How the Pandemic Has Affected Working Moms and How You Can Help Them

The pandemic has affected each of us. The impact has been felt differently depending on our place in life, but nobody has emerged unscathed. 

One segment of the population that has been especially burdened is working moms. Working from home, virtual learning, and continuing motherly duties have made the past year extremely hard for these women. 

On Leading the Factory Forward, I had the opportunity to talk with Linda Wilson about this issue. Linda was head of global manager development at John Deere from 2017 to 2020. Prior to that, she specialized in leading and teaching change management. These days, Linda is pursuing a Master’s degree with Kansas State, giving her an amazing breadth and depth of skills and knowledge.

If you want to help working moms and don’t want to see a workforce that’s bleached of women, here are 4 ways you can do so. But first, let’s go over some context for this issue.

The Issue

  • Women have always been faced with the “second shift” of housework: cleaning, childcare, homeschooling, and homework

  • Women on average are spending 15 more hours a week than their husbands on domestic labor

  • This was only exacerbated with the mandates to work from home and children being home from daycare and school

  • This all impacts women’s work performance

The Impact

The mandates to work from home on top of virtual learning (where mothers are practically homeschooling their children) have had huge impacts on the workforce in general, including:

  • The psychology of working women is suffering: guilt, anxiety, and stress are high

  • Performance at work

  • Managers’ perception of performance

  • Women are leaving the workplace; this impacts diversity, equity, inclusion, and the benefits those things bring

4 Ways To Help 

  1. Businesses should change their business model and reset their expectations: business goals, how success is measured, and the way performance is evaluated should all be reconsidered. Additionally, managers need to give more grace to people who are returning to work as they will need more time to adjust.

  2. Flexible arrangements: leaders should consider offering flexible hours to their employees, encouraging them to use their benefits and vacation time, and providing part-time opportunities, especially for working moms.

  3. Temporary workplace perks: businesses may consider providing healthy meals, grocery delivery, laundry pickup and delivery, daycare, and/or housekeeping services for their employees.

  4. Adjusting HR processes and benefits: partner with your HR department to provide full-time benefits to part-time working moms or to take a gap year on select HR events like talent reviews and performance evaluations. 

Implementing these changes could literally save a working mom’s life, so why not start applying them today?

Lynn Friesth