“Work-life balance is your problem, not the employer’s responsibility”: Skims co-founder Emma Grede’s claim is sparking controversy

British entrepreneur Emma Grede, who founded the women’s bodywear company Skims along with her husband Jens Grede and Kim Kardashian, is getting a lot of attention after dismissing work-life balance as a priority for employers.

“Work-life balance is your problem, not the employer’s responsibility,” Grede said on “The Diary of a CEO” podcast on Monday, hosted by British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett, which features interviews with CEOs and other successful leaders. “Look, I have four kids and I had to figure out how I would think about my own ambition balanced with my parenting, that’s the truth,” she continued.

While they say that all PR is good PR, Grede’s claim is sure to be controversial among leaders, employees, and employers. She also added that she viewed the priority negatively in the hiring process.

“When somebody talks to me about their work-life balance in an interview process, I’m like, ‘Something is wrong with you,'” Grede told Bartlett, calling it a red flag to bring up in a job interview, and recommending that prospective employees shouldn’t ask.

However, Grede’s comments feel problematic in the context that Skims is marketed primarily to women, who still bear a heavier load than men in balancing work and family, despite progress in recent decades in the workplace, according to the Pew Research Center. In fact, women are more likely than men to report experiencing work-life balance challenges, with 60% of women saying it’s a significant issue, versus 47% of men.

That’s because women continue to shoulder a greater amount of work at home, both in childcare and housework, and continue to be paid less in the workplace for the same job on average. Furthermore, a 2023 Pew report that researched opposite-sex marriages found even when earnings are similar, husbands spend more time on paid work and leisure, while wives devote more time to caregiving and housework. The research found even in so-called “egalitarian marriages,” wives are still spending more than double the amount of time on housework than their husbands (4.6 hours per week for women, versus 1.9 hours per week for men), and almost two hours more per week on caregiving, including tending to children. Husbands, meanwhile, spend roughly three hours more per week than their wives on paid work, and three and a half hours more on leisure activities.

Some experts also disagree with Grede’s view. Psychologist Katina Sawyer told Business Insider that considering work-life balance a skill reinforces “flawed thinking,” and “allows employers to ignore the role their expectations play in employee burnout and to shift the blame onto individuals when performance suffers.”

Fast Company has reached out to Grede at Skims for comment.

Speaking of podcasts, Grede also happens to be launching her own on Tuesday, called Aspire With Emma Grede, featuring “honest and unfiltered” conversations with business moguls, starting with two episodes with actress and goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow and the former chair of Starbucks, Mellody Hobson.

“Aspire is my way of scaling mentorship,” Grede told People magazine. “There’s so much advice out there, but most of it doesn’t reflect the reality of what it actually takes to build something or change your life.”

View the full article