Women on workplace issues

The story of the working mom versus the stay-at-home mom has been told and retold with the repetitiveness of a baby’s first word. Instead of rehashing the tired topic, we gave it a new twist.

The Gazette’s Business section organized a round table last month with five local business women who talked about a range of topics, from employee benefits to coaching.

THE STRUGGLES

Participants were divided as to whether there is tension in the workplace between women who have children and women who do not.

Those who have experienced an edgy environment say it often stems from job restrictions — employees in entry-level positions have less flexibility and more frustration dealing with parental issues such as needing time off to care for an ill child, run to a doctor’s appointment, attend a parent-teacher conference or go to a child’s sporting event. Other issues: bringing children into the office after school or during summer break, and the equity of employer-sponsored financial subsidies for child care.

Managers and supervisors are more likely to be given flexible hours and telecommuting privileges than lower-level employees, the participants said.

Donna Vessey: “I’ve worked with a lot of women who have had children, and I’ve never seen tension — everybody seems to struggle to get to work on time and go to doctors’ appointments. I needed time off to do commercials and had to get someone to cover for me. We helped each other — I’ve watched kids for co-workers if they had to run to an appointment or something. We stuck together, as women.”

Judith Gilbert Mackey: “Yes, I’ve seen a tension. It depends on the level of the employee — one of my companies had entry-level people who had to be at their desk at a certain time and were restricted with time off. When we had people out with children’s illness or whatever, it caused a backlog and friction within the department with the women or men who didn’t have children and were working. They were a little more dependable.”

Brenda Smith: “I really haven’t seen tension, and having been blessed enough to work up to be part of management, I’ve had a fair amount of influence over how some of these issues are resolved. I’ve worked to be accommodating — there are times when some folks have to pick up more of the load, and they do. There’s some flexibility, if someone wants to go to a baseball game and then work until 10 at night.”

Laura Benjamin: “From my time in the military and as a call-center rep and manager, I found it was driven by people who had personalities willing to go to an ‘us vs. them’ mindset. They were looking for an opportunity to get the benefits they felt they deserved, whether it was a child care issue or a promotional issue or what kind of shift they were assigned to. If the manager didn’t step forward to quash it, it could become a bigger issue than what it should have.

Smith: “It’s the level of the employee and the job demands that cause friction. In the CPA (certified public accounting) profession you want to have the best people, so you try to accommodate their schedules. But I’m not sure everybody can do that. When you get to the professional level, there seems to be more financial resources and spouses more flexible with their career demands.”

Benjamin: “As a single parent of three children in an entry-level job, I had to deal with being told at 4 p.m. I’d have to work mandatory overtime. There were 15-minute breaks, 30-minute lunches and no personal calls allowed at work. There were instances of being on a first-name basis with the school attendance lady because I had to be at work before my kids went to school. I’d get calls from the teacher asking, ‘Do you know what your daughter went to school wearing today?’”

Gilbert Mackey: “We found we had to have rules and we couldn’t fluctuate. If someone needed to go to a PTO (parent teacher organization) meeting, they needed to give notice and take a half-day off. We wanted to be more accommodating, but it seemed the more we did that the more we got burned.

Benjamin: “It’s a tough thing for managers — those willing to flex the rules and accommodate people and deal with their issues, whether it was child care or elder care, would set themselves up for criticism. Then everybody in the workplace would end up with some sort of issue they would need accommodations for.”

Sarah Schaefer: “When I worked in a family-owned business, it was OK to bring your children to work, and my employer allowed me to work at home two days a week. I felt more self-imposed pressure. My family and children came first, but I had career goals and knew what I wanted out of my career and was concerned about the perception.”

Gilbert Mackey: “Women are harder on themselves, being with men as a professional and then being a mother. I thought those two things were against me, so you’re constantly doing 150 percent to compete and still show you have the flexibility to be there for your kids. But I don’t see that as much anymore.”

CHANGING WORKPLACE DYNAMICS

These women, each having at least two decades of experience in the work force, say they see change, led largely by a new way of thinking at home and in the office.

Benjamin: “Not everybody is willing to make the sacrifices women have had to make in the past.”

Gilbert Mackey: “Women my age have been a little more competitive — we weren’t taught how to work together, and we’re seeing a shift. Younger women who work for me now were involved in team sports growing up, and they know they have to be a team.”

Smith: “I see more of a team-oriented mentality that you need to help one another because there will be a time when you are going to need the help. In our company, it’s gender-neutral, not a woman’s issue. It’s more of ‘Let’s everybody pitch in and make things work.’”

