Every year on Mother’s Day, we pay tribute to the extraordinary women whose guidance and love shape our lives and futures. Motherhood often allows little time for rest, especially for working moms who bear the enormous stresses of managing self, work, and family.

Employers, are you doing enough to support your working mothers and ensure your company is a place they’d gravitate towards when considering a new job?

The Many Challenges Faced by Working Moms

Many moms work because they need the income to make ends meet, but may also worry that they’re not spending enough time with their kids or that their work is suffering as a result of their parenting responsibilities. Some working moms may face barriers to career advancement due to the demands of balancing their work and family responsibilities.

In most cases, working moms must rely on daycare centers to provide reliable childcare, but finding adequate, affordable childcare can be difficult.

Why Hiring Working Moms Makes Business Sense

Working moms have cultivated diverse skills that are as applicable to the workplace as they are to child care, including organization, prioritization, multi-tasking, communication, patience, and empathy. They’re adaptable, resilient, and adept at dealing with multiple demands and distractions.

Another reason for employing working moms is that it builds your team’s gender diversity, which is key for maintaining a healthy bottom line:

• Gender-diverse teams have higher sales and profits compared to male-dominated ones.
• Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on boards financially outperform those with lower representation of women.
• Gender-diverse business units enjoy higher average revenues than less diverse business units.

Employers who get intentional about understanding and addressing working mothers’ needs with compelling employee benefits will win the loyalty of existing employees and catch the attention of prospective candidates.

This Mother’s Day, let’s explore some employee benefits that matter most to moms.

1. Childcare Support

Childcare in the U.S. is becoming increasingly unaffordable for the majority of families, especially low-income and middle-class households. In a report published in January this year, 49% of families surveyed said they plan to spend about $18,000 on childcare in 2024, while 23% said they will spend more than $36,000. That means childcare is now costing some parents more than a college degree.

Many parents are depleting their savings accounts to cover childcare; others are working multiple jobs, going into debt, or simply leaving the workforce because even in a double-income home, rising childcare costs are impossible to manage.

Employers should consider how they can help working moms find and afford childcare. This might include building a childcare center within the workplace or offering stipends. By providing your employees with the peace of mind that their children are being cared for in a nurturing environment, you’ll empower them to do their best work and pursue their career goals.

2. Offer Moms Personalized, Flexible Schedules

Family needs, scheduled or unexpected, can require moms to take time away during their workdays now and then. Working moms who have the flexibility to meet their parenting needs are more likely to stay with their organization. A survey by Motherly found that 64% of stay-at-home mothers said that a flexible schedule would go a long way to convincing them to return to work.

Employers should consider perks like unlimited PTO and flexible work options to give their working moms more choice about when, how, and where they work so they can accommodate the many other demands of their lives, including childcare.

Fast fact: Under-scheduled hourly workers may find themselves looking for better work opportunities, while over-scheduled workers run the risk of burnout. A better and more flexible schedule suits everyone, including the company. Payactiv Connect has been specifically developed to solve this problem.

3. Financial Wellness Benefits

Financial stress can have a significant adverse effect on your employees and the quality of their work. Unsurprisingly, financial stress is generally worse for working moms and single moms. This lack of financial wellness is due to several factors: women earn less, live longer, experience more work gaps, and face higher healthcare and caregiving expenses than their male counterparts.

Compounding the problem is that women are generally:

• Less confident about financial wellness than men.
• Less financially literate.
• Less prepared for retirement.
• Engage in fewer employer-sponsored financial programs.

For working mothers (and many others besides), on-demand access to earned income helps them gain greater financial control and build resilience to frequent financial shocks such as bills and overdraft fees.

Family-Focused Employee Benefits from Payactiv

Motherhood is full of physical, mental, and financial challenges. Policies and solutions that support working mothers will ultimately benefit all involved—employers, employees, and their families.

At Payactiv, we believe that supporting personal and financial wellness for working moms isn’t just good business; it’s smart business. Our solutions are designed to help organizations like yours:

• Win the best talent by giving employees Earned Wage Access (EWA).
• Retain star employees by offering financial wellness guidance.
• Reduce absenteeism and boost productivity by reducing employees’ financial stress.

Learn more about our all-in-one Livelihood platform, which takes a holistic approach to improving financial wellness and increasing employee satisfaction.

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