How Parents & Employers Can Navigate the Post-Pandemic Workplace
with Dr. Malissa Clark and Christine Robinson
Returning to the workplace after more than a year of working from home poses challenges—and opportunities—for parents and their employers. It’s a bit of an understatement to say the pandemic blurred the lines between work and caregiving responsibilities. How can parents redraw these lines now that employers are inviting and, in some cases, requiring them to return to the workplace?
Dr. Malissa Clark, Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Georgia, and Christine Robinson, Resource Management Leader for Baker Tilly, join us to discuss how parents can advocate for the work flexibility they need and how employers can proactively support working parents.
Included in this episode about returning to the workplace:
How to navigate changes in family routine as you and/or your partner return to the workplace
How to advocate for yourself as you return to work
How do we get back to any sense of work/life balance? How do we manage our workaholism or over-productivity we might have slid into while working from home?
Going forward, how can remote employees continue to differentiate themselves when other colleagues are physically in the office?
How can employers support their employees who are working parents?
Thank you to our sponsor:
Baker Tilly US, LLP (Baker Tilly) is a leading advisory CPA firm that enhances and protects its clients’ value. The firm’s 4,600 advisory, tax and assurance professionals serve as Value Architects™ who gather the right resources at the right time to solve problems and embrace opportunities.
While Baker Tilly delivers a wide array of services to clients and offers many resources to team members, its leaders readily collaborate with other organizations when needed. A recent example includes working with Outschool and Care.com to provide Baker Tilly parents with tools and flexibility to help them with childcare conflicts during the pandemic.
Leaders across the firm demonstrate flexibility and acceptance in their behavior, and Baker Tilly encourages and supports team member forums where colleagues can connect, share insights and offer support. One of the most popular forums is its “Parents for Parents” team member network.
Advocating for Yourself at Work
Throughout the pandemic, day in and day out, parents have demonstrated these leadership attributes:
Prioritization
Efficiency
Situational assessment
Resiliency
Innovation
Ability to keep others engaged and motivated
Decisiveness
5 Ways Employers Can Support Working Parents
Provide access to resources for parents such as Care.com for child care and Out School for virtual learning
Send back-to-school kits for parents with school-age children
Allow flexible work arrangements: Let parents work "when they need to and how they need to" — no approval needed
Offer Disconnect Days, when the office is closed and employees can truly shut down and disconnect from work
Demonstrate accepting and welcoming behavior for employees with children — that includes leadership, too!
Bite-Sized Excerpts from This Episode
The Benefits of Work-Family Boundaries for Workaholics
How Parents Can Advocate for Themselves in the Workplace
Resiliency Bootcamp: The Skills Parents Developed During the Pandemic
Pandemic Benefits for Two-Working-Parent Households
Ways Employers Can Support Working Parents
Meet Our Guest Experts
Malissa Clark, Ph.D.
Dr. Malissa Clark is an Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the University of Georgia.
She earned her BA in organizational studies at the University of Michigan in 2002, and her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Wayne State University in 2010. Her research broadly focuses on employee well-being, work and family dynamics, and workaholism. Dr. Clark’s research has been featured in a variety of media outlets including BBC, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, and New America’s Better Life Lab podcast series. She has received funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Foundation, and her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Journal of Organizational Behavior.
Christine Robinson
Christine Robinson is the Resource Management Leader for Baker Tilly, a top 10 CPA Advisory firm. In this role, she leads a team located throughout the US and drives the firm’s workforce planning strategy. Christine serves as a proud member of the firm’s Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging for Success (DIBS) Steering Committee, a personal passion of hers as a Latina and working mother.
Christine’s philanthropic work is focused on community enrichment and mentorship. She is an active member of the Village Improvement Association (VIA), a women’s organization that fundraises for community efforts and the local hospital. She is an enthusiastic supporter of the International Learning Program (ILP), a group that provides assistance to under-represented families. As a first-generation college student herself, she had the honor of acting as the lead donor for a First Gen student scholarship through a partnership with the ILP and a local community college. Christine holds a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Fordham University and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Bowling Green State University. She is an active alumna, serving as a mentor to university students and presents regularly at BGSU business school events. Christine enjoys speaking about the working parenthood experience and sharing insights on how skills transfer across various settings. Born and raised in New York City, Christine is currently based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and children.
Full Audio Transcript
[THEME MUSIC UNDER INTRO]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Can you say... “This is Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.”
Child 1: Why do we have to?
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Just try it!
Child 1: I can't.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Deep breath
Child 2: [Laughter] This is Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.
Child 3: [Yelling] Lindsay Malloy! Ah!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Wait, say Doctor Lindsay Malloy.
Child 3: [Yelling] Dr. Lindsay Malloy!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: [Laughing] No, come back!
Child 4: This is Dr. Lindsay Malloy.
Child 2: Welcome to the [unintelligible] Parenting Podcast (laugher).
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: [Laughter].
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: One more time.
Child 4: And then after that can I have a candy?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: [Laughing] No.
Child 4: Please, Mommy!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Okay, ready?
Child 4: The Pandemic Parenting Podcast!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Excellent!
