*This post focuses primarily on moms who are working from home throughout the pandemic and juggling childcare, virtual schooling, housework, etc., as many studies have shown that they are among the hardest hit in the workforce right now. Of course, this is not universal for all working moms, and some of these issues are applicable to many people - not just parents, and not only women!

Throughout this pandemic, I’ve seen countless headlines in the news about the unique challenges facing working moms while quarantining. They’ve declared that the crisis could threaten the gains that women have made in the quest for gender equity in the workplace, and that working moms are reaching their breaking point. The New York Times went so far as to say that in the midst of this pandemic, you can have a kid or a job, but “you can’t have both.” As a working mom myself, trying to balance a job, a coaching business, and 5- and 3-year old sons, my immediate reaction to these headlines is “DUH!” Of course we’re struggling! 

The pandemic has shined a light on an issue that working parents know all too well: our country’s institutions aren’t set up to support parents. We don’t have guaranteed paid parental leave, or affordable childcare, or safety nets to help parents who are trying to work and care for their families. As many of us find ourselves working from home - or living at work, as it sometimes feels - we are often being asked to prioritize family or work.  And studies show that moms are bearing the brunt of these struggles. In normal times, American moms spend almost twice as much time on housework and caregiving as dads. In the midst of COVID, women are 1.5 times more likely than men to be spending an extra 3+ hours per day on childcare and responsibilities at home. 

The best way to support both your working moms and any other employees who may be managing childcare, parental care, challenging home environments, the emotional struggle of the fight for racial justice, and more, is to ASK what they need. A few questions for managers to consider asking include:

1. What type of flexibility would work best for you? Flexibility is today’s buzzword, but what exactly does it mean to offer it? It may not be practical for employees to work a regular 9-5 day, or to be glued to their work email all day long. Some parents may need to log onto the computer in the early hours before their children start their day, then step away to help with virtual schooling (or to build LEGO towers). Other parents may have a caregiver for a few hours per day, or split the workday with a significant other, and have blocks of time where they can be most productive. Giving your employees the opportunity to create a schedule that works for them can be the difference between a hardworking employee who gets their job done, and one who is forced to quit their job - but don’t assume you know what the “right” flexible schedule looks like.

2. Would a reduction in hours and/or responsibilities be helpful during this time? If so, what might that look like? You could offer all of the flexibility in the world, and there would still only be 24 hours in a day. Even if you allow an employee to work 8 hours a day outside of regular work hours, that could mean a schedule in which a working mom wakes up at 4am to work a few hours before the kids get up, then spends the day taking care of her children, makes dinner, puts the kids to bed, and then logs back on to work until midnight. This leaves at most 4 hours in the day to sleep (and that’s assuming that she doesn’t need or want any time for herself to, say, read or exercise . . . or just sit and decompress). It’s no wonder that we aren’t ok - many of us have been working nonstop for seven months! It’s crucial to give employees the option to temporarily cut back their hours - and, importantly, their responsibilities - without long-term consequences. Cutting responsibilities is a key part of that equation. A friend of mine works for a company that kindly offered that working parents could cut down to 50% of their normal hours for the foreseeable future . . .but didn’t simultaneously ease the expectations in terms of work product. Needless to say, it didn’t provide her with the support that she desperately needed. For businesses to make this work, it might mean hiring a temporary employee, or working with colleagues to redistribute the workload for the short-term. It might, in short, mean investment. But in the long-term, you will support and hopefully retain talent that may otherwise have had to leave the job (and losing great talent is also costly!).

3. What are our top priorities and required deadlines for each project? Once we settled into our teleworking world, my office started including deadlines for responses in the subject line of each email. Since some of us were working 9-5, and others were working whenever we could find a spare minute in the day, it was helpful to know when an email came in whether it needed to be addressed quickly, or if it was ok to push until the evening. And if something urgent (read: actually urgent) needed an immediate response, we would send our colleagues a text message. That way, we all felt like we didn’t have to be glued to our computers all day, while knowing that a project or response wouldn’t be held up because of a colleague’s alternate work schedule.

4. What meetings do we need to schedule/does each employee have to be involved in, and how long do we need to allot for each? Studies show that we are attending more meetings than pre-pandemic - who even knew it was possible to have more meetings?! While meetings are a necessary part of most jobs, it is helpful to consider who needs to be included in each meeting, and to give each participant advance warning (ideally at least a day) of an upcoming meeting. To ensure our kids aren’t left to their own devices for any extended period of time during the day, parents need to stay on top of our schedules, our kids’ schedules, any partners’ schedules, any caretakers’ schedules, etc. One of the hardest things for a parent is to have a “surprise” meeting scheduled for five minutes from now. The tightly choreographed dance of “who is making sure the kids don’t start playing baseball in the living room” can’t handle lots of last-minute changes to the schedule! Of course, emergencies arise and clients make demands, and sometimes last-minute meetings can’t be helped. But when they are within your control, resist the urge to send a “hey let’s jump on a videoconference in 10 minutes” email or text. Also, be considerate of how long meetings are scheduled for, and try to stick to the designated meeting lengths. Once again, there is often little flexibility in daily schedules.

5. Do you prefer phone or videoconference meetings? Be mindful of how many videoconference meetings you schedule. It may be a part of a support strategy to allow team members to see one another’s faces, and you might not even mind the constant distraction of kids popping up on the computer screen. But it can be harder to balance parenting and working when you are tied to your computer and video. It’s much easier to help a child log into his virtual classroom, or to break up a sibling fight, when you’re able to mute a phone call rather than sitting on a videoconference. 

6. What is the work product that I need from my employee? We are all doing the best that we can in the midst of less-than-ideal circumstances, and studies have shown that employees are able to be just as productive, if not more so, while working virtually. But that may not mean that all employees can work 40 hours per week right now. Try to focus on the employee’s work product (taking into account any temporary changes in expectations based on reduced hours/responsibilities), rather than the number of hours that she is sitting at her computer each day.

7. What else do you need? Despite everything that I just said, the best way to find out how to support your working moms right now is to ASK them. What works great for one parent might not work for another. Consider an informal poll of engagement preferences for your team - phone or videoconference; email or text - and do what you can to meet those preferences. Just ask - trust me, we all have thoughts on how we can be supported through these times!

Working moms want to be great parents and solid employees, and we are giving it our all in trying to accomplish that. But these days, we could all use a little bit of extra support - before we reach our breaking point.