​Editor’s Note: SHRM has partnered with Harvard Business Review to bring you relevant articles on key HR topics and strategies.I once had a student in my executive education class, a managing director at a global bank, who told a heartrending story of her first steps toward professional success. As a teenager she had become

a mother, and to make ends meet she’d worked cleaning offices. Even though she was dealing with substantial hardship at home—caring for a young child while defe