Thousands of highly talented, motivated individuals are unemployed. They have built hugely successful careers, and then one day, they stopped. Why? Because they are Mothers.
43% of highly accomplished women stop their careers at some point to have children. The average time they take off is two years.
More and more, businesses are no longer seeing mothers as a liability, and instead they are recognizing them as assets that must be protected. They are highly accomplished women who are motivated to not only raise a family but to also continue their careers. 63% percent of mothers would seek out an employer with family-friendly policies.
One very successful way of utilising these highly competent individuals is by introducing a job-share model. With so many highly experienced women trying to get back into the workplace, organisations can prioritise job share options and/or a work from home option to access a whole untapped market of working professional mothers.
So what is job sharing?
Essentially it is 2 people, working together as one. Job sharing can only be successful when 2 individuals compliment each other and they both understand each other’s working styles. Communication and organisation skills in these types of situations is essential. Without it, the process will not be as seamless and the employer may not actually see the benefit. Managing expectations well will also ensure you maintain the support of management and external clients.
An example of a successful job-sharing structure can see 2 individuals both working 3 days, with 1 overlapping day each week. On that overlapping day, they can attend client meetings together and de-brief on their week, ensuring that both individuals are across the workload and nothing is missed. Access to each other on non-working days is sometimes necessary. Don’t they say two heads are better than one??
Work180 recently shared an article where they sat down with two Digital Marketing Executives at Optus who job share successfully. In this situation, the job-share partners learn to trust each other implicitly and provide a support network for each other.
Working Mothers appreciate the flexibility given to them by their employers which often means that they work extra hard in the time allocated to achieve optimal results. For employers, the ease of remote access plays to their advantage where an employee can quite simply log on from home to do the same work that they would in the office.
When work is measured by results, it does not matter if the work is done at 6am, midday or 9pm, as long as it gets done! This gives the Mother flexibility to attend that school concert or take a child to a dental appointment which results in family life work balance.
Parity are specialists within the Product, Marketing, Communications and Digital sector and 70% of our workforce is part time. So you know that we mean it when we say we are passionate about hiring and retaining great candidates for our clients who are full time/part time/compressed hours/job share/flexibility/work from home and other derived versions of work life balance!
Are you looking for new opportunities? Contact Amanda on aglacken@parityconsulting.com.au or +61450 291 368 or reach out to one of our specialist consultants for a confidential discussion today!