From Subsidized Daycare to Flexible Hours, Here Are 4 Ways Companies Are Actually Helping Working Moms Right Now

It’s important to preface this story with a singular—and sobering—fact: Finding companies who are doing right by working moms during the pandemic is hard. We polled the folks at LinkedIn, Fairygodboss and more for intel on the organizations, large and small, that should be recognized for their efforts…and the list was not nearly as long as it should be. Still, the companies below serve as a reality check that lifting working moms up can materialize in so many different ways. Here, 4 ways companies are acknowledging the maternal burden.

The Company: Accenture provides technology, business and management consulting services across 40 industries.

How They’re Helping Working Moms: Accenture recently tripled their dependent care hours, offering up to 120 hours a year of backup child care for employees in need. (They previously offered this as a perk, but boosted the total reimbursable hours during the pandemic.) They’re also providing caregivers with reimbursement for in-home care (up to $100 per day for up to 30 days a calendar year).

The Company: Patagonia sells outdoor clothing and gear to accommodate a range of individual sports like climbing, skiing, fly fishing and more.

How They’re Helping Working Moms: A forever standout when it comes to supporting moms at work, Patagonia has kicked things up a notch, first surveying parents about the child care they have and what they need to be successful in their day. Then, according to a piece in Fast Company, the brand is encouraging parents to shift to more “asynchronous work”—for example, prioritizing long-term projects over work that’s more time-sensitive.

The Company: Guild Education serves as the middleman between higher-education programs and employers looking to cover the cost of tuition and professional development for their employees.

How They’re Helping Working Moms: In order to better accommodate working moms (and all parents), they’ve consolidated all meeting times into a single afternoon block so parents can plan more consistently. In other words, you know you won’t be pulled into a strategy session at the exact time you have you run your kid to the dentist.

The Company: Harness is all about disrupting the software delivery market, making it easier for engineers to expedite software updates that are both high-quality and low-effort across a variety of industries.

How They’re Helping Working Moms: By implementing a TGIF-OFF program with company-wide shutdowns once a month, Harness aims to give parents the time they need to keep their home lives in order. The mandatory three-day weekend hits at the middle of every month, and—in addition to providing a flex schedule to accommodate home schooling—affords parents the chance to have some dedicated family time without getting pinged on Slack. (Some moms have reported using it to get their kids to the park, others for catching up on homework.) In a recent company survey, this program was name one of employees’ favorite pandemic perks.