[MUSIC ENDS]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Welcome to the Pandemic Parenting Podcast. I'm Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: And I'm Dr. Lindsay Malloy. We are two psychologists, scholars, and moms, and together we co-founded Pandemic Parenting.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: We're here to share science-based research and help all who care for kids navigate this challenging time together.
[MUSIC INTERLUDE]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Many parents and employers have reached out to us with questions about returning to the office. For those of us who have been working in possibly schooling from home for over a year now. This transition might come with a mixed bag of emotions. So in this episode, we're discussing things like workaholism, work, life balance, and boundaries when you're working from home, how to advocate for yourself, if and when it's time to return to the office, and specific ways employers can support working parents right now. So I got to talk with two fantastic experts on this topic. Christine Robinson is the resource management leader for Baker Tilly, a top-ten CPA advisory firm. In this role, she leads a team located throughout the United States and drives the firm's workforce planning strategy. Christine serves as a proud member of the firm's diversity, inclusion, and belonging for Success Steering Committee, a personal passion of hers as a Latina and working mother.
I also got to talk with Doctor Melissa Clark, who is an associate professor of industrial organizational psychology at the University of Georgia. Dr. Clark's research focuses broadly on employee well-being work in family dynamics and workaholism. Her research has been featured in a variety of major media outlets and peer-reviewed journals we're excited to share this conversation with you all. Please let us know what your experience has been or questions you might have on this topic by tweeting us @pandemicparent or by sending a message through our website www.pandemic-parent.org.
Let's get into the conversation. So welcome. Dr. Melissa Clark and Christine Robinson. We're so excited to have you joining us for this conversation. Very excited to pick your brains and hear some of your expertise and perspective on our topic for today, which is really focused on working parents and a lot of parents getting ready to kind of return to work in various ways. So let's start, though, with kind of each of our journeys, right? So you're both working moms in very different professional settings, so I'm just sort of wondering what the last, I guess, year and a half of pandemic parenting has looked like for you in your context. So Melissa, let's start with you.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Well, I think compared to a good chunk of working moms. I actually have had it a little bit easier the past year and a half. My kids are both in middle school, or they're 12 and 14, so they're at that age where they're very self-sufficient. And believe it or not, their school district was in person for the whole year, which is super unusual. There were sometimes when they were in close contact, and they had to do their, you know, two weeks of schooling here, but besides that, I was able to send them to school every day and be able to get my work done during the work day. The only time that was kind of blocked off was I didn't send him on the bus this year. I picked him up every day, so between 3:00 and 4:00 I was always driving into the car rider line and doing the mom thing. And that just happened to be when most department meetings were, and talks and so totally interfered with that course, right? But I can't complain. I really had it easy compared to a lot of my colleagues and those colleagues in the next county over where they were virtual all year.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, big difference, and did you see a change over the course of the pandemic – now that we've been at this for a year and a half – were there phases that felt easier or harder to you?
Dr. Malissa Clark: Well, for a lot of us, the beginning phase because it was also uncertain, and you know, and they were actually for that. The rest of that school year, they were at home, so for me, that was pretty challenging. I forgot about that. Already blocked it out.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Isn't it amazing how we know how it did we really do block it out? Like how? How sort of bad that was in the beginning, as we were all adjusting to the setting.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Yeah, so that was the hardest, but my struggles were really navigating how to allow them to be teenagers but giving them restrictions that a lot of their friends didn't have, you know, in our area that we live, so trying to explain to them you know the importance of social distancing and wearing masks. That was, that was my tough part. So not exactly have the same struggles as a lot of parents of young kids.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yes, right, but right now, for sure. We've seen a lot of differences and had lots of conversations with parents around. And how different it has looked when you're parenting kids of these different ages, that's certainly what's shown up in Lindsay and my research as well. So Christine, what about you? Tell us what this journey has been like.
Christine Robinson: It certainly has been interesting. I'll tell you that I was actually pregnant during the pandemic, and so of course, I had a baby while also raising a little one who had turned 2 in 2020. So our daycare, which was of course, our primary source of childcare, was closed. We were quarantining, you know we were kind of away from our extended families. My husband and I both work full-time.
Typically our days consist of video calls or presentations happening over zoom, and we're doing this while attempting to corral a very active, very active 2-year-old. So I would say his goal in life at the time seemed to be to get an early start on his career as a future stuntman, just to give you a little perspective of what we were managing, and you know of course, I had to return to leave right over that time frame as well, which like many other families that were experiencing something similar. There was that sense of being somewhat robbed of the traditional typical hallmarks of that period that you're used to and that you had been perhaps looking forward to. So seeing family or having that same level of support that we would have had we experienced our pre-pandemic.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, that's been a huge topic. We ended up doing a whole webinar in writing several blogs about, you know, pregnancy during the pandemic and that kind of grief around not having your village show up in the ways they usually would during that period of time, so yeah, it's so interesting. Our kids really hit the spectrums, which I love. Mine are right in the middle. Between the ages of both of yours, so I have three boys, eleven, nine, and five. So yes, the stuntman part of what you described, Christine, I resonate with a lot. There was a lot of wrestling and pulling of kids apart. And you know, as we've all been locked in our homes so so very different experiences in some way, which I think is great, as we also kind of bring to bear the expertise that you both have in into thinking about this for working parents across the board, and even among the three of us, our experiences were different because of the ages of our kids because of our various employment contexts as well, you know, the flexibility around working from home or not, you know? Like you said, Melissa, whether your kids were in a remote school or at home for the duration of this, whether you don't have childcare at all and have very young kids like yours, Christine. So I felt like, and I'm curious if you saw this too, you know, one of the frustrations for me is I just felt like a lot of people didn't get it.
