What to do if you are not in a family friendly job

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If you feel held back or stuck in your career because you are a mom and you are not in a family friendly company, you have 3 options: stay, fight or leave. The problem is all these options feel hard. In today’s podcast I breakdown exactly what to do if you find yourself in a company that is not family friendly. I walk you through your options and help you determine exactly which one is right for you.

Topics in this episode:

  • The motherhood penalty facts

  • How you know you are not in a family friendly company

  • The importance of knowing what is you, and what is them

  • 3 options if you feel stuck in your company

  • What is stopping you from pursuing one of these options

  • How coaching can help you move forward

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript


Intro

I want to give you the facts. Women's pay decreases 4% with each child they have, while a man's wage increases by 6%. Working moms only make $0.58 for every dollar a working dad earns. Mothers with one child earn 28% less than a woman without children. And the facts go on and on and on. 


If you feel held back in your career because you are a mom and you are in a company that is not as family friendly as you would like it to be, you have options. 


In today's podcast, I'm going to share with you your three options. Yep, there are only three, and I will walk you through exactly what your next steps are to getting you moving forward toward the working mom life and career that you desire. Yes, the motherhood penalty is real, but you don't have to remain stuck because of it. You ready? Let's get to it.


Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Mom Podcast, a place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is a place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it. 


Oh, my gosh working moms. Welcome to Fall, to changing colors in the trees, to rain, to more darkness, and of course, to more colds and sickness running around the family. Yep, we are knee deep in the Olson family currently with some of those sicknesses going around. But the holidays are fast approaching, and my heart just feels so warm and toasty with the changing of the seasons. I hope the same for you as well. 


I've been doing a lot of reflecting on the impact of COVID and the great resignation that we are seeing right now in America. Right now, one in three women are considering leaving their job, according to a recent study done, and I will link to that study in the show notes. For sure, women are feeling braver and more ready to do what it takes to be happy in their job and to have the flexibility that they want to be the model that they want to be. 


And today, I want to talk about what to do if you find that you are one of those three women that are thinking about changing their jobs. 


If you are in a job that you no longer want to be in, either because the company is not allowing you to prioritize your family in the way that you want, or you're just simply unhappy because you don't like the work anymore. A lot of my clients come to me, for this very specific reason. 


They feel stuck in a job that pays well, that gives them the flexibility they want, but they're just unhappy in it. Or they feel stuck in a job that they like, but it doesn't have the flexibility that they desire and because they're the breadwinner of the family. They feel like the burden of providing. Or maybe they don't even believe that there's a job or a company out there that can pay them what they deserve at the level that they deserve to be at. That also allows them to kind of be the mom that they want to be and have the flexibility that they want. For any of those reasons, they're just feeling stuck. 


And a good portion of my clients reach out to me and say they feel this sense of stuckness and they need help moving forward, finding some direction, some clarity, and taking that next step, no matter how afraid they may feel to take it. 


Being in a company that is unfriendly to working parents.

I had a woman that reached out to me recently and told me that her biggest struggle in feeling happy and balanced right now is that her company is unfriendly to working parents. And she said they sort of put a target on your back if you're a working parent that you are constantly having to fight against and navigate. 


I was also in a recent conversation with a company that's hiring me to come in and give some workshops and some trainings on work life balance to their working parents and caregiver community groups. And this same conversation surfaced. The person I was speaking with told me very candidly that the industry that she works in favors those that can put in more hours. And the company, they say that they're working parent-friendly, but everybody knows that you are given less work and you're given less desirable work if you are working parent, because you say no to working more hours. 


“I don’t work when I’m on vacation..”

And then I had this other client reach out to me recently, just within the last couple of weeks actually - this was more of a celebratory moment, but it kind of gives evidence to this struggle that I see across the board for working parents. She wanted to celebrate something with me. She had just been on a vacation with her family and didn't bring her work computer with her - thank goodness the work that we're doing and coaching is working for her so good that she didn't bring her work computer. And when she got back to work, her boss was sort of frustrated and irritated at her because she wasn't checking her emails. And she told him unapologetically, look, I don't bring my computer when I'm on family vacation. And he said, well, don't you have your work email on your phone? To which she replied, yes, but I turn it off when I go on family vacations because I don't work when I'm on vacation. 


