Working mothers needed more thoughtful and robust support long before the COVID epidemic overtook and perhaps forever altered the way we balance work and life – now they desperately need more help: from their partners, from their societies, and from the companies they work for. It’s still too soon to tell whether things have fundamentally changed our home lives, with work and school now taking place in the same space where we relax, play, sleep, and eat. For working moms, it can be Common Core to an all-hands to dinner with the family in the course of a few hours.
Companies like these nine that are ahead of the curve on this problem, or that have strengthened their support for working mothers since the pandemic hit, are treasured. Here’s how these companies do their part in assisting working moms when they need it more than ever.
Why is it important for Instacart to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
The global pandemic has presented significant challenges for working moms in the workforce. At Instacart, we believe in creating and fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment that allows all of our employees to thrive. Now more than ever, we want to ensure our entire parent and caregiver community — especially working moms — are fully supported as they wear multiple hats while balancing personal and professional responsibilities.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
As a company, we’ve adopted a set of guidelines for managers to help accommodate working moms and parents on their teams – including offering flexible schedules and extra time blocks throughout the day. We also provided employees an equipment stipend to purchase items like desks, printers, and monitors to set up a more comfortable and productive home workspace.
We’re actively listening to feedback from our parent community and working with our Parents and Women@ employee resource groups (ERGs) on how we can continue to best support. Some of these efforts include partnering with our Parents ERG on programming for parents including hosting a panel of teachers to share tips on how to best tackle “distance learning” at home as well as sending arts and crafts kits for parents to share with their kids. Additionally, as part of Instacart’s Women’s History Month programming, we are working closely with the Women@ Instacart ERG to raise awareness around the impact of COVID-19 on working moms in the workforce and driving conversations around how allies can play a role in uplifting, supporting, and advocating for moms during this time.
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Why is it important for Medela to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
Today, women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and within Medela’s U.S. employee base the ratio is even higher. With more than half of Medela employees being female, and more than 44% of them at the manager level and above, we deeply understand the support that women need from their employer to succeed in their careers – and this is even more true than when they first transition to motherhood. We have focused on creating a positive workplace and offering a robust set of parental benefits to ensure working parents have the ability to succeed and grow personally and professionally.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
Working parent employees at Medela have access to remote work options, flex schedules, emergency back-up child and dependent care, in-app health consultations and a supportive benefits package as part of our commitment to prioritize the way we support our employees and their families. For new parents at Medela, in addition to beautiful, dedicated pumping spaces stocked with lactation products and 16 weeks of fully-paid parental leave (in the US), we also offer New Moms Healthy Returns, which provides top-of-the-line Medela breastfeeding products and resources, 24/7 on-demand access to maternal and pediatric experts, and breast milk shipping for traveling employees.
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Why is it important for Salesforce to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
We prioritize wellbeing, and we invest in benefits and programs to keep our employees and their families happy and healthy, so they can bring their best selves to work every day. Over the past year, we have been working diligently to support our employees as they navigate this difficult time — including working parents. We’ve expanded family care leave so that parents are eligible for an additional six weeks of time off, and we’ve extended our global back-up childcare program. Discover more programs and policies here: https://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/news/best-workplace-for-parents/.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
During this time, Salesforce has extended our existing benefits and created new programs to help address today’s challenges: -Salesforce expanded our Global Family Care Leave Policy, making parents eligible for six weeks of paid time off. -Salesforce has extended our back-up child care program. Currently, all full and part-time employees are eligible for a reimbursement of up to an equivalent of $100/day for a maximum of five days per month (for dependents up to age 18) for child care of their choosing. -To better address the needs of working parents, we’ve created theB-Well Together: Pandemic Parenting Series (https://www.salesforce.com/resources/videos/b-well-pandemic-parenting/). Every Friday morning, parents are encouraged to tune in to get the support and resources they need to help them navigate school, schedules, and kids during this time.
