The Working Mother

The term can offend mothers who choose to be stay-at-home-moms.

They work too and a lot. But well, this post is not about Stay-At-Home-Mothers versus 'Working mothers'.

This post is also not about 'working mothers'. It is about corporates and how they deal with them.

Actually it is not even about that.

It is actually a rambling by a mother who is trying to do too much of 'working' and wants to do a lot of mothering too, and is thus trying to figure out how to become a super human.

Women's day just went by and like every year, a lot was said and appreciated. On social media, it was all about Nirbhaya and on the corporate media, it was all about gender-balance.

Corporations traditionally were made by the men for the men and of the men.

The culture of course thus evolved around them and according to what suited them. They had wives at home looking after their kids and they could work full-time to provide for them.

Thus came the corporate culture with its 45-50 hours a week working, weekends on call, networking on evening drinks, and Commitment to work. Make work your no.1 priority or perish.

When women entered this field, they were in minority and had to adjust to this culture. Some survived till they had a kid and others decided that it was not worth it.

Till companies realised that their leadership teams severely lacked women and woke up to the reality of their company's 'for men, of men' culture.

Steps are now taken to modify current systems to suit women.

Most women's no.1 priority will be their family. Make no mistake there.

Thankfully this fact is now acknowledged and companies are trying to ensure that they become a very close second priority which does not come in the way of her fulfilling the first.

Thus, extended maternity leaves, work-from-home options, sensitization workshops, transport facilities are coming into picture.

I am sure these will save a lot of women of the difficult decision of shelving their careers till such time as the child is old enough (And when exactly is that?).

By which time however, she loses touch with her field and starting where she left becomes difficult.

So yes. These policies, the latest announcement coming from Vodafone, can make a difference. To some extent.

But let's look at the bigger picture here. This woman is competing against her male counterparts.

These men continue to put in those long hours, without having to worry about whether the kid has pottied today.

Can these companies guarantee that on the darned bell-curve, she will be given equal opportunity to be in the top percentile? Without bias? Without her feeling forever indebted to the organisation for this 'favour'?

Yes, she will get her full-pay, now.

And if you guarantee that she will be judged basis the fact that her work responsibilities were reduced and correction will be done to ensure there is no impact on her ratings and promotions, is that fair to the men who have worked harder than her at this job?

It is tricky this gender-balance thing. As one of my cousins had said "women have all the fun. They get free salary for a good 9 months when they have a child, and when the come back also they don’t work and rush home early."

I am waiting for the time when his wife becomes a 'working mother' but till then,  this is gender-discrimination against him and it will show up in his attitude when he deals with his women counterparts and reportees.

These tactical changes are few and as I said 'tactical'. If companies genuinely want to build a culture which suits women, they need to do much more, and without tilting the balance the other way either.

The solution? How about building from scratch a culture around women instead of taking these corrective steps in the existing culture?

And how will that look like?

Well, for starters, how about having a creche as a compulsory corporate facility, just like a canteen now is?

And then using technology to help women work when they want. Smart phones, smart computers, use them.

How about networking over play-dates too and not just over drinks?

Babies have extremely varied sleep-play-cranky time patterns. Asking all women to be available from 9-5 is like assuming all babies will be cooperative at the same time. Impossible.

Yes, there is a certain time when all need to be available to ensure no work is blocked. But that's what calendars are for.

And I am sure if you have to try hard to set up a meeting, the commitment will be honoured and also the time will not be wasted. Not to mention the cutting down of a lot of unnecessary meetings.

And this is good for office based employees. What about those that need travelling? Sales?

Firstly, a culture of 'of women for women' will really help ensure there is minimum unnecessary travel. Thus, the system gets automatically efficient.

As for sales calls, yes they have to be done when they have to be done. But how about making 1-2 each day which genuinely work out and not doing 13 of which none do? Or having an option of carrying your baby and nanny to the meeting wherein they can wait up in the nearby mall?

You can work things out if you want to.

May sound difficult to implement at first, but it will certainly make for a great loyal employee base, and a very efficient one at that.

The idea here being that, making ad hoc and tactical changes to the existing culture and structure will do little to ensure the equality.

A culture made by the women, for the women, and of the women of which men also become a part, and not the other way round will make the real difference.

Not to mention the happier kids of these men who will see their fathers more often and happier (stress-free) wives as well :)

PS: One day some day I dream of setting up such an organisation. Amen!

PS2: As a friend pointed out, the above culture sounds like tilting the balance otherway. That was not the point though. 
When we say a culture taking into consideration the other commitments as well, it surely applies to men too.
and the commitment is NOT necessarily kids but it could simply be a hobby you wanted to always pursue.
Bottomline - If technology has helped us work faster, why do we have to now work for more hours per day than we had to a few decades ago?