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Society depends on humans to work. This is important because it allows the economy to grow, our world to grow and society to continue to flourish.  Regardless of the sector we work in, society as well as our relationships revolve around our employment. As adults, our employment dictates many personal decisions as on average a person spends 40 hours of their week fostering their work relationships.

When one becomes a parent, they must make decisions. Will they be a stay-at-home parent or a working parent ? The outcomes leads to more decisions.  As a working parent, you must then choose the perfect childcare provider.  The place where you will leave your most cherished possession for over 40 hours a week.

But imagine, one day your complex web of relationships is destroyed. You no longer get to seperate your professional life and personnal life.  COVID-19 has done exactly that. As the virus infiltrated itself in our lives, it destroyed our webs.  Not only was one expected reduce or even illiminate any social interactions or rely on their village for support, they were still expected to work.  In the blink of an eye, working parents became full-time caregivers with no way to seperate the two.

Picture this, you are on a Zoom call with senior managers from your organization discussion a reopening plan strategy, at the same time your three year old is screaming for lunch and your 1 year old toddler decides to throw is  fork at your head as he spills his milk all over your papers... and it is only 9 am.  This is a typical event in the day of a parent trying to meet too many duties.

Burnouts, extreme feelings of guilt and inability to meet all needs are rampid. Asking parents to be full-time employees while being a full-time parent with no support is unimagineable, yet here we are asking parents to do the unthinkable.

This burnout does not impact everyone in the same way. The stress of having to balance everything during the pandemic is especially affecting parents, mothers in particular. A Canadian study showed that mothers' anxiety and depression nearly doubled due to the pandemic. This study shows the impacts of having to balance all of these roles on a more full-time basis has led to over one-third of mothers feeling symptoms of depression compared to the previous statistic, which was under one in five. This is not exclusive to mothers, but it is still more common due to gender norms that are still present in Canadian society.

A result of these added pressures is many women leaving the workforce. COVID-19 is setting women's progression with the pandemic having a near-immediate impact on women's employment. Now, one-fourth of women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving altogether. The pandemic has impacted all women. However, three main groups have experienced the greatest challenges: women in senior positions, working moms, and Black women.

Although some companies are making efforts to support their workforce during this pandemic, women still feel more pressure than men at work. This finding suggests that more needs to be done by companies to adjust the expectations and norms which are lead to women feeling this way. The culture in many workplaces, including my workplace, has led to mothers leaving management roles to find roles where they can work from home to accommodate the additional tasks if they cannot find proper care for their children.

Companies should allow for more flexibility in order to attract and retain women. They can do this by creating a more inclusive culture. Currently, many companies are set up to be rigid with meetings, set roles and timelines. If everyone worked better as a team, then if an emergency at home happens, a fellow employee can help out. This can be done by management sharing responsibilities amongst team members to have people who can do the same work if they need to for a certain situation. Meetings should also be minimized as they are time-consuming, and the same message can often be achieved by a phone call or an email.

Companies need to be more emphatic than before with their employees who are parents of, especially younger children. Companies need to realize that we are in unusual circumstances where restrictions about schools and daycares opening are constantly changing, causing parents to adjust quickly. These adjustments can hopefully be implemented at companies after the pandemic as well.

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Lesli Tathum interviews single mom Cindy Reid to speak about the challenges of parenting during the pandemic.

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Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report

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Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, McKinsey’s annual Women in the Workplace report is the largest study of women in corporate America. See our 2024 findings.

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Credit: @gaugegirltraining

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Women around the world have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has heightened the large and small inequalities-both at work and at home-that women face daily. For this year's International Women's Day, which UN Women has themed "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world," we have curated a series of charts that McKinsey has published over the past year that illustrate the pandemic's gender effect, what it might cost society over time, and what could help set the course for a brighter future.

This article was edited by Justine Jablonska, an editor based in the New York office.

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Seven charts that show COVID-19's impact on women's employment

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For International Women's Day 2021, we look back at the harm the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought on women's employment-and a glimpse of how to restore progress.

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Coronavirus and gender: More chores for women set back gains in equality

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Women take on the burden of unpaid chores during Covid, UN data shows, threatening gender equality.

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Tracking every case of COVID-19 in Canada

Coronavirus vaccination tracker: How many people in Canada have received shots?

PM 'concerned' about vaccine restrictions, no indication Canada is impacted

'Breakthrough' COVID-19 cases: The possibility of infection after vaccination

New AstraZeneca report says vaccine 76 per cent effective in preventing symptoms

Hardest hit businesses call for extension of federal wage, rent subsidies

India detects 'double mutant' coronavirus variant

EU moves toward stricter export controls for COVID-19 vaccines

How the number of COVID-19 deaths exploded in Brazil

Ontario reports fewer than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases for second straight day

One million people have been vaccinated in Quebec; COVID-19 hospitalizations down

By catching bats, these 'virus hunters' hope to stop the next pandemic

Hair ties, maintenance trims for guys who want to keep their long lockdown locks

France hit by 3rd virus surge; culture minister in hospital

Pope, citing pandemic effect, cuts pay for cardinals, others

Tracking variants of the novel coronavirus in Canada

Full coverage at CTVNews.ca/Coronavirus

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Mothers' anxiety and depression nearly doubled due to pandemic: Canadian study

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A new Canadian study looking at the mental health of mothers before and after the start of the pandemic has found that their levels of depression and anxiety almost doubled in 2020, shedding more light on the added burden on parents during this crisis.

