Reimagining Modern Fatherhood in the Corporate World
Author: Nidhi Gandhi, 2026 Social Media Committee Volunteer
"By the time you truly understand your father, you have become one yourself, and your father may no longer be in the world for you to tell him."
It's a thought that stays with Jitendra Das, and one that lands especially close around Father's Day.
Jitu, to those who know him, is a Senior Human Resources Business Partner at Amazon, where he partners with business leaders on organizational effectiveness, talent strategy, leadership development, and culture. Behind that work sits more than 16 years of HR experience across India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and North America. Alongside his corporate role, he is an ICF certified executive coach at the PCC level with over 2,500 coaching hours, having supported leaders across Fortune 500 companies in unlocking their potential and navigating personal and professional growth.
But the role that shapes everything else is a quieter one. He grew up watching a generation of fathers who showed love through provision, and made himself a different promise, to show it through presence. He wants his son, Ayaan, to remember the school runs, the bedtime stories, the nothing-in-particular evenings. As he puts it: "I am not building a career despite being a father. I am building it because of it."
This Father's Day, we interviewed Jitu to talk about what modern fatherhood asks of men at work, the leave they don't take, the bias they navigate quietly, and what it really means for a working father to feel safe being fully himself.
1. You are uniquely positioned to advocate for policies like parental leave for fathers. Do you feel a personal responsibility to champion men’s work-life balance and mental health in the corporate world?
Absolutely, and I think responsibility is the right word, not just opportunity. Men's mental health and work-life balance remain largely underdiscussed in corporate spaces, and the cost of that silence is real. Burnout, disengagement, and leaders who are physically present at work but emotionally absent at home, these are symptoms of a culture that never gave men permission to be human.
In Canada, fathers have access to parental leave, yet the uptake remains far lower than among mothers, not because fathers do not want to be present, but because the culture has not caught up with the policy. I want to help close that gap. Not just through advocacy in meetings, but by modeling it myself, being visible about my own boundaries, talking openly about Ayaan and what being present for him means to me, and making it easier for the men around me to do the same. If I cannot use my platform to normalize that, then what is it for?
2. Working fathers often face a subtle social bias where they are viewed as the 'secondary' parent. How can HR teams and leaders shift corporate mindsets to recognize and respect men as primary, equal caregivers?
The bias is real, and it often lives in the small things: a father who leaves early for his child's recital gets noticed differently than a mother who does the same thing, and a man who sets a hard stop for school pickup reads as less committed rather than more present. HR teams need to look at this structurally, because in Canada, parental leave is available to both parents yet the uptake among fathers remains significantly lower, and that gap is not about desire, it is about what leaders normalize. If no senior man in an organization has ever visibly taken parental leave, that silence is a message. I keep Ayaan's school events on my calendar and I do not hide them, because representation in everyday behaviour is more powerful than any policy document
3. There’s an old stereotype that fathers should always be the 'unshakable pillar.' How have you learned to embrace vulnerability, both as a dad and as a professional leader?
When we moved to Canada in 2022, I went through a period of professional uncertainty I was not prepared for, having built my career across India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and then starting over in a new market without the network I had spent years building. My wife Megha held the family steady during that time, and watching her do that taught me the difference between being a pillar and being a wall: she was not unaffected; she was grounded. I have told Ayaan when I have had hard days, not to burden him, but to show him that naming something difficult is not weakness, it is how you move forward. That same principle lives in how I coach leaders now: vulnerability is not the absence of strength, it is the honesty to say where you are, and that honesty builds more trust than any polished performance.
4. What does psychological safety look like for a working father? Have you ever felt pressure to hide family obligations to maintain a certain professional image?
Yes, early in my time in Canada I was careful about how much I revealed as a father in professional settings, because there is an unspoken test that working fathers navigate: prove your commitment by making your family invisible at work. But I think about Ayaan running to show me a drawing he made at school, not because it was perfect, but because he wanted me to see it, and that unconditional trust reminds me that the most important audience for how I show up is not in the boardroom. Psychological safety for a working father means being able to say I am leaving early for my son's event without it being read as a lack of ambition. The day that becomes unremarkable is the day we have actually made progress, and as HR professionals, building that culture is not a nice-to-have. It is the work.
A Wish for Father's Day
“Fatherhood did not soften my professional edge. It sharpened it, gave me a reason to build something worth being proud of, and a daily reminder of what I am actually working for. This Father's Day, my wish is simple: I hope working fathers across Canada and the world feel seen, take the leave they are entitled to, and show up for the bedtime stories. And I hope their organizations build cultures where none of that is a trade-off. Ayaan, this one is for you.”
Jitu's wish is a modest one, but the shift it asks of our workplaces is not. It asks for cultures where presence, honesty, and a hard stop for school pickup read as strength rather than absence, where showing up for your child is never a trade-off against showing up at work.
This Father's Day, that feels like a goal worth building toward. Wishing everyone a Happy Father’s Day!
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.
