Working from Home as a Corporate Mom in the times of the Coronavirus
Striking the balance between work and home as a new mother, three years and counting has been a challenge in itself. Add to it the challenges of working from home with bare minimum childcare options. I do consider myself blessed that serendipitously at this time I have the help I need and the support and village that everyone talks about when it comes to raising your child. But, I’m aware that it may not be the case much longer with the changing times.
For many of us then, working from home as moms or should we say, corporate moms who lead large teams and have a workforce depending on us while we juggle priorities at home is definitely a new shift. The good news is that as adaptable as we are as women, somewhere in the back of our mind, we know that ‘This too shall pass’.
Here are some quick tips if you’re juggling a load of responsibilities from work and might be feeling ‘out of the zone’ having left your natural work habitat where you insulate your mind away from home.
Tip #1: Set a morning routine or tweak yours more for yourself before your kids wake up. Needless to say, a lot of working moms wake up before their kids, get themselves ready and then the kids. But, what happens when your kids are not going to follow the usual routine of going to school? You’re left depleted at the end of the day and likely feeling chaotic.
Setting aside a few extra minutes in the morning to plan the kids meals and activities, get your meditation or even your makeup on will help you feel more in control of your day. Drink that glass of water, eat that protein bar or even do your 20 jumping jacks. It will all go towards a great cause, YOU! This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be a ‘5am Mom’. Just 15 mins added to your routine will be a huge help.
Tip #2: Keep a dedicated space for work which replaces your work habitat and helps you get in the work zone. There’s nothing more annoying like the urge to tidy up the living room or doing that new load of laundry that magically appeared in the past 24 hours. Find a way to carve out a corner, a desk or whatever space you can dedicate which is your ‘work zone’. Make it look like a work zone. Add some motivational quotes or a plant or even add on a few snacks and water for those meeting days when you can barely leave your desk. Turn up your music or wire into your headphones, whatever helps you mentally disconnect from the ‘home life’ and tune in to your work day.
Tip #3: Get the help you need and be open to a few distractions. Fear of contracting the Coronavirus shouldn’t prevent you from leading your life and getting help. If you have a trusty nanny or sitter, ask her to wash her hands, keep an extra pair of their clothes at your home and sanitize rigorously before she starts caring for your children. If it works for you, enlist your spouse to help and take turns working. If you’d rather chose digital activities or even some tv watching, put a time limit and carve out 5 minute walks in between meetings with your kids. Some of us may not have the luxury of getting help at home, in those situations, have a playpen or a blocked off area where your little one can keep themselves entertained for the 30 mins or 1 hour that you’re on a call.
Feel empowered to step away from your desk in between meetings to check in on your little one.
Tip #4: Shorter meetings with a higher frequency. If there’s one thing that common in children globally it’s that they can go from a happy to crying mood in a matter of minutes. If you’re stuck in an hour long or even two hour meeting block, it’s incredibly difficult to focus on the discussion at work and while you know your little one is wailing their heart out in the background. The trick here is to keep your meetings short. Read up on effective meeting management and how prep and plan for the most productive discussions. Having a few meeting and time management skills up your sleeve will mean you can get more done in 25 mins or even 20 mins. I knew of Venture Capitalists back in the day who were doing 20 mins meetings with entrepreneurs to drive effective pointed conversations. Let’s all adapt to this way to cutting through the noise and keeping our time focused on what matters the most for the attendees in the meeting.
Tip #5: Slack or Telegram or WhatsApp or just text away like a teenager. No, seriously!! We corporate moms have a thing or two to learn from the college-going generation today. They see the world through their phone and use any and all tools possible to communicate the emotions, tone and emphasis behind their thoughts. From Instagram filters to emojis.
As a corporate mom who may be breastfeeding or changing diapers, you may not be able to make yourself available on a Zoom meeting via video but, you can definitely communicate succinctly over Slack and share your decisions or questions and follow it up with a virtual meeting. Finding a way to prep your attendees outside the email game is a lot more effective than sending a long email. Reserve those long emails for a weekly update or detailed newsletter. I’ve experienced my male colleagues freely calling and texting me right after a meeting and sharing their thoughts and going into long discussions to reach consensus because they felt the urgency and need to drive towards action. This is amazing! As women, we tend to be nurturers and think ten times from nine different angles (maybe less in some cases) before we share our concerns. Now is the time to be a bit more reckless mom and put your thoughts out there because there is no water-cooler or walking up to a cubicle to share your emotions. Make do with emojis instead and they do work!