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Mother working from home with kids. Quarantine and closed school during coronavirus outbreak. ... [+]
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I had a conversation the other day with a coaching client who told me she's not sure how long she can hang on. Since the pandemic began, she's been working ten-hour days while helping her school-age kids transition back and forth from in-school learning to remote learning. She spends her evenings catching up on missed emails, placing grocery orders on Instacart, and checking in with her eighty-year-old mom.

She told me that she doesn't know if she's coming or going and that she missed a critical deadline last week. She forgot to enroll her kids in summer camp and now must tell them they'll be attending Camp Mom instead.

She's thinking of quitting her high-powered job, as she feels completely overwhelmed. The added stress of worrying about what future employers will think of this move has left her in a state of confusion.

Her story is all too common-working women (and working men) suffering in silence.

Women are leaving the workforce in droves as a result of Covid-19. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.2 million fewer women in the labor force in October 2020 than in October 2019.

But women aren't voluntarily stepping out. They're being shoved out by disproportionate job loss, shuttered schools, lack of childcare, pay disparities, and lack of public policy to support working women, especially during the pandemic. These women, like those who have come before them, may find it's not so easy to slip back into the workforce as if nothing happened. They'll have to figure out a way to explain why, like the working mother figures on tv, they couldn't figure out how to do it all.

Child care was a significant issue for working parents in 2020. As the country fell into a lockdown in March, parents suddenly found themselves overseeing learning or caring for non-school-age children while performing their jobs from home. Often the bulk of the responsibility fell to women.

"Many two-parent families looked at salary as the deciding factor in who would continue to work. Since women tend to be paid less than their male counterparts and fill roles in industries that earn less money overall, many women left the labor market to take on the expanded child care responsibilities," said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President of global outplacement and executive and business coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

"Meanwhile, for single mothers, the decision was equally, if not more, difficult with even fewer options," he added.

A recent study by Chief revealed some disheartening statistics outlining women's specific struggles during this pandemic. According to Chief Co-Founder Lindsay Kaplan, a quarter (24.4%) of women surveyed are planning on leaving their companies sooner due to the company's response to the pandemic.

The added workload is finally getting to people. "Seventy percent of surveyed women said they are taking on more responsibility. The workload is doubling for many people. Many women who are trying to manage to be a mom and a caregiver and are finding this is untenable. They are burnt out," notes Kaplan.
Here are tips to help you retain and attract working moms:

Create a culture where women are valued. Are there women in the C-suite, on the board, or in any position of authority? I'm not talking about one or two token females. Are you actively recruiting and promoting women for these roles? If not, what's stopping you from doing so?

Share responsibilities. Train employees so they can take over for one another should an emergency arise. Create back-up staffing plans for essential tasks.

Revisit your employee benefits. Re-examine paid leave policies. Consider subsidizing childcare or emergency childcare. Provide referral options for daycare services. Create living style wallets, where employees can choose how to spend the money you've placed inside their wallets for their use. Some may use this for childcare, while other workers may choose to subscribe to a meal delivery service.

Check-in with your employees regularly. Managers should check in on workers to assess their emotional health. Encourage time off, suggest breaks, and pass along referrals for counseling if needed.

Minimize meetings. Some of my clients spend their entire day on back-to-back Zoom calls, which leaves them little time, if any, to work on the initiatives that are on their plate. Think twice before inviting someone to a meeting. Encourage people to pick up the phone or send a quick email instead of calling a meeting.

Examine workloads. Reprioritize goals so only critical ones are the focus. If need be, reassign work and consider adding contractors or employees to help ease the workload.

Provide external support. Provide people with access to mental health services, coaches, and mentors. Let your people know that they don't have to go at this alone.

Be an example. Share stories of your own challenges and offer to guide those who are struggling as well. Be human.

Be empathetic, especially now. Acknowledge the unusual circumstances occurring in our world and workplace right now. Give leeway when possible as women contend with balancing the stress of a pandemic, family responsibilities, and their professional careers. Create a safe space inside your organization where women can openly discuss what's happening in their lives.

... Read More

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how to stop the mass exodus of women leaving the workforce due

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How To Stop The Mass Exodus Of Women Leaving The Workforce Due To Covid-19

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Women are leaving the workforce in droves as a result of Covid-19. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.2 million fewer women in the labor force in October 2020 than in October 2019. But women aren't voluntarily stepping out. They're being shoved out.

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Artist credit : Ellemwallace