If 2020 has shown us anything, it’s that most companies cannot honestly claim to support working mothers. When home and work life collided, moms were suddenly faced with at-home childcare, homeschooling, and full-time work — and they didn’t have the help they needed to succeed in their new circumstances.
Unsurprisingly, American companies didn’t step up, and working moms stepped down from their jobs. In September alone, 860,000 women left the job market, four times the number of men who did the same. This puts the total number of American women who have left the workforce near 2.2. million, and the share of women in the workforce is down to levels not seen since 1988.
“To think that we may lose all the hard-earned progress we’ve seen in the representation of women in a single year, it really has us breathless, and we think it should have anyone who’s a leader of an organization breathless, too.”
Rachel Thomas, CEO of Lean In, a gender equity advocacy group
At a time when so many businesses are letting women down, there is a real opportunity to stand out by simply supporting working moms. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it can help build your business too.
Here’s how you can use your brand to make a real change in women’s lives — and why it’s important.
What everyday life as a working mom looks like.
More work
When women give birth, they become responsible for their children and their jobs and their household work. (No, household chores still aren’t equally distributed. Women spend more than 28 hours a week doing unpaid labor, while men spend around 17.) And if women choose to breastfeed, they spend 1,800 hours doing so in the first year — that’s pretty close to a full-time job in and of itself.
When you add it all up, working moms are juggling about three full-time jobs. And they’re only getting paid for one.
Less money
The job moms are getting paid for is screwing them over. Mothers are paid only 71 cents for every dollar fathers earn. Women are penalized for starting families, while men are actually rewarded for it. Fathers make roughly 20% more than men with no children do. This unfair dichotomy devalues working moms and makes it difficult for them to get ahead.
Less respect
Working moms are also less respected at work than working dads are. One study found that mothers are “repeatedly forced to prove their worth and competency to their colleagues and employers,” which is heightened when women return to the office after maternity leave. People expect women’s dedication to work to wane after they give birth, which forces moms to work harder than they did pre-baby is an attempt to prove themselves. They do more work but gain less respect, all while earning less money.
What support looks like.
Flexibility
The truth is that motherhood comes with a lot of unexpected moments — sick kids, last-minute appointments, and early daycare pickups. And when the pandemic hit, moms had to face the unexpected head on when their kids were asked to stay home from school and daycare. Not only did the care itself fall on the mother’s shoulders, but so did the planning and organization of other solutions, like hiring a pod school facilitator or a tutor for children now at home. Women simply could not have handled it all without workplace flexibility.
The best thing you can do for working mothers is the flexibility to handle the unexpected. At HDco, that looks like flexible hours, a dedicated work from home day, and the ability to work remotely whenever it’s needed.
Help
Flexibility enables women to do it all when it works for them, but it doesn’t take anything off their plates. A workplace that truly champions women helps them with the things that make their workload unmanageable.
Big Tree Medical showed us what helping working moms looks like when it started a pod school in its conference room. The owner, Jen Wheeler, hired a teacher to facilitate Big Tree employees’ children, who were suddenly attending virtual school. This allowed her employees to keep working through the pandemic without worrying about childcare or schooling.
Another option for helping working moms is providing ‘life support,’ to help with the realities of daily life that are hard to find time for, like cleaning, cooking, and shopping. We believe every office should provide some sort of life support, such as a cleaning service, to its high-level employees.
Pumping space
If you take the time to talk to any working mom, they’ll mention breastfeeding. It’s a pain point for most, and it’s made worse without access to adequate pumping space. Many will cite the horror of pumping in a utility closet, the stress of booking conference rooms, or the defeat of pumping in a public bathroom.
Working moms don’t want ping pong tables or kegs — they want lactation rooms. Designated space for pumping is one of the easiest and most overlooked ways to support working moms.
PTO
If you do not offer generous parental leave, then you’re in no way supporting working moms. Most of us know that mothers need time at home with their new babies — but so do fathers. Not only does paternal leave help dads bond with their babies, but it also allows them to support new moms through the transitional time. More and more companies are beginning to offer up to six weeks of paternal leave, and maternity leave should be double that.
What a business with working moms looks like.
More dedicated employees
“This struggle is real. The juggle is real. That’s why everyone should hire working mothers. They are put in crazy situations all the time and are forced to problem-solve. They are some of my most resourceful employees.”
Sara Blakely
Working moms make some of the best employees. They are natural multitaskers, resourceful, and empathetic. They’re also incredibly efficient and dedicated — just don’t make them prove it to you.
Less turnover
The more women you have on your team, the better your workplace culture will be. And we’re not just saying because we’re women led. CNBC revealed that, a few years ago, a huge tech company was suffering from a high turnover rate. To cut it down, the company promoted two senior, women execs into influential positions. These two women joined a formerly all-male boardroom, and they made the company more transparent. In the end, the impact of those two women reduced the entire organization’s turnover rate.
And when women see working moms in positions of leadership, they’re more likely to view your company as a place they can build their career — which makes them stay.
More money
When businesses promote female leadership, their bottom line improves. One study found that “a profitable firm at which 30%of leaders are women could expect to add more than 1% point to its net margin compared with an otherwise similar firm with no female leaders.” The study study equated this number to a 15% increase in profits. Championing women is not only the right thing to do, but it also has financial benefits.
Our country has failed working moms this year, but that doesn’t mean your business has to. It’s never too late to change your policies, so make 2021 the year you start supporting the women who support your business each and every day.
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