Interview with Jennifer Henderson, founder of TiLT

Each month, BizWest asks a business leader to participate in a question and answer feature to help shed light on a business topic, an industry or add insight to a field of endeavor. This month, Jennifer Henderson, founder of Career Allies Inc., which does business as TiLT, a platform to help employers and employees manage leaves of absence.

BizWest: When we last had contact, you had just won BizWest’s Northern Colorado IQ Innovation Challenge and were taking your company to the next level. Since that time, how has your company changed? 

Jennifer Henderson: Since the summer of 2019 and the IQ Innovation Challenge, TiLT has grown significantly. Our sales have increased tenfold, we’ve welcomed nine new TiLT employees, and we closed our Series Seed II raise. With the seed raise and support of incredible investors like Sofia Fund, we have been able to execute our strategy to scale the businesses and help so many more employees, managers, and companies successfully navigate leaves of absence. 

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BW: TiLT, as we understand it, is a digital platform to help employees and employers navigate parental leave — so that there’s full understanding of what is to happen and when. Give us a couple of examples of how the program has worked for your clients.

Henderson: TiLT supports all leave needs — from COVID-related to disability, mental health, parental, military, and more. A leave of absence can be instigated by many life events. Unfortunately, many times the management of leaves can feel cold, robotic, antiquated, and devoid of human support. Of course, there are many logistics involved in a leave, on both the employee and employer sides, but that doesn’t mean employers and the legacy leave management providers working with them have forgotten or don’t care that people needing a leave are going through something very real, often emotional and scary. TiLT is  out to change the way many leaves have been traditionally “transacted.” We want to bring the “human” element back into leave management. 

Here’s how it works: Our client companies introduce us to the employee initiating a leave and their manager through our platform. From there, we create personalized TiLT leave plans that guide everyone through the necessary forms, pay considerations, and proactive conversations to ensure work is transitioned effectively, career trajectories are insulated, and managers understand their critical role in the process. We add specific resources that support each unique employee and manager such as fertility resources or first-time manager tools, or bereavement support. Every TiLT plan is built to individually and effectively address each specific leave journey. 

BW: Will the recently passed family leave bill in Colorado in have any impact on your company?

Henderson: Yes, without question. We were called as expert testimony for the task force that Gov. Polis assembled to evaluate Proposition 118. We are very invested in the successful implementation and management of paid leave in Colorado. Because we manage leaves across the U.S., we know first-hand, what’s working and not working in the states that have already passed paid leave. That gives us domain expertise, extensive data, and the expertise to help the state of Colorado, and subsequent states, stand up these programs effectively. In addition, Colorado-based employers will have a significant need for support in effectively communicating, complying, and navigating this new program, and TiLT will be there to help our fellow Coloradans through the process! 

BW: In how many states are you operating now? What are your expansion plans? What is your current client base and what is your expectation for this time next year?

Henderson: TiLT supports leaves in all U.S. states, and we are starting to beta test our approach for international leave support. Our goal is to support international leaves in 2021, yet we have such a strong demand in the U.S. now, that we may choose to push global functionality to 2022. 

BW: You recently received angel funding from an organization that invests in businesses led by women. Tell us how that relationship began and what it means to your company.

Henderson: As a female founder, the fundraising journey has been anything but easy. I learned, early on, that women need three times the traction to get a fraction of the funding that our male counterparts receive. That reality was extremely frustrating to accept and drove me to focus, very specifically, on speaking to investors who are actively working to change this paradigm by matching start-up funding and putting their capital behind female founders. We were honored to meet the Sofia Fund team when some of our existing investors and fellow female founders introduced us. Sofia’s investment thesis and support of female founders is exactly what we wanted to bring into the fold for TiLT. The team has been available, helpful, and advocates for our work from day one. The entrepreneurial community, and the business world and economy at large, needs an army of investors like Sofia Fund if we’re truly going to change a very broken start-up funding system.  

BW: What is the most important thing that employers should know about your company if they are considering how to improve their employee leave practices?

Henderson: A generous leave policy is not a silver bullet for success. It takes a culture of role-modeling life and work integration, a system that ensures everyone has the same leave experience, and critical involvement and education of managers. Employees hold their employers 10 times more accountable when they’re navigating a life event. The risks of attrition, disengagement or potential litigation are extremely high when employee leaves aren’t properly managed. Lastly, the compliance and legal landscape surrounding leave is shifting under our feet and very few companies have the HR resources to stay up-to-date on how to navigate those complex processes. 

BW: Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Henderson: COVID has brought caregiving out of the closet and into the fore. Kids and elderly parents need connection and support. We believe awareness of the extreme pressures on caregivers is higher than it’s ever been before. Employers are desperate to care for their remote employees going through life events that involve their need to care for another. Caregiving often triggers a leave. Employers must think outside the box and break old patterns of  “the way we’ve always done it” or they will be at significant risk of losing talent. We’ve seen a significant acceleration in what employees are demanding for work-life support and resources, and those companies who respond quickly and sufficiently, with the human touch I mentioned earlier, will survive.