I just wanted to give you some of these real examples of what parents are saying right now, what moms are saying right now about their company and being in an unfriendly work environment, and some of the implications of that. Because I know that this struggle is real. I know that you are not alone if you are struggling if you find yourself in a company that you don't want to be in or in a job that you don't want to be in for whatever reason. For the rest of our time today in this podcast, I want to talk about your options. Let's dive in. 


What being in a non-family-friendly workplace looks like.

The first thing you need to know if you find yourself in a company or in a job or in a team or with a boss that is not family-friendly. Well, before I even get into that, I want to be clear what that might even look like, right? Because that could mean all sorts of things to different people. And I just gave you a few little examples of what that has been and some of the conversations I've been having with working moms about this. But let's just run through some of the options. 


You might not be in a family-friendly environment or company if you feel like you are ashamed or you are made to feel guilty because you have to leave to pick up your kid from school because they're sick. 


Or if you're feeling ashamed or made to feel guilty if you leave work early to attend a school function, maybe even in the middle of the day. 


Or if it's your job to pick up your kids from daycare, which means that you can never work late, you can never work past a certain time, even though everybody else might stay in the office. 


Or maybe if you're completely unavailable because you don't work at night or you choose not to work on the weekends, or you choose not to work on vacations. 


Or maybe it's not that you are made to feel this kind of sort of shame and guilt, but there's an actual consequence. Like you don't receive a bonus because you're not working as many hours as your coworkers. 


Or like in one of my examples, you're given the less desirable or challenging work options which you fear then might slow down your career growth because you're unable or unwilling to work the hours that are required. 


Or there might be comments from your coworkers or your boss because your kids are making an appearance on your video calls and that sort of thing. 


All of these are examples of experiences that I have heard directly from my clients and what I know countless of you deal with that make you feel like you are less than at your company, that you're not being rewarded as you should for your work, and that you would likely label your company as being not family-friendly. 


Check your facts.

So the first thing to do is, if you find yourself in one of these companies or positions, is you need to check your facts. Because if you're going to seriously consider doing something about this, which usually means leaving your job, which we're going to talk about in a moment, you don't want to do that on a hunch. 


We want you to kind of close the loop in your brain that says, is this really true? Is this really not a place for working parents? Am I really being targeted? Do I really have that target on my back? We want you to close the loop by actually answering that question. 


I want you to go out and find evidence for how it is in fact true. You want to make sure, essentially, that you are not self-inflicting any guilt or mindsets or shame because you yourself are thinking that you aren't doing a good job because you aren't working as many hours as other people. Because you're choosing to prioritize your kids or activities or events. Because that can also happen too. 


Everyone has their own preconceived notion of what a good employee is or a successful employee or competitive employee, somebody that's doing really good and amazing work looks like. And you want to make sure that you are not personally defining that a good employee as being someone that is willing to work endless amounts of hours and prioritize tasks and doing more as being more successful. 


Is your own mindset holding you back?

Now, I'm going to be honest, this is a very difficult step. Parsing out your own personal mindsets and thoughts and behaviors that are causing you to feel out of balance and overwhelmed and that are holding you back in your career. That can be really difficult to parse out on your own. But it's a crucial step. 


And if I'm honest, it's one of the reasons why a lot of clients justify the investment in coaching with me. Because they know they can't do this work on their own. They don't know the difference between their own imbalanced behaviors, their own people pleasing and perfecting and hyper-doing that is causing them to feel out of balance and unsuccessful versus a company or a company culture that is heaping on guilt and stress and negative consequences because they're apparent. 


But it's crucial that you figure this out. I want you to have a list of evidence that shows ways that you or your coworkers have been negatively affected, held back, made to feel ashamed or guilty or criticized for being a parent. Because if you kind of really dive into it to really discover the truth and you find that it's really more about you than it is about your company, you are the one that's heaping on your own guilt and shame and criticizing yourself and feeling like you're holding yourself back. That's going to be different. That's going to be a different path to take to try to sort out what's next for you than it is to kind of deal with your job and the company that could also be not very family friendly. 


Your options when you find yourself in a non-family-friendly company.

Let's move forward. Assuming that it's true, let's assume that you have a list of facts that show that you do not work at a family-friendly company. What are your options? Because this is where most women think they get stuck. They don't know what to do. So I'm going to tell you exactly what to do. Are you ready? 


Stay in your company and change your mindset.

