Suzanne Cole knew something had to give. She had been able to work full-time with two children but with the arrival of her third, she said, she found life becoming “a little unwieldy”.
She was staying up until 1.30am to pay bills and do laundry.
Cole, an accountant for a federal agency, wanted to work fewer hours, but between homework, soccer, volunteering at her daughter’s preschool and house chores, she needed prodding to do anything about it.
That’s where Christine Fruehwirth came in.
Finding ‘me’ in mummy
Cole heard the career and life coach from Potomac, Maryland, US, talk about “finding the ‘me’ in mummy” and thought it made sense. “I needed to do something ... rather than putting it at the bottom of the list.”
Over five sessions, Fruehwirth worked with Cole on a proposal for her bosses detailing how she would get her work done in a 3 1/2-day week.
Cole gave it to her supervisors in January, and to her surprise, they not only approved it but asked if they could use it as a model for others. The cost of the sessions was $500 (Dh1,836). “Best money I ever spent,” Cole said.
While parents everywhere struggle to meet the competing demands of work and family, for mothers who are educated and established in their careers, there is a growing industry of workshops, recruiting firms, job boards, coaches and consultants.
Many of these firms also work with men — Fruehwirth has a client who is a stay-at-home dad planning to go back to work soon — but the greatest demand has been from working mothers.
New view
These work-life gurus pitch themselves as the business solution to the “opt-out revolution” of stay-at-home mothers and promote the view that the choice between working and staying home is neither stark nor a once-in-a-lifetime decision.
Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett found that more than a third of professional women take a brief hiatus from the workforce — an average of two years.
More women would work part time if they could. A 2007 Pew Research Centre report found that 60 per cent of working mothers across all income and education levels said they would be happiest working part-time, a jump of 12 percentage points since 1997.
However, only 24 per cent actually had part-time hours.
Alternative jobs
The disconnect between supply and demand creates an opening for coaches who help hone resumes and recruiters who can track down alternative jobs that make use of their clients’ education and experience.
With its high concentration of high-powered women, the Washington region is home to at least four boutique recruiting firms that place professional women in part-time or flexible jobs.
Trend takes wing
Similar businesses are cropping up across US. Professional schools including Harvard Business School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco also offer workshops and seminars with titles such as “Back in Business” and “Comeback Moms.”
Many of the schools were initially motivated to help their graduates.
The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, for example, started a two-day re-entry programme in 2005 after a survey of alumnae revealed that as many as 35 per cent of female graduates were not working full time, said Connie English, Darden’s associate director for alumni career services.
With a few exceptions, the entrepreneurs in this emerging field know their customers as they belong to the same demographic.
Leading ladies
Carolyn Van Damme, 39, started the Round Peg Group, a firm that places consultants, after having her third child and leaving as vice-president of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
Carolyn Semedo-Strauss, 39, was having a hard time juggling life with two children and a full-time job at the adult-education division of the Public Broadcasting Service.
When the network decided to close the division in 2005, she used the cushion provided by her severance package to get training as a life coach. Now she works with mothers seeking better work-life balance.
Persisting resistence
While the demand for these services is real, questions remain about whether they can deliver.
Despite the widespread acceptance of flex time and telecommuting, there is still resistance among employers, especially in time-intensive fields such as law and finance.
“Jobs are organised around full-time work over a standard work week. When you challenge any of those arrangements, you’re challenging habits and customs,” said Paul Rupert, president of Rupert & Co., a Washington firm that advises companies on flexible work arrangements.
For now, the business of balance boils down to using exceptional credentials and skills as leverage
to broker flexible work arrangements. Slackers need not apply.