A lot of my colleagues had older kids, so maybe young adults, kids who are already grown and out of the home or self-sufficient in some ways. And it just felt like they really had no idea what was happening. For those of us at home with young kids. So do your colleagues refer to it? Do you know? As, oh, this is just really inconvenient. Or maybe I'm lonely, and all of that is true, and I get that, but I did not feel like that was capturing the experience for those of us at home trying to parent kids 24/7 and provide the supervision, especially when they're younger, but also do our jobs and figure out how to show up for work in the ways that we were expected to so the reference to things like it being inconvenient was very different than how I felt like my, you know, co-founder Lindsay has often referred to this as relentless parenting that felt more on target for me, but I'm curious. It's about your perspectives, like why have we? Why have we seen such a disproportionate impact on people, especially working parents? So Christine, let's start with you with your very young ones.
Christine Robinson: Sure, sure, so I would say working parents in the pandemic have had to navigate a number of very difficult decisions, and all of them have been. I would argue importantly, so it's things like should I let my parents meet my newborn, you know, will I be able to do my job appropriately if I don't send my child to daycare or some sort of child care while also risking exposure to the virus, you know? Which family members should I quarantine with? And so, speaking from my own personal experience in my immediate bubble, I had more than one immunocompromised individual that was part of that, and so, and in addition, of course, as I described, I was pregnant as well, you know, during this spike in COVID cases. And so we as a family had to make some really hard choices about how we were going to live our lives. And the thing about that is I don't believe my experience was unique. If you ask most working parents during that time, they've had to really make some calculated risks and make these very difficult choices during the pandemic under an enormous amount of stress. And the other factor that I would layer into that is, we really didn't have the luxury of stability, certainty, whether that was related to the ever-evolving guidance around the virus with our children or, you know, outside of that. And I would say anyone who has or who has had toddler-age children can relate. There's not a whole lot of predictability that you're dealing with as well there, right? So you can't really rely too much on them, I mean, you know, in terms of schedule and the way that they're reacting to things, and so those things combined truly created a very challenging set of circumstances with no real defined end date insight and certainly no breaks either. So if I had to summarize the experience, I would say it was one that resulted in physical, cognitive, and emotional exhaustion simultaneously. In my opinion, that's the part that really made it brutal, it's the seemingly endless hamster wheel of experiencing all those things happening at the same time.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah. Melissa, what about you?
Dr. Malissa Clark: To build on what Christine was saying, I totally agree, and I think part of what might be people struggle to fully understand what it's like for parents of young children is that everyone went through this trauma, right? There's not a single person who wasn't affected by COVID in one way, shape, or form, and so we're all dealing with our own struggles, our own emotions. And so when we're experiencing this trauma, oftentimes it's hard to see outside of ourselves, you know? We're focused on self-care and kind of making it through. I could see why that might be difficult to really try to understand coworkers who you know have young children and what it's like, especially if they've never had children before. You know, my kids are older, but I remember that toddler stage. The baby stage was so, so hard, and so I can see that perspective, but I've gained a lot of perspectives. Also, just from my research, it's given me insight into what couples and individuals are struggling with during this time. We did a study of dual-income couples at the very beginning of the pandemic they had to have at least one child under the age of 6, so they had very young kids, and they had to both be working full time prior to COVID and what we were really focused on was how are they managing childcare, and you know what were their strategies and how did that affect the relationship, health, and work outcomes. And then I had another study where I was doing interviews of individuals just in general, and I saw a big difference in the types of strategies people were talking about when I was asking, well, how are you coping with work stressors and family stressors and individuals with children sounded a lot like the sample of dual-earner parents that, you know, coordinating childcare and trying to manage work and family at the same time. And it's all unpredictable and super stressful, and there's a conflict between partners. But then conversely, those without children at all, or with, you know, children that are grown, a lot of the coping strategies that they talked about were on self-care, so it was largely focused on, well, how am I taking care of myself? A lot of the strategies for those with young children were like, how am I making this all work? So I guess stepping back a little bit, I think that that might be part of why people may not be really seeing it from the other perspective is 'cause they are dealing with stuff, but it's not the same
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Well, and I think it relates to, you know, a lot of these transitions we're starting to think about now. I'm so glad you shared, yeah, that data and the findings, especially in thinking about even how couples are navigating this. So we just released an episode on Dads, and some of the questions we got are when you're in, you know, a dual working household and maybe one of the people has to return to work doesn't have a choice. Maybe they're going to resume travel or have to be back in the office, and the other doesn't necessarily have that yet. And so the sort of guilt and renegotiation now around, you know, as Christine described like we were negotiating these things on an hourly daily basis. OK, you have this meeting. I'll watch the kids while you do. I mean, it was this constant matrix of trying to manage it. As you said, you know a lot of those parents in your study referenced it as constantly managing this versus being able to focus on self-care. So now when we have differences in households, you know, or expectations being placed on parents by employers. I'm just sort of wondering how we can help parents navigate that. So as you kind of think about what you found in those couple's discrepancies and how we'll start to transition back to whatever that looks like. That's one of the things I know is on a lot of parent's minds is, you know what? What can you maybe share or what comes to mind from the work you've been doing for so many years around how to help people navigate these transitions amidst the exhaustion, you know, that Christine described?
