Women are quickly becoming aware of what working from their own home (whether it is for an employer or by starting a home business) can do for them. A great example of what flex time can do for a mom, and the company that employes her, is shown in this article from the Huffington Post.
To the outside world, Lori Soper appeared to have it all. She was a full-time, high-profile executive director of marketing with a wireless provider in the Washington, D.C., pulling in good money and enjoying life. But she knew she was missing something, and that something was more time with her children.
“I had been working full-time and my children were in daycare 11 hours a day,” she said. When she and her family moved to Winston-Salem six years ago, Lori landed at job with brandMIND, working flexible hours for the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company on her own schedule.
Flexible work hours allow employers to tap into the hidden workforce of women who want to find the balance between work life and home life. Soper is a good example of what we, at Homeby3.com, are working to promote across the country. By allowing moms to return to the workforce on their own schedule, employers who allow flexible work hours are able to tap into the unique abilities of mothers who have experience and skills to offer, but cannot or do not want to work a traditional 40-hour work week.
When Soper began working for brandMIND, she still had a child in preschool. “I worked from 9:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. four days a week,” she said. “Now I work Tuesday-Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., or about 20 hours a week.” That’s a far cry different from before, where she roused her children early, threw a frozen waffle in the toaster, then rushed out the door to daycare. Then, on her “day off,” she spent the day running errands with the children in tow, hoping to accomplish everything in one day so her family could relax on the weekend, she said.
It’s a win-win for Soper and brandMIND, explained Dave Tambling, chief strategist and CEO of brandMIND. The company hires an employee of Soper’s caliber, a strategic thinker with 15 years experience, uses her expertise to help clients, and still gets her home by 3:15 p.m. for her children. Soper is a lower-cost employee – her schedule and reduced overhead keep brandMIND’s costs down, Tambling said.
Photo by jessica mullen