Working from home has emerged as a revolutionary tool in the last 10 years, benefiting newlywed mothers and women in general. It opens up new options for balancing professional and personal responsibilities.
By 2025, 32.6 million Americans are estimated to work remotely, accounting for around 22% of the workforce. According to Eurostat, in 2021, 45% of Europe's workforce would wish to continue working remotely or partially after the Covid 19 pandemic ended. This development addresses some of the typical problems women encounter in the workplace, promoting a more inclusive and flexible working environment.
Remote work clashes with the idea of working "9 to 5." Such demands you to be physically present in the office, meetings, and work activities at all times. These hectic schedules frequently penalize women (and men) trying to balance their employment and family duties. According to Forbes, remote work is the most effective method for eliminating the required continual physical presence in the office. This flexibility enables women to handle their professional commitments while also caring for their families, allowing them to advance in their careers without jeopardizing their other life roles. Of course, there are concerns, such as maintaining balance, determining where the line should be drawn, and knowing when to turn off the work laptop. The World Economic Forum emphasizes that while working remotely gives flexibility, it may blur the lines between work and personal life, leading to more significant stress and burnout.
Challenges for working mothers in remote work environments
Women, particularly moms, sometimes find themselves working longer hours to combine work and home obligations in the same physical place. According to research, parenting has a significant role in growing gender imbalance. Women frequently change careers or leave work after becoming moms. Without supporting parental policies, jobs with a remote working model have the potential to perpetuate and intensify the very issues it seeks to address.
Cr.: Nintex Workplacе
In the fall of 2023, we ran the poll "Mila*, what do you need?" in which we questioned female caregivers in Bulgaria about their most pressing needs.
The survey, undertaken in collaboration with The White Ribbon Alliance, polled women of various ages, emphasizing their feeling overwhelmed by professional and family duties. Nearly half of the participants said "time" was their most important requirement, followed by "self-care." More information about our online survey may be found here.
*"Mila" comes from Bulgarian, meaning "darling." It can be used as a female name.
Policies to support working parents in the EU
Policies to help working moms differ significantly across the EU. According to sociologist Martha Dominguez Folgeras of the Observatoire de Sociologie du Changement (OSC), Scandinavian nations are generally more supportive of women and parents, while equality is not guaranteed. In some countries, maternity and paternity leave are paid in full at first, followed by a decline.
Many European governments and businesses are working to achieve salary and career equality to eliminate the gender gap in parenting. This involves pay monitoring, transparency, skill development, and career advancement programs for women.
The European Union has taken a significant step forward with Directive 1158/2019, which addresses work-life balance and women's economic emancipation. This directive is part of the Gender Equality Strategy and has been incorporated into Bulgarian legislation, establishing the National Council for Women's Equality. For European directives to be practical, they must be integrated into local legislation. Directive 1158/2019 is directed at all persons who care for others (caregivers), including parents and grandparents.
It confers the following rights:
Fathers are entitled to a minimum of ten days of paternity leave following the birth of their kid.
Two of the four months of parental leave are not transferable between parents.
Caregivers are entitled to an additional five days of paid leave each year.
Parents with children under eight have the right to flexible working arrangements.
These initiatives seek to promote workplace equality while also meeting the requirements of both male and female caregivers.
EU gender equality strategy
The EU's gender equality strategy, initiated by the Von der Leyen Commission, aims to progress significantly towards equality by 2025. The first measures were binding actions towards pay transparency, proposed on 4 March 2021. Another significant achievement was adopting the Directive on women on the boards of the EU's largest listed companies, which was finally adopted on 22 November 2022 after 10 years of negotiations. It aims to improve gender balance in leadership positions by proposing criteria for equal access to positions, encouraging the inclusion of women, and increasing their representation in corporate governance.
Working remotely provides substantial convenience to specific segments of women. Mothers and parents are only a few who benefit from the flexibility, and other groups find this employment model best suited to their requirements and circumstances.
For example, students who combine their education with earning some extra money might benefit from the flexibility of teleworking, which helps them to organize their time better. Women living in smaller towns and rural regions may also advance their careers without commuting daily to massive cities. They can work from home or neighboring cafés and workplaces, dramatically increasing access to job options. Furthermore, women with health issues or disabilities who appreciate the option to work from home see telecommuting as a crucial tool for continuing their professional life. Teleworking also provides the opportunity for people who care for loved ones with special needs and want flexible working hours and work-life balance.
We at Impact Drive explored teleworking through an online survey that started in March and ran until May 2023. It targeted young women with different demographics (from Sofia and large regional cities, Bulgarians from abroad, women from small towns and remote locations, women with disabilities, mothers or family carers, and/or ethnic communities.)
In summary, their responses show that the majority of them are interested in opportunities to work with texts and online activities and in working on causes.
The table shows the results regarding the preferences of the women who participated in the survey towards telework as a form of employment.
