Smart companies will keep these in mind so they can keep their talented mom employees.
Home sweet home. A phrase we’ve all said at some point in our lives. However, in the past 12 months, I’ve been reminded of how true it is. As a CEO and mom of three daughters in remote school, I have loved this new blend of home and work.
Like many working moms, home for me had been the sweet “rest stop” at the end of a busy day or week. Now, it’s the “one stop shop” for life as primary hostess for school, for work and for a safe haven amidst a crisis.
Whether it’s a child’s laughter in the background of a conference call or a dog barking during a virtual meeting, this blending of home and work life is an encouraging sign of inclusion. Yet, as we plan for the New Next, what will it look like, and will it automatically be good for women? That answer should be, and I believe can be, yes.
But it requires understanding the total workload that the crisis has created at home for working moms.
Where home for some is a place to relax, for many working moms, home is the “second shift” where the unpaid part of work begins after paid work “ends.” Before the pandemic, women were doing about three-quarters of the 16 billion hours of unpaid work that are done each day around the world, according to global data from UN Women. Now that figure is even higher.
“More alarming is the fact that many women are actually not going back to work,” UN Women Deputy Executive Director Anita Bhatia told the BBC. “In the month of September alone, in the US, something like 865,000 women dropped out of the labor force compared to 200,000 men, and most of that can be explained by the fact that there was a care burden and there’s nobody else around.”
Building back better must include supporting and making visible the work that is disproportionately done by women. The risk of working mom burnout ushering a long-lasting “shecession” is real. As employers plan to reset for the New Next, here are six things they should keep in mind:
1. Mind the generational preferences divide.
What workers want and what leaders plan isn’t always the same. Recent research at ManpowerGroup North America found that 56 percent of American employers plan to bring their employees back to the workplace every day, or almost every day. And we also know that Gen X are more likely to be keen to get back to the 8 to 5 each day in the office. Yet, data tells us that isn’t what workers want, especially Millennials and working moms. For years, people have sought more flexibility to blend work and home, and employers have been slow to catch up. The impact of the pandemic meant this choice was taken away and work become synonymous with home overnight. As we plan this return, it’s time to go back to the future, not back to the past–a future that better blends work and home and offers women and men more autonomy over where and how they get their work done. For employers planning a return, ask: Does this role need to be done in the office? Why not offer a more hybrid blend of work and home?
2. Value performance over presenteeism.
The days of racing to work to beat the boss to the office disappeared in an instant back in March… Rather than measuring employees based on the number of hours clocked in the workplace, remote work forces companies to look at results over politics and presenteeism. Empower employees to own their day so women will no longer feel disadvantaged by having to make the choice between dropping the kids off at school and being physically in attendance in the office for 8:30 a.m. conference calls. Now, our work, contributions, and skills are the currency. Long may this continue.
3. Understand that working moms stand on the shoulders of childcare.
Many of us have seen the saying, “women stand on the shoulders of other women who have marched before us.” I couldn’t agree more. Another one I would like to see: “working moms stand on the shoulders of childcare.” When women still take on the majority of caring responsibilities in households across the country, we need to be clear that childcare lifts women up. It enables us to achieve our potential. The trust we place in the extraordinary people (94 percent of child care workers are women) who take care of our kids is one of the reasons why workforce participation for women has been rising for many years now. As many school or daycare services remain impacted by the pandemic, employers must be prepared to support women to navigate this journey. Managers should be checking in with parents, asking how they are doing, listening to their answers and making accommodations to support working moms (and dads).
4. Remember soft skills are hot skills.
Working moms are superheroes, and the skills we have been honing for years have been put to the test this year. Empathy, check. Resilience, yes. Problem solving, sure thing. Data shows us that employers are valuing soft skills more than ever, and we also know that these skills are more often found in women. When change is the only constant, employers need to value soft skills as a critical performance enabler. I encourage employers to start with why not? Why not assess someone’s skills so they can adapt to a new growth role even if they’ve never done that job before? Why not offer leadership opportunities to those with the necessary soft skills who might not be in traditional leadership pipeline roles?
5. Embrace the benefit in balance.
As I’ve spoken to women who are choosing not to return to the workplace, some are making that choice based on the belief they cannot find an employer that allows them to truly balance. They don’t think they’ll find a job that allows for the schedule “agility” that is needed to get it all done. That question is even more top of mind now since we know the impact technology can provide–that we can meet virtually and we don’t have to make that flight to have the customer meeting. We have options! Employers and employees have to embrace those options. We have to give ourselves permission to leverage flexibility without guilt and employers have to maintain the understanding that work can be flexible and the lessons from the crisis won’t be forgotten in terms of ability and that those who don’t choose to leverage flexibility are somehow more valuable to the enterprise that those who do.
Data shows us we are heading for a shecession. Let’s turn that into a shesurgence–where companies finally recognize the value in offering flexibility at work and at home, women take their rightful place at every level of business and join or rejoin a workplace with autonomy, flexibility and performance at its heart.
Becky Frankiewicz is the president of ManpowerGroup North America. Prior to ManpowerGroup, she led one of PepsiCo’s largest subsidiaries, Quaker Foods North America, and held a variety of senior leadership roles at PepsiCo across the portfolio of brands. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and three daughters Parker, Payton and Piper.
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