Christine Robinson: Yeah, definitely I mean, I can get a perspective on that, you know? Certainly, which is harder and speaking from my own. As I said, my own experience, and certainly in what I have observed right from a professional standpoint in my circle of, you know, immediate friends, has been that the exhaustion and just the feeling of completely being worn out frankly and for so long has led to cloudiness in our ability to really be able to decipher and exactly the direction that we want to move in, and so despite the fact that this entire 18 month period has been full of incredible change and incredible challenge, it is different now. And so, taking a little bit of time to get clear about what the priorities are. I think it is hugely important because likely what we have found is that we have all been navigating something with and solutions for things that are not the way we would have anticipated them right prior to COVID, and perhaps our views have changed, what we do believe is important to us, you know? I can give you my own, my own experiences. My husband actually had previously been commuting a very long time to get back and forth from work, and I have now gotten very used to eating dinner together as a family. And that's not something that prior to this had been hugely important to me, you know, we did it on the weekends, and that was kind of good enough, and it was what it was, and I think the shift now is very hard, you know, to navigate that and so you know that that is maybe a small example, but I think it's representative of the type of routine and the type of change in routine right that people are experiencing and I'm certain I'm not the only one. And so to wrap that up with what I would describe is certainly that it would be hugely beneficial to take a little bit of time to really assess what those things are and not necessarily rely on our muscle memory of what they were because without that grounding it, I think it's going to be hard to move forward and make the decisions that are appropriate for our family and for us personally and professionally as well.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: I think that is such a key reminder, and it's something we've harped on again and again to not hold yourself to the expectations of maybe who you were before the pandemic or who your kids were before or who you were even as an employee, let's say, because you're exactly right, if we were going to set ourselves up to fail if it's OK, well, we're going to get back to the way we were before and that just may not be possible and may actually not be the most productive way to be any more or the best thing for your family anymore, and that's OK to really reevaluate and kind of make decisions for where we are right now.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Christine, I like how you mentioned commuting. That's amazing, you know? How it just used to be taken as the way it is, and now so many people are reconsidering, you know, where they're living, how much they're willing to spend in the car every day. And you know now that we've figured out that we can actually be productive from home. It just seems like wasted time. Most people have experienced a good amount of burnout just from all of the stress related to COVID stress related, learning new technology, and managing work and family. There's this, you know, high level of burnout right now, universally. And so I feel like there might be a tendency to make decisions right now that maybe are driven more by the burnout that you're feeling by letting some more time go by, you know, the cloudiness, as Christine put it, can kind of diminish, a little bit and then decisions about whether or not you're going to go back to work full-time or change careers or whatnot might be more in line with your identity, your long term goal. So that might be something I would say is to maybe not think that decisions you make right now are going to be the ultimate, you know, the final decision on what your career is going to look like. I just think that this might just be something temporary that you can reconsider. Moving forward, for example, the study of dual-earner couples. They both, like both members of the couple, were very work-centric. They were, but their work was a big part of their identity. But in half of those couples, their strategy was that the woman did all or mostly all of the child care, and so if career decisions were made based on, you know, how these couples were navigating childcare during the pandemic, then you know a large chunk of the women and mothers in the sample would definitely be cutting back on hours if they already had a TERT, or would maybe focus on, you know, changing a career that to a career that wasn't so intense, but just pausing a little and realizing that this is a crisis situation, and these strategies in this crisis may not necessarily be best for you. Best for your family. Best for the partnership that you have with your spouse or best for your kids.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, I think what you're both describing is, you know, what we call a lot of times in the psychological research decision fatigue, and we've talked a lot about that in the pandemic parenting work we've been doing for the last year to try to help people understand like This is why you feel like you're on that hamster wheel and why you're so exhausted. And so now, as you're both kind of bringing up some of these decisions around going back to work, how will that look for our family? You know what, what will the changes be? One of the things I'm thinking about as we look at, you know, what the decision fatigue research tells us and how to decrease that fatigue is to really think about what are the actual decisions I have to make. So as I was hearing you both talk, it was making me think that you know, for some people, maybe whose employers are requiring, they come back to work. There are pros and cons to that, but from a decision fatigue standpoint, it's sort of like, OK, it's what it is. I can't change it, so now let me shift my focus to making that work for our family or figuring out what we need to do to make that work. So for some, I imagine there may be a bit of relief and that I don't have to make the decision 'cause those stakes feel really high. Should I go back? What will that look like for my family? It reminds me a lot of the struggles a lot of parents were having when they were given a choice about whether to send their kids back to school or not, right? For some, it felt like a relief to just it is what it is now we can adapt, but you know, in this context, some people may not have a choice about returning. So for those, I want to think a little bit about, there's a lot of anxiety there, right? If I don't have a choice about returning and my employer expects me to be back by such and such date according to these terms, I'm wondering if there are some ways that parents can kind of advocate for themselves because we have learned a lot through this. As you've pointed out, we can be productive. We've shown that we can figure this out and still be contributing employees in our respective context. So things like the commute or working from home, or using technology. I'm sort of thinking about maybe there are some Silver Linings that came from this and what you both think about, you know, ways maybe that working parents might advocate for themselves when it comes to returning in different capacities.