Remote working is not just about working from home
According to a recent article in the Capital Careers - telecommuting offers flexible working hours, with a frequent combination of a hybrid working model where possible. The success of a flexible work environment depends on effective and clear communication with supervisors. Managers must set up appropriate performance appraisal models that allow employees to maintain social interactions within the team and not compromise critical personal commitments. As a result, work allocation is often settled week-to-week. In addition, a range of technical and strategic tools are introduced and used to enable effective management of teams from a distance, mutual sharing of progress, and clarity of objectives.
Practices for a healthier environment
According to the Careers article, enhancing agile working models necessitates investment in essential variables like manager upskilling, the development of collaborative tools (both physical and electronic), and managers' adaptation of strategic and operational management models.
Working models should be tailored to specific tasks, individual preferences, and team needs, with models designed to be flexible enough to alter weekly in response to changing work and personal priorities.
Furthermore, developing key performance indicators that represent objectives and prioritizing the effects of the above inputs is critical. Quality, creativity, productivity, growth, and engagement should be prioritized over measuring physical presence in the workplace or online. These indicators should be checked periodically to adjust and improve.
Finally, inclusiveness rules must be revised and updated regularly to match employee reality and foster true inclusion, which leads to improved performance. This may entail frequent staff assessments and feedback and implementing creative training and development approaches. Employers can also develop programs that target the needs of specific groups, such as assistance for working parents, persons with disabilities, and ethnic minorities, to ensure that all workers have equal opportunities to achieve and prosper.
Youth employment and Remote working
Remote work enables young people to overcome conventional hurdles when joining the workforce. For example, it eliminates geographic barriers, allowing young people from small towns to work for organizations in major cities or abroad without requiring a physical presence. Young people studying abroad can also interact with Bulgarian firms and organizations. This significantly improves access to varied and high-quality job possibilities.
While Bulgaria's unemployment rate is predicted to reduce to 4% by 2024, it remains unclear to what degree young people are engaged in activities relevant to their interests or personal development. As a result, it is critical to focus on developing distance skills training so that young people can try various activities.
Policies to help young people in teleworking should include access to technology and training in digital skills. This will assist young professionals in adapting and thriving in remote work contexts while reducing the risk of stress and burnout.
DigiComs - the platform that builds digital communicators
Our DigiComs platform is designed to do just that. It offers specialized online training for NGO practitioners and creates digital communicators for cause-driven organizations.
DigiComs develops multidisciplinary curricula that cover topics in the civic sector, communication and content creation, and digital channels and tools. Specifically, by combining competencies from the cause and digital worlds, the platform prepares a new type of professional focused on the specific needs of CSOs and social entrepreneurs to communicate their causes, work online, and recruit support.
In addition, DigiComs functions as a marketplace for freelance professionals, providing a link between young professionals and cause-driven organizations, facilitating their employment and professional development in the digital communications field.
DigiComs season 2023/2024
In the 2023/2024 season, DigiComs topics grow to 10 critical areas of digital communications and the civic sector, including communicating to attract support, META work (including advertising on the platform), website and channel management with a focus on SEO and user experience, LinkedIn and personal branding.
The teaching team
This season was packed with professionals in various fields and areas with significant hands-on experience in the civic sector, journalism, digital marketing, and working with digital tools and channels. We want to thank Fanny Bachvarova, Ivelina Ansarova, Ivan Radev, Deyana Dragoeva, Ina Toncheva, Dimitar Simov, Alexander Krastev, Victoria Mindova, Diana Manolova, and last but not least, Theodora Ivanova-Vuleva.
This season's course contained ten modules, 40 hours of online sessions, and ten practical tasks, which helped our participants improve their abilities and prepare for professional difficulties in digital communication.
Donor support and pro bono
Several companies and individuals acknowledged DigiComs' social model in the 2023/2024 season and provided support in various forms to prepare DigiComs' new class of digital communicators. This season, two trainees were trained with a full scholarship, one traditionally supplied by our team and a second fully covered by a private donor who recognized our cause as their own.
On the other hand, thanks to the Pyxera Global team, we received pro bono assistance from SAP Labs Bulgaria. Using their team's professional expertise, we developed a concept for a revamped DigiComs platform, updated the current online training page, and received valuable advice on our website's technical look and functionality. Thank you!
The DigiComs model was also recognized by Netpeak Bulgaria Digital Growth Partner Agency, who supported us with a budget of 3000BGN for an advertising campaign on YouTube - thanks to their grant, the idea of DigiComs reached more than 225,000 YouTube users.
... and a conclusion
Remote work is significant for women from different groups, including mothers, women, and students, as it provides flexibility and new career opportunities. Despite these benefits, it challenges the need for a careful work-life balance, which is a key aspect of dealing sustainably and successfully with the challenges of a remote working environment.
The DigiComs platform is crucial in providing specialized online training for digital communicators and cause-driven organizations. Such platforms continue to evolve, meeting the needs of today's digital communicators and supporting flexible and innovative learning in the digital sphere.
Keep an eye on our website, as we will soon announce the upcoming fifth season of training, which will begin in the fall of 2024!
Comments