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Writer's pictureDr. Ricarda Engelmeier

#35 TWO TO TANGO - The magic of working in Tandem, with Nina Gillmann




𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐎 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦, 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐧


Tandem solutions may not be mainstream yet, but at MyCollective we’re hearing more and more people talking about them - and our community are parents who work in a really diverse range of industries. Some of them have even formed a group for tandems, so it was exciting for us to have Dr. Nina Gillmann return to our podcast. Nina is co-founder and CEO of TWISE, a company that creates tandem solutions and that has worked with many of our participants.


The perspective that our work gives us on parents returning to their careers post-baby has shown us that tandems are a really important piece of the solution. They represent an innovative and fluid working model that makes being a hands-on parent while accelerating your career actually possible. “For parents with really small children, working 25-30 hours per week is realistic and that doesn’t fit with the expectations for a leadership position, which is more like 50-70 hours per week,” Nina explains. But if there are two of you, 50-70 hours becomes realistic - AND you still have time for family.


For companies, there are lots of advantages:


👉 two people = more skills, more ideas, more experience.

👉 everything has already been vetted by two people, meaning less work for their immediate manager and fewer mistakes.

👉 managers and team leaders become drivers for diversity, making them a real talent magnet.


Nina lists some interesting pluses for individuals in a tandem too:


🙌 it broadens your skillset because “you have an expert at your side who has it in his or her own best interest to teach you and to transfer everything they know.”

🙌 Pitching ideas as “we” instead of “I” is “a beautifully subtle way for women to gain more visibility, more credibility and more power.”

🙌 When you can’t be at work, you know that the person backfilling for you fully wants you to succeed - it’s their job as well as yours!


Find out more by listening to our full conversation here:


Speaker: Dr. Nina Gillmann - Co-founder and CEO, TWISE

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier - Founder MyCollective

Photo: Nina Gillmann


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