Christine Robinson: I'd encourage those working parents who find them– some find themselves challenged by either the demands or what I believe in some cases are the perceived demands of their employers to really clearly define what their priorities are as well as their dealbreakers related to their job. That will really position them to have meaningful conversations with their employers around how they can integrate the push-pull of the various aspects of their lives at the moment. I'd also advise folks that are thinking about all of this to really frame their mindset in terms of accomplishments, and what I mean by that is really thinking about what results they can achieve for their employers, perhaps in nontraditional hours, those things might not necessarily stand in the way of what they need to deliver, or what their role is so. So having your arms around what those are and what those keys are, either metrics or achievements or results depending on your line of work, really, that's going to be key to having successful, meaningful conversations with your employer. To, you know, advocate for yourself and put yourself in a position of strength as you're making those decisions around that stuff.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Yeah, I mean, I think at this point, organizations hopefully have learned that employees can be productive working from home. And, you know, before the pandemic, you know, studying telecommuting and flexible workplace arrangements, you know, I think a lot of organizations would have sworn this would never work, but then they were pretty shocked when actually a lot of the data suggest that people are more productive now, which could have downsides, so I might talk about this later, but thinking through what is most important to you because you could, you know, negotiate a lot of different things. This flexibility depends on your work location, your work hours, your different role within the organization, and thinking about what is most important to you. Based on, you know, what we've been talking about, what your goals and your ideals are, and hopefully there is someone at the organization that could advocate for, you know, one of the most helpful things that facilitate, you know work-life balance is when the supervisor is supportive of family-friendly policies and managing your work in your life. But if the supervisor is not supportive of work, or family issues, then it might be very difficult to negotiate some of these things, or even if you do negotiate some of them, that could have downstream effects in terms of promotions and raises and so that might be a time when you got to really realize or think to yourself is this a place I want to be maybe? Maybe it's an organizational change that I need to make, maybe you know I need to move to a more family-friendly organization because a lot of organizations are allowing at least some telecommuting, and so I definitely see a shift in terms of employees kind of moving. Those that prefer working from home at least some days a week they're going to be leaving as the economy continues to improve. They're going to be leaving those organizations that don't give them a choice. So if they want to keep top talent, then you know, I think they need to work with those employees to figure out a solution that works for everyone.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, I think that's going to be a really interesting trend too. I've been, you know, sort of reading some articles to that effect. That you're going to be able to advocate for these things because that will start to be a recruiting tool, you know, the ability to be flexible because, as you said, you know, we've now shown we can do it, and employers have been sort of forced to see like oh wow, this is actually working out in some ways. And one of the things I was just thinking too about was the suggestions you both gave as far as you know, working parents returning and talking with supervisors is when you're making these decisions or saying, you know, here's what I want to do.
I think sometimes we feel this pressure, especially when it comes to like workplace negotiations. Like I get one shot to negotiate this. And I think what I also want to maybe remind people, based on what you both said from that decision-making literature, is very few decisions we make in life are permanent, right? So one of the mantras that have helped keep me afloat this year has been things work until they don't. And so this is the decision that we're making for our family right now. Or maybe this is what I'm telling my boss. Here's what I want to try for the next two months, but you know what? Then my kids are going to go back to school, and I'm not sure that's still going to work, so can we revisit this in two months to just talk about whether it makes sense for me to still work at home two days a week or not? And whether that's, you know, still feasible for my family and for you, my employer, so encouraging people to not feel like when you go and have these conversations and maybe negotiations around returning that, that's it, you know whatever I decide right now, I just have to do, go with and look for that flexibility. Like you said, Melissa, if you have a supervisor that gets it, they're going to be open to that because they want to keep you there.
[AD BREAK]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: This episode is sponsored by Baker Tilly, USLP Baker Tilly is a leading advisory CPA firm that enhances and protects its client's value. The firm's 42nd 100 advisory Tax and assurance professionals serve as value architects who gather the right resources at the right time to solve problems and embrace opportunities, while Baker Tilly delivers a wide array of services to clients and offers many resources to team members, its leaders readily collaborate with other organizations when needed. A recent example includes working without school and Kirkham to provide Baker Tilly parents with tools and flexibility to help them with childcare conflicts during the pandemic. Leaders across the firm demonstrate flexibility and acceptance in their behavior, and Baker Tilly encourages and supports team member forums where colleagues can connect, share insights and offer support. One of the most popular forums is its parents for parents team members network. Our deepest thanks to Baker Tilly for being an excellent example of an organization really trying to step up and support pandemic parents right now.