Tip #6: Feel empowered to say ‘No’ and even step away from your desk if needed! Just the way working from home doesn’t mean that you’re free do as you like, it also doesn’t mean that you’re stuck at your desk. With a hungry 10 month old or a newborn in need of diapering, we all feel a bit guilty stepping away from the desk in the midst of a workday.
When my son was an infant and could barely speak, I remember being in a job interview video call on the lower floor of my house and hearing my son howling from separation anxiety in our bedroom that was right upstairs. I vaguely remember the questions of my interviewer, I don’t remember what I answered. What I do remember is this sick feeling in my gut. To even think of that incident of my baby weeping loudly, probably feeling unsafe and unwanted, probably feeling like he was left alone in his playpen and feeling confused makes me cringe. Why didn’t I feel comfortable to let my interviewer know that I have zero help with a baby who is suffering from separation anxiety and can’t make it to daycare today and that I would like to reschedule? As corporate moms, we try to be our ambitious best and sometimes we want to get our dreams so badly that we turn a blind eye to the balancing act. We don’t realize that even though this may be our first experience with a child in this situation, corporate moms from centuries before us have gone through this. It’s not like you’d commit a crime if you stepped away, checked in on your child or heck even have them join your meeting. The two you would be much calmer. In my case, I know I’d have actually been a better interviewee. So if you’re a first time mom, like I am, know that your manager is likely also a father or mother, know that they may be an uncle or aunt that have been the helper to a mom or dad in need, know that they may have a friend or relative they might have seen in a similar situation and that there’s no need to be ashamed or embarrassed and have your child join you at ‘work’.
Tip #7: Block out hours on your calendar for work time and that means you may need a new schedule on your calendar.
Assess your work day and find activities like email and building decks that you can do after hours. Reserve your meetings for when everyone is online. And ideally, chunk up your time so you can have many effective meetings instead of super long, unproductive ones. Work with your spouse to carve out night time hours or early morning hours for your projects when you don’t want to be disturbed or distracted. Plan your meals and the meals of your child. Being a bit paranoid about your calendar in the first week or two will help you find patterns that work best for you and your family and those that you want to discard.
Tip #8: Social distancing is great but, does it mean we all get cabin fever? If you have a park or open area around your house where you feel safe enough leaving your child to play for an hour, there’s no reason you couldn’t have them play while you keep an eye on them and work. Staying stuck at home can mean irritable children and with the lack of attention from a working mom, this is recipe for a tantrum disaster. Instead, carve out time in the mornings and evenings when you can let them loose, maybe on your patio or the sidewalk outside for just 20 mins so they get that fresh air, sunlight and tune their bodies into the day or night ahead.
Tip #9: Survey your reports and consistently ask for feedback on ways to improve work. Qualtrics just released a remote work from home pulse that can be used to survey remote employees working from home. You can use Excel or Outlook or even a simple voting questionnaire on Slack to do the same. Whatever your technology of choice, find a way to get consistent feedback and open up more lines of communication from the team. You are as good a leader as your team is. Given them access to your thoughts is great but, helping them feel heard is even more important!
Tip#10: Which brings me to my last point! Write a weekly thoughts email to your team(s) or company if you’re a C-suite mom. This is something that I’ve seen be done by CEOs of small and large companies in both formal and informal ways. The idea is to provide access to your reports and your managers with how you’re thinking of your business as a leader. Are you stuck diapering all day? Are you able to crack the meeting monotony by getting those extra steps? Are you now more effective with time management? As a mom, a leader, a human being; how are you adopting to the current times of self-quarantine and lots of potential self doubt? Everything from the human aspects to the business aspects is fair game. What should your team prioritize for this week? For this month? What are the blockers that you know of? What enablers are you putting in place? How is the hiring pipeline or simply the employee engagement and vibe? There is no right way to do this but, the idea is to do it and do it consistently.
Finally, the more you communicate through effective means, the more you can find time for your home and work priorities. It means you’ve shared the risks with your leadership or your reports and its a problem that the team can help you solve.
After all, if it takes a village to raise children as a Mom, doesn’t it take a village for a Corporate mom to raise profits, grow a business and be the fearless leader for her team? I’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts and ideas on what you are learning as a corporate mom working from home.