Vessey: “And that team mentality is a lot more productive for business. I’ve had managers bring their kids to some events we do, and depending on their ages, we’ll put them to work. It gives them a sense of the workplace.”

Smith: “There’s also a different mind-set at home. We have a lot of very successful women whose husbands stay home, and it used to be that was not even an option. So there’s more teamwork at home.”

Schaefer: “It really does take a village to raise kids, and that’s what works today beyond the traditional mom and dad. I don’t know how I could do it without my husband, family, friends and neighbors.”

SOLUTIONS

Leveling the playing field in terms of employee benefits, striving for salary equality and addressing the disconnect between schools and employers would help improve the workplace for all women, participants say.

Gilbert Mackey: “Many of my clients are large employers, and employee benefits are a big challenge. If a person is single, employers pay a lot less than for family benefits, and how much of the family benefits are the single-only employees subsidizing? We’re starting to see a shift of employers going with a defined contribution, where every employee gets the same amount of money in benefits that they can spend as they want, based on family needs — maybe on child care.”

Benjamin: “People who are given more autonomy for decision making — who are coached and encouraged — make good, strong decisions. We end up growing a work force that is more self-sufficient and a credit to our companies. Too often we shortchange people and what we think they’re capable of doing. It’s just that we don’t always want to have to deal with mistakes. If leadership gives people more opportunity to take more responsibility, we end up with more personal accountability, and we don’t have the petty fighting over control.”

Gilbert Mackey: “There was a study done on promotions, salaries and hiring. Fathers came in first — they got the highest pay, got more promotions and were hired most likely. Women without children came in second, women with children third and men without children fourth, because they weren’t seen as reliable and focused on their career.”

Benjamin: “An article I read about women in engineering said the field is suffering from a lack of female engineers. Reasons are the perceived imbalance between who gets the promotions, the number of hours and what sacrifices people with families have to make and extensive travel. Those factors were driving women out of the profession or keeping them from it.”

Vessey: “As an employer, the better you can make it for employees and the easier it is for them to come to work, like by having day care within the building, the more employees will care.”

Benjamin: “I also think we could do a better job of working more closely with schools — the start times, snow days, teacher development days. It’s very hard for survival-level hourly employees who have to be at work to put food on the table to deal with the school day structure. It puts a whole set of pressures on working parents.”

Smith: “But you can’t just have a handful of employers working on it — it’s almost like a community issue. We have to be willing to step up and take on the responsibility, or we’ll pay for it in the long term by not having kiddos taken care of properly.”

The participants:

LAURA BENJAMIN

Owner of Laura Benjamin International, a consulting, professional speaking and publishing company.

Benjamin, who declined to give her age, served seven years in the U.S. Air Force as a paralegal and military claims supervisor. She also worked as a call-center sales representative and call-center manager at Current USA. She left the corporate world 10 years ago because she wanted a flexible schedule that enabled her to spend more time with her three children, who are now adults.

JUDITH GILBERT MACKEY

President and chief executive officer of Benefit Services Group, an employee benefits company.

Mackey, 51, has more than 20 years of experience in the health care-insurance industry and has started or helped form four companies, including the Colorado Springs division of Denver Management Advisers Inc. This month, she opened an employee benefits company. Her career began in hospital work, but she left after having a daughter, now 23. Mackey’s first business, a third-party administrative company, was bought by Blue Cross and Blue Shield in its fifth year, thrusting her back into a corporate environment.

SARAH SCHAEFER

Owner, Design Inspirations, an interior design business.

Schaefer, 40, worked as business development manager, product planner and design manager for Checks Unlimited from 1997 to 2004. Her professional background also includes working as director of marketing for Cheyenne Mountain Rehabilitation and in corporate communications for several companies. She left corporate work in 2004 to become a partner in a design firm, then a sole proprietor. Schaefer has two children, ages 9 and 11.

BRENDA SMITH

Partner, BKD LLP, a certified public accounting firm.

Smith, 55, has more than 36 years of experience in public accounting, including 27 years as a partner at BKD LLP, now the largest accounting firm in Colorado Springs. Smith specializes in health care and nonprofit clients.

Smith will retire from the company Oct. 31 to head the 120-member staff at First Presbyterian Church. She has no children but has adult stepchildren by marriage and 11 stepgrandchildren.

DONNA VESSEY

President and CEO of Donna Vessey Events, an events management company.

Vessey, 50, worked for 20 years as a full-time nurse while also starring in more than 100 television commercials, owning two theatrical companies and performing in theater productions. Although she no longer does on-camera work, five years ago she started an events management company, which arranges corporate and private events including conferences, fundraisers, tours and weddings. She also supplies various forms of entertainment. Vessey has no children.