Things
are so busy at Certus I was going to put blogging on hold, albeit I have to
admit I truly have got the bug these days. However I was totally engrossed in a
post from a lady I have had the pleasure to meet a couple of times – Michelle
Dawkins of Oracle and her writings https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/women-leadership-roles-does-part-time-work-michelle-dawkins?trk=hp-feed-article-title-comment so much so I felt compelled to write
and put forward in support the perspective of what I believe is a vitally overlooked
asset that is easily accessible to an employer of an Small Medium Enterprise
(SME) business – “The Part Time Working
Mum”. Also to give you a brief insight as to how we at Certus understand
the demands of working mothers (and I should equally say fathers) but also making
an acknowledgement that without our own working mothers’ contribution Certus
would not be the company it is today!
In
2011 when Certus started to expand we immediately experienced the same basic challenges
any growing SME experiences, “how do you win
business, get the work done as cost effective as possible, maximising profit
for onward investment to grow organically?” Well in the professional
services field you need people, and to do a job well you need quality experienced
people. Unfortunately quality and experience costs money and when you start out
its money you don’t have.
A Pool of Untapped
Talent
For
me the answer to this problem became strikingly obvious as I stood in the school
playground one morning dropping off my boys and looked around me. In that
moment of deep thought I didn’t see a playground full of Mum’s dropping off their
loved ones, but instead I suddenly saw Company Executives, Accountants,
Solicitors, Doctors, IT Professionals, HR Professionals, and Executive PA’s. All
around me there was a vast amount of intellectual talent. Some of which were
heading off to work, others I knew had sacrificed their career temporarily (sometimes
indefinitely) all because they had chosen to stay at home and bring up their
children.
It
was from this point I realised that in order for Certus to grow that I needed
to be creative in my talent pool. I could benefit from a flexible workforce,
and this is what I saw. Flexibility, dedicated, highly skilled people.
In-fact
I still see it everyday and all we seem to read on the internet is a constant
stream of articles on Gen Y and Millennials, which at times I feel we are being
told to pander too as they are different! - Well actually “No”, whilst we need
Gen Y we actually have just a valuable under-utilised workforce all around us
in “Mums”, who believe it or not the majority actually do want to work again.
It still amazes me that this untapped talent pool is often tainted, completely
unfairly, as difficult to incorporate into the demands of a modern business - which
in my opinion is total nonsense. Consequently by some they are seen as an
overhead, I argue differently.
Mums
need flexibility, but so do businesses. So why not make it work? They are also the
most organised individuals I have ever come across. Equally a growing business
needs a relatively low cost quality labour force that is also flexible. It’s a
win-win, often mums can’t work 5 days per week, 8 hours a day, and as an SME
employer you don’t necessary want or have the funds to pay for a full time
employee. This is not saying we pay them differently, but it’s just pro-rata on
the number of hours worked, which is less than being full time. I have also
found that my approach to recruitment methods is different, and more cost
effective. Our latest recruit, Dodie, I
met at my sons school. I find that I don’t necessarily need to rely on just agencies,
but instead receive recommendations from colleagues and friends, which just opens
up a wider, diverse pool of talent.
Making it Work?
So
how do you make it actually work? The answer actually is very simple – good communication,
including but not limited to:
1. Understand the needs of the working Mum
2. Come to an arrangement, where they clearly know your expectations
3. Assign a workload that meets both yours and their needs, but also doesn’t necessary put a Mum under undue pressure around key times of their day i.e. don’t go book a meeting at 08:00 in the morning or 15:00 in the afternoon when the school run is on!
4. Take advantage of technology to enable your teams to work collaboratively
5. Don’t put part time working mothers directly in the front line and in highly demanding client situations nearing times when they need to be with their families, none of us need this pressure!
6. When they are needed in the office and have a child care issue let them bring the kids into the office, or go to them!
7. Plan ahead give both of you plenty of notice of key events – from important business meetings that you do need them involved in, through to half term dates!
8. Don’t under estimate the need for human interaction - Mum’s want to be in work for a few hours a day in the company with other adults! They want to be intellectually stretched and challenged and they get this from proper social adult interaction in the workplace
9. Talk to them – things change over time!
Result:
You will have a highly valued, dependable and loyal workforce. It also means
they can still hold down key leadership and managerial positions – Charlene, my
HR Manager is just about to go part time, but she is critical to our business
operation and in supporting me. Her knowledge, advice and guidance around HR is
critical for a growing company and she is also someone I lean on as my own
corporate sounding board. Rachel is my Financial Controller and has been with
me since day one. Certus as a company wouldn’t function without Rachel. She is
a qualified Accountant and working mother to three young children and manages
all our money. She is supposed to be part time, but I know at year end she
works more hours in a month than I do! And Mary is our EVP of Quality and
Testing Services – Mary is full time and holds an Exec position on our Operating
Board, but she is also a working Mum with two young children. I also have Caroline on maternity leave. She’s just had twins!, but in another guise
she is probably the most qualified Oracle Cloud technicians when it comes to
data migration in the world (and I am not elaborating here!).
Intangible Value -
Balance
More
importantly they also offer us as an Exec team insight into a workforce that is
50% women, and yes we do bloody listen to them because if we didn’t we wouldn’t
have an effective business operation. They are treated no different to anyone
else, and if anyone did step out of line from graduate to CEO we would all find
ourselves taking 5 minutes out on the “naughty step”!
So
when there are those times you need them in the office and they have no child
care, we let them bring the children in and get the kids involved where we can.
When the kids turn up we let them use the internet or the older ones we get
them to make a marketing poster for the company! One asked for something else
to do, and then spent the day shredding documentation for us (under supervision
of course) – they loved it.
Our
Mum’s give great balance to the company and as the company expands it is
something we want to maintain. Equally this is not us ignoring our male staff
and of course we need people to work full time in front of house demanding
consultancy roles. This is never going to go away as this is what we do.
However I am proud to have working mum’s in our team, and I am proud to say
that at one point I had more women than men working for me, most of which were
working parents. At Certus we take pride in delivering high quality service,
skill and expertise. We do this by being
creative and flexible, and this is a massive selling point for us!
So
to all our Mum’s full time or part time, thank you for being part of our
company! And for those who don’t get this more fool you – but the next time you
are in the playground picking up your children just look around you, open your
mind, and you just might see something different!
… as for Gen Y, guess what?
parenthood will happen to you at some point as well.
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