, so why would you not [00:26:00] take that opportunity? So that's what I hope my fellow leaders do.
Lindsey HOST: Absolutely. people want to learn more from you or connect with you, what is the best way for them to find you?
Maggie GUEST: LinkedIn is always the best way to find me. I'm on that platform maybe more than I should be. I love, , supporting and amplifying others, whether it's a great company like Juno or whether it's an individual person, , in their journey and their story. And I, I try to share as many of my own stories, , as I can, , so that again, people have permission, , to say, "Oh, you know, if that person can share their story, then I can share my story too."
Lindsey HOST: What a gift it has been to speak with you today. Again, I think that hearing you talk about modeling through actual storytelling to really demystify sometimes the leadership team, I think it, it is such a critical piece to this, having those moments of courage, being aware and challenging language.
And I love what you said at the end [00:27:00] around your call to action around not letting the status quo stay difficult. That is such an incredible piece that we can do differently. We can know more, we can do better and you are really living that example. I thank you so very much for being with us today Parenting at Work.
Maggie GUEST: Thank you so much. It's, it was an honor to be asked, and I really enjoyed our conversation
Lindsey HOST: Thank you