There are really only three options that you have to do in this scenario. The first is that you could stay in your company and change your mindset. Essentially, stop worrying about the fact that your company is not family-friendly. Just keep doing what you're doing, prioritize your family, and care a lot less about the impact that it has on your career, or care a lot less about what people think. 


This is actually a viable option for you. You might choose to do this because the benefits are really good, the pay is really good, and that might feel worth it to you. Or you might choose to stay because your priorities have dramatically changed and career progression is just no longer very important to you. I mean, there could be lots of good reasons why you decide to stay and just change your mindset so that you don't feel unhappy. 


What you cannot do is decide to stay in your company and not change your story to stay and continue to tell yourself that you're stuck and that you don't have options. You can't do that. That feels terrible and powerless, and I don't want that for you. The goal is to get unstuck, get unstuck in your mind and move forward. So something is going to have to change in order for you to get unstuck and it might just be your mindset. 


One of the things that always amazes me as women come to talk to me about changing careers and feeling stuck is that there's a good percentage of the women that I work with that decide to stay at their current company that realize their company is actually giving them most of the things that they want. And their skill set matches the job that they have. And all they really needed to do was make a decision to stay and to stop doing the people pleasing and the perfecting and all the things that were causing imbalance for them in their life. 


But it wasn't really the job for some people. As you dive into it, you'll realize that this job is really what you want. It's really about you, and it's really about a shift in the way that you're thinking about yourself, your job and your goals. So that's option number one. 


Stay in your job and fight it.

Your second option is to stay and fight it, to bring your list of facts to HR or the higher ups, you know, to rally a group of working parents together that are all on your side to raise the issue up the chain of command. I'll be honest and say this option, of course it's going to take some time and it's going to require a lot of resiliency and it's going to require some grit. And in the end, you may decide to leave the company anyway. But it is always an option for you to decide to stay in it. 


Companies right now are more willing to hear complaints from their employees. They're more willing than ever before to change company culture. Because employee retention is a really big issue right now. It costs a lot of money for a company to replace you. And if you're really good at what you do, it's worth fighting for you. It's worth making some changes to keep you around. But the outcome, of course, is uncertain. Right? If you decide this option, your company might be unwilling to change in the end, or you might be unwilling to wait the period of time it's going to take for the culture and the company to change. But regardless, it's an option and a choice that you have. 


And some of you may be even doing this now, but you still sort of had this story of being stuck versus just saying that you're making a really conscious choice right now to fight this. It's worth fighting for you, and that you're not actually stuck. It just feels really uncomfortable and bad at times, right? It feels uncomfortable to fight an uphill battle. 


Find a new job.

Your third option is, of course, to just find a new job. You are an at will employee, meaning that you can quit at any time. There is always an option for you to move on. And I can't tell you how often I speak with working moms who forget this. They think that their company holds the trajectory of their career. They feel this sense of loyalty to their company, that they don't want to hurt them and they don't want to put them in a bad space. They feel like their company has been really good to them on some level, or maybe they were really good to them through their maternity leaves, and they owe it to them, and they just kind of feel like they have to stick with it and grit and bear it. 


And of course, if you're believing these things, you're going to feel stuck, because you're not going to feel that at will employee agreement that's actually in place. You're going to feel like you don't have any options, that you're not in control of your career. 


You are stuck because all three of these options feel terrible.

Working moms. If you are in a company that is unfriendly to working parents, these are your three options. This is it. But what I'm about to tell you next is very, very important. If you are finding yourself stuck, it is not because you don't know what your options are or even what to do. You are stuck because all three of these options feel terrible, and you don't want to do something that feels bad. It feels bad to stay in a job for its benefits and the money, and to know that your skill set would be more valued in another company. It takes constant work to manage your mind around that. And that feels bad. It feels hard. It feels bad to fight an uphill battle, a cultural norm where working parents have not been treated fairly, and to lead the charge to do something about it, there will be tradeoffs. 


If you decide to do that, there will be a trade off of your time, of your energy, of your mental space that isn't going to feel very good, and it feels really bad to change jobs. A job search takes time and energy and mental space. It can feel hard to juggle that with your current job and responsibilities as a mom and as a wife. That's not going to feel good either. 


If you feel stuck in a company that's not friendly to working parents, it's not because you don't have options or you don't even know what your options are. It's because your options don't feel great. 


