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Empowering mothers in the workplace requires a thoughtful, multifaceted approach. Today, in most families, women still work full-time while assuming the majority of family and household responsibilities. It’s fair to say it’s not fair and there’s a lot to juggle. The reality is that mothers are expected to take on everything, both at home and at work, which can be extremely difficult and daunting physically, mentally, and emotionally.
As a mother and entrepreneur myself, finding ways to elevate the ranks of mothers at my company and create a culture that truly promotes work-life balance has been a top priority for me from day one.Since I started Zentose In 2015, I raised my own family and hired an amazing team of women to do similar work and grow Zentoes into a multi-million dollar business with the help of my team.
It’s amazing to see the success of our business as demonstrated by metrics and revenue growth, but what’s most rewarding is seeing how dedicated our amazing team of employees are to growing with us. That’s what I witnessed. Below, he outlined seven tips for other entrepreneurs looking to empower their employees.
1. Adopt flexible working hours and patterns
Remote work options are important in allowing mothers to have schedule flexibility to balance family responsibilities. This includes everything from pick-up and drop-offs to sick days spent at home with the kids. Your overall attitude towards work will also be happier.
Related: Want to be more productive as a working mom? Try these steps
2. Put women in leadership positions
Having women in leadership positions is critical to creating leadership opportunities and developing the next wave of leaders. Creating opportunities for other women in the workplace empowers all women.
Related: Why I Hire and Invest in Working Moms
3. Support professional development
We strongly believe that there should be no doubt that there are gaps in some women’s resumes due to staying home with young children. Parenting can be a huge learning curve for human resource management. It’s also important to provide professional development opportunities, especially for mothers, so that they feel confident away from work.
4. Promoting work-life balance
Make it a priority to have open and honest conversations with your employees about “mom guilt” and the need to “do it all.” Employees feel secure and balanced in their personal and work lives, which increases their sense of well-being and improves their performance. For us, it’s essential that we create space for women who have families, or who plan to start families, to take the time they need to feel successful in both their work and home lives.
5. Have redundancy to cover vacations
This applies to both parent-child relationships. At my company, we needed to identify and increase headcount to ensure that our small, informal team could get its work done. Also, insurance does not stop while your parents are on vacation. Documenting SOPs and establishing a collaborative decision-making process helped ensure our success.
6. Create social opportunities at work
It can be beneficial to hold weekly casual team-building meetings that cover social topics that allow for group sharing among employees. It’s a moment where everyone can share about themselves as individuals instead of just focusing on work and family.
Related: What your working moms really need for Mother’s Day
7. Don’t forget about the partners on the other side of working mothers
It provides the same benefits to both partners in the family unit (flexible working hours, redundant work, etc.) and normalizes partners to be more equal within the household. If they have the same flexibility, there should be a correlation to taking on responsibility, which should help support a more equal future. In my household, my husband shares a large portion of the household chores, which contributes to the success of ZenToes.
Entrepreneurs must approach creating work policies, arrangements, benefits, and team-building initiatives holistically, paying particular attention to the diverse needs of all employees, especially mothers. After all, a mother is an invaluable addition to any business and her team, bringing vision and a unique, thoughtful perspective to their work every day. It’s important to consider balance, honesty, and communication. Your company and all your employees will be better off for it.