“Working women tend to have to be caregivers to someone. Working moms are the strongest, most important aspect of this economy. They are the cogs that hold the economy together.”

But for working moms like Liz Shaw, that strength met one of its toughest challenges in COVID-19. A mom of two teenagers, Liz runs her company, LizLane Reps, Inc. from home. She is a content producer and agent who connects advertisers with animators for commercial production.

“COVID-19 changed what advertisers are looking for. Live-action had been 70-80% of the industry. Once COVID hit, most live-action productions shut down. They had to in order to keep people safe. Now advertisers are looking for animation solutions.”

The flexibility she once built into her day-to-day disappeared almost overnight.

“In the past, most people and the industry really respected the end of the day or the lunch hour depending on which coast you’re on. Under COVID, there are no boundaries. I get calls at midnight and people want things from me at 6 pm. I constantly feel guilty that I’m not getting to someone, especially my kids.”

Raquel Filmanowicz was just starting a new role as CEO of the Democratic National Convention Host Committee in March 2020. Her team went virtual about a week after she started because of the pandemic. To put on a convention four months later, she found herself working 16 hour days with no division between work and home.

“The pandemic kind of just put a wrench into balance as a mom, because it was just a new environment and there was no playbook on how to be a leader during a pandemic. Being there for my family from an emotional and physical standpoint, I just was not available.”

Working hard is nothing new for working moms. In 2018, Welch’s surveyed 2,000 American moms with children aged five to 12 years. The study found that working moms put in an average of 14-hours per day, seven days a week - equivalent to working 2.5 full-time jobs.

And that’s not all. According to the Center for American Progress, in 2017, “... 41 percent of mothers were the sole or primary breadwinners for their families, earning at least half of their total household income. This includes single working mothers and married mothers who out-earn their husbands. An additional 23.2 percent of mothers are … married mothers whose wages comprise at least 25 percent of their total household earnings.”

Working moms are superstars. Working mom Autumn Latimore, director of communications for Pfizer, stated frankly when we spoke, “Most moms do everything. We keep all the plates spinning and very few of us have the option of not working.”

The pandemic, however, added a new spin. Those divisions between work and home disappeared while additional caregiving responsibilities piled on. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics American women lost more than 5 million jobs last year. And according to the US Census Bureau 1.4 million working moms left the workplace entirely.

As a working mom and the CEO of a multi-million dollar public relations and marketing agency, I take this personally. I founded Kane so that I could work at the highest level possible while also being available to my family, and I’ve grown the company with that philosophy for everyone. If work and life don’t fit together, especially for working parents, something has to give. Working women are among the top performers and top contributors at Kane. Knowing the working moms in my world, I’m certain Kane is not alone. It makes sense for employers to make work, work for moms. And, it’s the right thing to do.

When our team at Kane went remote last year, I sent gift packs to all of our employees with the extra gift of a Nintendo DS + games for each working parent (for their kids, of course!). We manage our workdays at Kane based on what needs to be done for our clients, not based on how many hours team members are in front of their computers. We also pay attention to how many hours our team members are putting in and if the numbers get too high for too long, we evaluate with them any changes that need to be made. And because our remote employees occasionally want a break from their home office environments, they’re welcome to bring their kids with them to our offices in Milwaukee where we have unlimited snacks, arts and crafts. And when the kids are able to take a break from their virtual schooling, our conference rooms are set up for them to watch their favorite shows and one even has an X-Box.

Our policies go further, building in two weeks of company-paid time off for new moms and dads in addition to the benefits they can apply to this important period in their lives. And no one gets upset when parenting has to take precedence. We make it work.

The women I spoke with believe corporate America is starting to realize how much working moms manage and how important it is to create a more modern work environment.

Autumn actually found flexibility during COVID. She’s mom to a teenage daughter and caregiver to her 87-year-old dad.

“Working remotely has added at least two hours back into my day because I’m not commuting,” she says. “Life, in general, is more manageable when I’m working from home. There is more time to finish the things I love doing, I’m more productive and I get way more done.”

And, she says, Pfizer is listening to employees like her as they make plans to bring people back into the office. “I’m glad I work for a company that seeks enlightenment and acts upon it. When we go back, we’ll be able to work from home two to three days a week.”

Meaningful change in the work environment won’t come from just the top down. Liz, Raquel and Autumn also want to empower working moms to play an active role in making change happen on every level.

“Working moms need to get into positions of leadership,” Autumn points out. “Because we set examples for younger employees on our teams, for our co-workers, for men, for our children. And we can shape policy.”

As Liz’s workload grew during COVID, she realized she had to reset expectations at home and let go of some of the things she didn’t have to manage. “As women, we have to stop the gender expectations that women are the only ones that can run the household!”

After the Democratic National Convention, Raquel took two months off to reconnect with her family before joining BMO Harris as director of the bank’s Economic Equity Advisory Group.

Her message to working moms: “It's imperative for us to set the example. Take a break and go to that soccer game or that doctor's appointment and make sure your employees know they can do the same. Don’t push everything off on the weekends.”

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