Look, there is no way to sugarcoat these options. We can't magically make any of them feel great. You're not going to magically wake up one day and go, oh my gosh, I'm just so excited to be on this job search, it's going to be so much fun and easy, I just can't wait. You're not going to wake up with that sort of energy one day. You're not going to magically love your boss or be really friendly with your boss, who has maybe not been treating you very fairly for the last several years. You might be able to feel more neutral towards them so they're not so triggering, or you don't feel so much frustration or real negativity towards them. But you're probably not going to have the most amazing, wonderful, great relationship that you get so excited to talk to them every day. 


This is the human experience. To remain inaction. In other words, to remain stuck until an option surfaces that feels good. And this is why people tend to wait to make a really big change, like a job change or a career change, until things get really, really bad. Because it feels better to make a job change when the option to stay feels completely unbearable, versus making a job change when you could still probably tolerate it for some time. So people wait and they wait and they wait until they feel so unhappy and so stuck, which could go on for many, many years, until things get really bad, and then they'll make the change. 


That's not what I want for you. You could waste years of time, of feeling unhappy, of not being present with your family, of not going after your career goals simply because you're unwilling to feel the emotions that come with your options. 


So where do you go from here? You have your options, your three options. You can see that they all feel bad, and that's why you're resisting them. Now what do you do? Okay, here's the next step. 


I want you to zoom out for a moment to what I call the 300 square foot view. Imagine yourself in a plane at, 300ft, looking down at your life from way up there, right? You're gaining a perspective, and I want you to think about…


  • What is it that you see in your life? 

  • Where is your career going? 

  • What are the things that are most important to you at that level? 

  • What do you want to say you did right here in this moment when you're at the end of your life? 


Finding your sense of direction.

I know, some of these things are really big questions. They're questions that I help all of my clients answer because they provide direction. Because if you have some sense of direction, even if it's as simple as I know I don't want to be at this job or in this company for very much longer, that can be enough for you to look at your three options and kind of take stock of what's most important to you and where you're headed and decide which one is right for you. Which hard option is going to get you to the desired results? If none of them are going to feel great, which one of them is at least going to get you to the goal? And then, of course, it's time to do it. 


You know what you need to do. You know now why and which option is best for you because it fits into some bigger goals for yourself, some bigger vision. And now it's time to take that hard first step. 


You are deserving of a happy, wonderful life with a career that you love.

Ambitious working moms. No more settling. You are deserving of a happy, wonderful life with a career that you love, where you make good money, where you are valued for what you bring, where you feel you spend enough time with your kids, where you have the opportunity to raise them exactly how you want to. You deserve this life. 


Conclusion

The world is changing their views of working moms right now, but it is slow and it's steady and it's an uphill battle. And this is what you can do about it right now in your own personal life. If you feel totally overwhelmed by this podcast, like you don't have a vision for what you want in your life or in your career, or maybe you've just been so unhappy for so long and you feel so beat down, or maybe you know exactly which of these three options is for you but you just can't get over that fear - this is where coaching comes in. 


I am a life coach for ambitious working moms. And over the course of our six months together, we're going to do three things. The first is we're going to get you back to feeling amazing and confident in who you are and what you offer the world. Because when you're feeling amazing and confident, you're going to start making amazing and confident decisions for yourself, which is the second thing we're going to do together. We're going to get you crystal clear on exactly what it is you want long term in your motherhood experience in your career. I want you to know, big picture, what you want and short term, what you want. And you're going to feel more confident about those things when you're feeling confident in yourself and what it is you do and your strengths. So those are the first two things we're going to do. And then the third thing we'll do in coaching is I will help you and teach you how to overcome all of the emotional hurdles that come when you go after that dream life of yours. 


If you know you can't do this work on your own, now is the time for us to connect on a free coaching call, I call that a breakthrough call. And on this call, what we're going to do is we're going to, of course, discuss the logistics of coaching together and the investment. But what also we're going to do is get crystal clear on exactly what it is you want and what is getting in the way of you having it right now. 


I know I can help. I would love to connect with you and speak to you. Now is the time. Let's make 2023, the year where you go after unapologetically the life that you want as a working mom. You can go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book to find a time in my calendar to chat for us to talk about coaching and to get you over the emotional hurdles that it's going to require for you to go after the life that you want to have. 


All right, working moms, no more settling. It's time to decide and do the hard thing. I've got you all along the way. Keep listening to this podcast. Reach out to me if you need help. I believe in you. Have a great week and let's get to it. 

Rebecca Olson