[END AD BREAK]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: So, you started to go down this path, which I think was a great one, Melissa, around, you know, sort of productivity, maybe over productivity, which is making me think about the work-life balance phrase you used, and I think that's a really interesting outcome of this past year, too, right? Are we lost? Maybe some of our boundaries we lost our focus or just weren't feasible, like when you were talking about in your research, the idea of self-care, you know, being different for people, and of course for all of us, at least for me, it felt like well, when am I supposed to fit that in?
I am relentlessly parenting and working 24 hours a day, but where we might have had those boundaries, your commute may be used to give you that time to shift from who I am at work versus shifting into mommy mode or whatever. That's all gone. For many of us, at least, it has been for a while now. You know work was home, the home was work, and so I'm wondering, just yeah, to kind of hear from both of you about maybe your experiences or thoughts about that. But just how do we get back to some sort of work-life balance, or has your thinking changed around that? And it sounds like for you, Melissa, maybe, it had the idea of productivity.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Well, yeah, I mean. So I've watched to say about this, you know, in addition to work-family conflict, I also study workaholism. We've been doing some research and doing some interviews, in particular of people that, prior to the pandemic, were already struggling with workaholism and overwork.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Why do I feel like you're looking at me through the screen? Why are you looking at me when you say that no, I'm sitting? Or maybe it's a mirror, and I'm looking at myself.
Dr. Malissa Clark: I don't know, but– so talking about workaholism first and then backtracking, maybe to those that don't have as severe of issues of managing work and family but for those that were already struggling with working all the time and feeling like they ought to be, you know, working 24/7.
Then once they started working from home and not having these queues in terms of commute or activities like, you know, if they do have kids, oftentimes, you know, a hard break would be if you had to go watch them play a sports game or something that could be a way that kind of forces someone who tends to, you know, work all the time, kind of forces them to take a break, but with the pandemic, everything shut down. So there, you know, not only was it the lack of commute and that signal of like I'm leaving home, I'm coming back home. But all of these other distractions and kind of hard stops where you know it's expected that you will stop working for that period of time. Those all kind of went away, and it turned into just this free rein where you have all day every day that you potentially could work, and workaholism is a multidimensional concept, but a big part of it is this idea that feeling like you have to be working all the time and feeling guilty when you're not working. So imagine someone who has young children at home that they have to be taken care of, and they have these workaholic tendencies all that time they're spending caring for kids because of the necessity. Their anxiety and their guilt that they're not working is even higher than it was prior to the pandemic when they didn't have to do childcare during the day. So I guess what I'm saying is, from what I'm seeing in the data is that workaholism has kind of had a free reign during the pandemic, that we really hope, once we start going back to normal, can start to implement some of those strategies to reduce that urge, or need that some people feel that they need to be working all the time, but that's on the extreme end I think. Just in general, the work-family boundary management literature suggests that having boundaries between work and home tends to be more effective for most people than trying to integrate the two, and some people do work best when they're integrating and kind of doing work and family stuff interchangeably, but for most people that is not the most effective strategy. So, you know, this working from home and having kids at home and everything is kind of mixed together. The boundaries are blurred, and as things begin to get back to normal, the most important thing is to think about, well, how can we build up those boundaries a little bit? If that's what works best for you – to add in those cues – even if you choose to, even if you negotiate a work-from-home arrangement. Once kids go back to school, maybe there's a stronger boundary because they are not in your workspace all day during the day. Rest and recovery strategies could be anything from exercise to socializing with people. That was another thing that we didn't have curing the pandemic, and all of those can help reset us so that we go to work the next day and we feel energized, and you know we're able to kind of recover some of those lost resources that inevitably when we work, that's what happens.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Feels like she was in my house and in my head, Christine. What about you?
