From baby to bonus: How can companies eliminate the working mother stigma?

This is Working Together, a weekly series on equity in the workplace. This week, we’re talking about the struggles working mothers are facing getting back to work. Join me LIVE at 3ET tomorrow, June 10, from the LinkedIn News page to extend the conversation with Care.com CEO Tim Allen . Join us by hitting the remind me button here . Let’s jump in.?

Marketing consultant Kaia Tingley has been out of work since January. She has made it to final round interviews three times in the past two months, all while homeschooling an eight and five-year-old with her partner. Then, she hears nothing.

She is starting to wonder if having young children — and trying to raise them during the pandemic — is hurting her prospects. Now, the 45-year-old is considering leaving the traditional workforce entirely.?

“I’ve been hearing a lot recently about supporting caregivers, but I can’t find a job that will support me where I know I can add value to the team I work with and my family too,” she said. “I don't know if it's because of the pandemic or because I am a mother, because I clearly don’t hide it.”

Tingley is one of 5 million mothers who lost work during the pandemic and more than 1 million who are still looking 15 months later. The COVID-19 crisis put a nationwide spotlight on caregiving challenges, but companies are still struggling to get parents back to work. Now, a growing group of leaders in business and politics are pushing for an entire rethink of the relationship between parenthood and work.?

Without drastic change, women stand to lose out on millions in future wealth and may never achieve the workforce participation rates they experienced pre-pandemic .

“Motherhood went from a part-time job to a full-time job. And plus, your full-time work was getting more intense as well,” said Katya Libin , the founder and CEO of mother’s networking website HeyMama. “We need to figure out a way to make this work for mothers, not against them.”?

Libin, who is the mother to a nine year old, wrote an op-ed last month for NBC News with a simple call to action: Working moms should start putting “mother” on their resume. Many argue there is no harder job than caregiving. And the skills you learn as a mother — time management, multitasking, crisis management, empathy — translate to the workplace.

Companies and mothers need to start thinking this way too, she says.?

“We have to make the strengths work for us as opposed to having motherhood define and destroy our careers,” she said. “We have to demonstrate these skills and their value.”

Adding ‘mom’ to your resume may seem harmless. Yet hundreds of people commented on and off LinkedIn that the move could be destructive, particularly at this point in the recovery. A LinkedIn survey conducted just weeks before the U.S. shutdown in March 2020 found that 61% say that it was challenging to re-enter the workforce after a career break.?

Since the pandemic, the situation has grown worse. One mother wrote on LinkedIn that after putting ‘mom’ on her resume, she was instructed by a hiring manager to take it off. Another shared that during the pandemic, she felt she was passed over for promotions due to the extra burden she was facing at home.?

Sara Wesley has felt that stigma daily for the past six months. The Tampa-based communications expert is a former business owner with a law degree, but she has not found a job after applying to more than 75 positions. While assisting her six-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son through virtual learning during the pandemic, 43-year-old Wesley grappled with the emotional and financial strain of shutting down her business. Wesley had to sell her house and start to make tough choices on what to purchase for her kids.?

She sees value in the experiences she had during and before this crisis, but she has yet to see any recognition of that in her job search.?

“The type of struggle that I experienced and hustle that I have could come in and define your workforce,” she said. “No one that you hire is going to outwork me, particularly when it's the difference between your kids getting to do the things they want to do or not.”?

A new coalition of 200 businesses is banding together, in part, to reduce the stigma Wesley and others are experiencing. The Care Economy Business Council — which includes companies like JPMorgan, Verizon and McDonald’s — formed in May to encourage employers to adopt practices that support caregivers. And they are pushing for companies to rethink what they mean by flexibility, said Sheela Subramanian , a senior director of Future Forum, an organization led by Slack that focuses on the future of work.?

At this point in the pandemic, Subramanian says she is hearing about many employers that are allowing employees to work from home a few days a week. To her, that is flexibility in terms of where you work, but not when. Slack, for example, has instituted core team hours each day where employees are expected to be available. Outside of those hours, Slack employees have freedom to get work done when and how they want to.?

“There is a role to rethink presenteeism and productivity,” she said. “A lot of my career I felt judged based on how quickly I respond to an email or if I was the first in the office or the last to leave. None of that means that person is contributing more work.”??

HeyMama’s Libin thinks it's critical to train managers to identify any unconscious biases they may have against working mothers. After a year of mothers taking on an outsized role in the home while continuing to work, Libin worries that recruiters may subconsciously avoid hiring a new mom. HeyMama is developing an unconscious bias training protocol to address this issue.?

Meanwhile, Kaia Tingley continues to search for remote work. But she doesn’t always feel comfortable disclosing that she is a mom.?

“I feel like if I was a company hiring for a remote position, I might question if I would hire a parent with young kids or someone I think can focus,” she said. “Our economic indicators still don’t give enough value to caregiving.”?

What’s Working

Returning to work. Amazon committed to hiring 1,000 women by expanding its “returnship” program, which gives paid job training to job seekers who have left the workforce for a year or more. The effort is the largest of its kind across Corporate America and is specifically designed for women who have left the workforce to take care of young children. [Fortune ]?

Paying for equity. LinkedIn will now pay global co-chairs of its employee resource groups an additional $10,000 a year. The move is significant, as ERGs have taken on an outsized role in advancing diversity and inclusion within companies but do not get compensated for the additional responsibilities. [Axios ]

What’s Not

Underrepresented. Despite a year that forced companies to hold themselves accountable to improving diversity within their boardrooms, boards continue to be predominantly white and male according to a study by the Alliance for Board Diversity and Deloitte. “Progress has been painfully slow,” the study’s author noted. [NYTimes ]

Who’s Pushing Us Forward?

Onsite childcare. With more than a million working mothers still out of work, employers need to think differently about their benefits and perks. On-site childcare may be necessary moving forward. Guild Education CEO Rachel Carlson opened one for her employees a few months ago. Was it challenging? Yes, but not for the reasons she initially thought. Check out how the effort is going in the video above.?

What topics do you want to discuss next time? Let me know in the comments below using #WorkingTogether