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Why is it important for Smartling to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
It’s not easy to juggle work and family when the boundaries are blurred. One of our core values is – take care of our people, so as a company we offer assistance to help working parents.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
We offer generous paternity leave and a flexible back-to-work schedule. The company also offers flexible hours to accommodate the school schedule. We provide clarity and certainty, wherever possible.
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Why is it important for Zevia to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
Balancing work and family obligations has long been the reality for women in the United States. In the current COVID environment, women have been impacted heavily. At Zevia, we felt it was extremely important to provide support to our working moms by talking about the challenges openly with our entire team and offering flexibility as needed.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
Our working moms are all working remotely. We have instituted flexible schedules, an “off” camera meeting practice whenever possible, and continued to prioritize work and life balance discussions between Managers and direct reports. Our goal is for working moms to feel supported and comfortable to discuss personal challenges. We are one family and care vary much about the well-being of our extended families.
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Why is it important for Nylas to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
At Nylas, we believe that offering assistance and supporting working mothers is a vital part in achieving our goal to build a diverse team of individuals who possess unique skill sets and provide out-of-the-box perspectives as we tackle our lofty mission. Nylas embraces, celebrates, and empowers women through every stage of their personal and professional lives, which in turn contributes to a healthy work-life balance, a happier workplace culture, and greater productivity overall!
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
Nylas is a remote-first, office second organization because we believe in treating all employees with the respect they deserve by giving them more freedom to structure their work environments. Nylas also offers a 100% paid 12 week maternity and paternity leave that can be taken consecutively or intermittently, depending on the employee’s preference. We understand that flexibility is key to working moms, who more often than not become master jugglers, balancing both career and home-life demands.
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Why is it important for nCino to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
At nCino, many employees, including department leaders and team managers, are also mothers. It’s important to ensure these individuals feel supported and empowered to pursue ambitious careers without sacrificing a fulfilling home life. While nCino has always offered family-friendly policies and perks, the need to support mothers in particular was highlighted this past year during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent McKinsey study found that, although women make up 38% of global employment, they accounted for 54% of overall job losses during the pandemic. One reason for this disparity was the increased burden of unpaid childcare, which is disproportionately carried by women. By offering extra assistance and increased flexibility to mothers during this time, nCino was able to not only retain but continue to grow the number of mothers on our teams.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
nCino offers all employees parental leave. We also offer 100% premiums paid including medical, dental and vision for every employee and all of their dependents, as well as disability insurance and life insurance. Each full-time employee also has their own company-funded HSA account. During COVID-19, nCino recognized that parents who work full-time while caring for young children are in a uniquely challenging position, and the results of an internal survey indicated that childcare and education arrangements were a major stressor for many nCino families during the pandemic. For parents and mothers in particular, nCino created a new childcare stipend program to help reduce the stress and financial burden on those who were managing new or significantly altered childcare responsibilities as a result of COVID-19.
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Why is it important for EQRx to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
EQRx’s workforce is more than 50% female. We value the contributions of everyone and want to make sure each individual feels supported to do their best work. We say #BeYouAtEQ and we really mean it. That includes flexibility and a culture that gets that life happens.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
We have a company-wide program called “T30” which is dedicated “you” time every Tuesday and Thursday where no meetings are scheduled. We fully embrace kids as part of our everyday existence – from being part of meetings to company-wide virtual activities to we not only encourage but truly welcome families. As a socially driven company, we’ve developed a family supportive benefits package including a program that allows for new parents to “bridge” back into the workforce from a part-time to full-time basis.
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Why is it important for A Cloud Guru to offer assistance to employees who are working moms?
Solutions that support working moms, support everyone. Flexibility, autonomy, and inclusivity may be discussions that start by working moms, but they’re conversations that benefit everyone.
What are some specific programs you have in place to help work-life balance for working mom?
If you’re on a call at night, start later the next day, or head out for a 2-hour lunch before jumping on calls. Similarly, if you’re on a call early in the morning, end your workday earlier. We are all open with our family life requirements so that we can coordinate core working hours within the team. It’s not all 9-5 – it’s outputs!
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