Christine Robinson: I know, I agree. I think one of the things that really resonated with me, Melissa, around what you were describing is the boundaries or perhaps the lack of boundaries, and in my personal experience, it was the absence of a transition period, right? So it was very much in my experience and due to the nature of my own work and my husband where there was really no transition between whether it would be a meeting or, you know, caring for our son or making lunch or whatever happened to be going on that day. And so it was this mental strain of doing a presentation and then immediately walking out the door and having a 2-year-old that needs you. It's very difficult, and prior to this, certainly, the commute may or may not have been enjoyable, but it definitely provided that reprieve of shifting your focus and getting your head in the game for the next part of your day. The night shift, you know, if you will. You know, moving to dealing with your kids and managing all of that. And what I would also add is exhaustion. The feeling of being completely worn out is so prevalent, of course, among the group of working parents, and despite how challenging that was, I believe that there were actually many benefits that will be gained simply because of everything that we went through with sort of a boot camp situation. In my opinion, a resiliency boot camp situation that we were in – and I would say those worn-out parents out there, we need to hear this clearly –that experience that you all had as part of the pandemic really can position you for career growth in your future, and I appreciate that might sound strange given it was in some cases brutal, but it's an important concept you can leverage the skills and the experiences that you gained in parenting throughout the pandemic to be a leader in your workplace. So when you think about it, there are a number of key skills that working parents have honed, during the pandemic, in practice, over and over day to day thinking about prioritization, efficiency, and accurate situational assessment of what they were navigating. Incredibly high levels of resiliency, innovation, the ability to keep others engaged and motivated, and of course, decisiveness is a huge skill that many parents have to practice day in and day out. These are all attributes and leaders that set of circumstances created a situation where these working parents had to really have their priorities crystal clear they were not expending energy on things that weren't in line with what they defined as priorities because they didn't have the ability or the luxury of the time to be able to do that. If you think about that. In the context of work, there are huge implications on both productivity and efficiency, so the idea of being able to stick to a project and plan not getting sidetracked. Some really great skills there, not the least of which is that those individuals are going to be incredibly well-positioned to be decisive leaders. I would say another example is the caravan, the birthday caravan trees that have become so extremely popular concerning stupid, you know, I don't know specifically who first thought of it. but I'm certain somewhere out there, there was a parent that invented that, right? So if someone's parents came up with this creative way to celebrate their child when circumstances made those traditional methods impossible. And that's the ingenuity of this group of parents. You throw them into an impossible situation, and they find a way against all odds to make the birthday party happen, right? And so if you take that concept, translate it into the workplace, think about the implications of a business leader who has that mindset. These are leaders that know how to really get creative to solve complex problems, motivate others, and keep them engaged. They can drive retention within their organization. So I would challenge those listening to do an after-action review of their pandemic parenting experience and note the skills and experiences that they've gained because I'd argue that many of them are absolutely transferable in the workplace. These are areas that you had and, in my opinion, should hone and leverage for your own personal growth in the future.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: That is amazing. What a great reframe, of all of which is– also can I just say, so classic of like parents and moms is to go right to the guilt right of everything we do wrong, and as this has been so hard and I probably messed this up, and I wasn't as productive or efficient as I could have been and this and the way you just flipped it right, which is, here is how these are assets to you. They were not weaknesses. They are, like you said, skills that you honed over this period of time and why you're going to be able to leverage those. That is, it is really helpful, so thank you for that.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Those were amazing suggestions, and I hadn't really thought about it like that. So I appreciate that, Christine. Other benefits that I, you know, have been thinking about organizations finally giving telecommuting remote work a chance kind of forced their hand, although some organizations might go back to the way it was previously. Actually, I think now there are a lot more organizations that are open to remote work, and that is a positive that has kind of come out of the pandemic. And also, although we talked about it at the beginning, some people truly just don't understand what it's like for working parents of young children. But there are some people who have been enlightened, those that really didn't see their coworkers strong, or their subordinates' way that they manage, work and family in these zoom calls where they see kids in the background and see how they're managing. And wow, they have a lot on their plate, and look how productive they're being.
I mean, I think in some cases it's been eye-opening in a good way, letting people know that don't have kids, you know, how difficult it is seeing their employees thrive in these circumstances. And also, I think the final thing is individuals. Let's just talk about fathers and dads who maybe weren't previously very active in childcare and parenting. And kind of really work-focused. It actually forced a lot of these individuals to see what it's like and to actually be more involved in family. And we see it's like an uptick, and the percentage of men that are more willing to request things like flexibility in work, location, flexibility, and schedule compared to prior to the pandemic. So there has been a shift. It's not as big as the shift for women, but there's a shift, so not only is it just women asking for these flexible policies. These men are asking for that more often too, and so that's a change, and I will say in the study of dual-income couples, although half of them had really gendered patterns of childcare, the other half had really creative egalitarian strategies, and it worked really well for some of these couples. So, for example, if someone has a meeting, then the other person does childcare, and then they communicate throughout the day, depending on what's going on with work schedules and with the kids. And they do that every day, and that was more effective than couples that kind of just set a schedule and stuck to the schedule without a lot of flexibility and without a lot of communication between the two. It's still egalitarian, right? They divided up the work day in half, but we found that couples that had this improvising type of childcare arrangement. Their outcomes, their relationship outcomes, and their health outcomes were a little bit better, and so for some couples they may have strengthened their relationship and they learned how to work together as a team. And so I think that is something else positive that has come out for some people.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: That's so interesting. I also think it has helped our kids learn much better how to strategize their requests, right? Oh, this is mom's hour. I'm going to be sure to wait and ask her when it is our hour pretty soon, so it gets so quiet.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: That is true. Kids have learned a lot too.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: That's very savvy in their negotiation strategies as well. Yeah, so I'm thinking too about you both talking about framing some of these things we've learned in really great ways, which I think is so important. I'm also thinking about how, as people start to return to work in different formats. One of the things that I've had a hard time with, and I know a lot of other parents, is I’m at a disadvantage, right, because I am pandemic parenting? I'm dealing with these kids, you know, very young kids who need me in different ways throughout the day. I have a different level of productivity and schedule and expectations than maybe some others that don't have those constraints. And so for a lot of parents, there's been this worry about how I'm going to fall behind, you know, others that didn't have to manage these extra things. So I just wondered if either of you had kind of thoughts around how, and even if I negotiate to continue to be remote in some ways or work from home a couple of days a week, do what I need to do for my family. How can I differentiate myself? Maybe when colleagues don't have a lot of these constraints?
Dr. Malissa Clark: I think play up some of the stuff that Christine was mentioning, the skills that were learned during pandemic parenting. If your goal is to move up in the organization, I think advocating for yourself then there's a study that shows that women are less likely than men compared to pre-pandemic to ask for a pay raise they're less likely than men to ask for promotion, and So what we don't want is even a greater disparity than already exists in terms of pay gap and whatnot, right?
So in addition to leveraging your strengths that you gained or honed with pandemic parenting, but actually advocating for yourself in terms of, you know, don't be hesitant to ask for the raise just because you know we're kind of emerging from a pandemic because your male colleagues are going to be more likely than you to do that, so you know, for women, I think just continuing to not be afraid to advocate for yourself in terms of asking for promotions and going after those opportunities to advance in your career.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Christine, what about from the, I guess, employer's standpoint, not, not necessarily yours specifically, but I'm just sort of curious, like what maybe trends you've seen or great examples of how employers are trying to step up and support, you know, working parents as they transition. That's a question we've gotten. Quite a few people are like Melissa was saying, you know others are starting to get that perspective which is helpful as they see their employees struggling with kids behind them or whatever. And they say, you know, I want to be helpful, I want to support them, I just don't know how. And so I'm just curious what you've observed across the spaces that you work in around that.
Christine Robinson: Yeah, there are certainly a number of very creative solutions that organizations and employers in different industries have come up with, this pandemic has been a little bit gimmicky, and others have been, you know, really specific and intangible. There are certainly a number of ways that employers can support their working parents. People solutions at my firm, under the leadership of our managing partner, has put together a number of initiatives that I'd encourage other organizations to think about and potentially explore, such as providing access to resources for parents like her, COM for childcare or out of school or virtual learning that have been really well received. Sending back-to-school kits for employees that have school-aged children has been a very nice touch that was very much appreciated, but I know a number of our folks, there are some very deliberate actions as well that that can be taken to support the culture of flexibility, and so, for example, one of the things that we implemented was a no approval necessary. Flexible work arrangement and that was really her employees who had their routines impacted in some way by the pandemic, and I would say that's really all about working how you need to when you need to, to ensure that it's working for both you and your employer. Another item is what we call disconnect. It's a very interesting concept and one that I love. It's a handful of days that the organization picked that essentially we shut down our firm for the day and really allowed our people to truly disconnect. The other thing – just lastly that I'd emphasize – is the importance of demonstrating the behavior, and it's the behavior of acceptance and belonging. Having firm leaders, perhaps on video calls where you can see their kids in the background, and it's really letting people know we get it, and we're going to get through this together.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: I would agree that having some real tangible, concrete ways employers can help makes all the difference right. It's one thing to sort of say we get it, you're struggling, we see you, hang in there, versus really implementing policies that make the difference. I love that you're cheerleading me on, but I'm still drowning. So I really appreciate those very specific suggestions. So as we sort of wrap up and, you know, kind of think about a lot of these transitions, I'm just wondering if you each have maybe some final thoughts or messages you want to give to all of the working parents out there, just trying to figure it out.
Christine Robinson: Working parents have been through a collective experience that, in many instances, as most describe, could be described as trauma, and so my message is certainly not to cast aside the very real challenges. And, of course, tragedies that COVID has brought with it, but rather, to encourage working parents not to lose sight of the incredible lessons that we've learned, gaining lessons around creative thinking leadership under intense pressure to take pride in knowing that they're positioned to handle complex challenges. And there are employers out there that recognize that and are ready to support them.
Dr. Malissa Clark: Yeah, I mean, overall, I am hopeful that organizations are going to shift their culture around work-family balance and that some of the lessons that they've learned in the pandemic that people can be very productive working from home that they will continue those after. That is my hope.
I know I've heard that some organizations are kind of going right back to the way things were, but as I mentioned previously, I don't know if employees are really going to be OK with that anymore, and I think all the working parents, you know if you're finding that your perspective has changed that you kind of thought this is the way it had to be, and now your eyes are open a little bit too. Actually, no, you know, once we send the kids back to daycare in school, this does have a lot of advantages and a lot more flexibility, and so I encourage you to seek out what is important to you, to think about what you want, what you value, and to go for it because you're worth it. And if you ask for flexible work arrangements and you are given a hard no by your supervisor. Then maybe that's your cue to start looking around, know your value and kind of seek out those opportunities, and you might be really happy with the outcome, but you know, overall, having older kids that are self-sufficient. I just really admire everything that you all have done that have young children, and I'm so impressed and in awe of everything that you've been able to do during the pandemic, right? Yeah, they do.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Thank you both so much for all that you shared with us. Really appreciate it.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Pandemic Parenting Podcast.
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