After parental leave, many mothers find it difficult to return to work. Although they are well trained and motivated, they often work below their qualifications. A start-up wants to make the job search easier.
Morning team meeting in the tea kitchen of the IFSM management consultancy in Höhr- Grenzhausen in the Westerwald. Six women and one man are gathered around the table, talking about ongoing consulting projects and the upcoming shareholders’ meeting. The mood is relaxed, there is a lot of laughter. What’s special about this team: Besides the boss, only mothers work here.
Elisabeth Meyer-Siemons has only been there for six months and when asked how she feels, she beams: “Saugut.” Not just because she enjoys the job: “Here I have the feeling that private issues are handled very carefully, be it children, one’s own health, the health of relatives. They are simply given the space they deserve, as I am “I’ve never experienced it anywhere else.”
She has private responsibility for her two children and her own mother, who she cares for. In the past, Meyer-Siemons says, she often experienced a feeling of subtle devaluation during job interviews, even if it wasn’t expressed openly. “As a mother, you are second choice on the job market.”
New skills as parents
An experience that many women have – including 40-year-old Hanna Jones from Koblenz. During her third maternity leave, she came up with the idea of a job portal specifically for mothers. “After a long period of parental leave, professional self-confidence is often zero. And that was the case with me too. From the moment they have their first child, most women work below their level of competence, and that’s just a total shame because they are missing as experts and bring after a parental leave yes, bring new skills with you, even into the company.”
Together with Anke Hollatz from the advice center for women and careers, she launched “Jobs for Moms”. Anke Hollatz puts it this way: “We are the only portal that really brings companies and skilled workers together based on the needs of mothers. We have spent a long time focusing on the needs of mothers and what they need to ensure employability can be.”
What is important to them is that it is not about individualized problems, but about structural ones that slow mothers down. Given the shortage of skilled workers, this is an urgent concern: According to a Prognos study on the compatibility of family and work from 2022, 840,000 more people could be available to the labor market if mothers with children under the age of six were employed in accordance with their work preferences. And by 2025, there could be a shortage of 2.9 million qualified employees across Germany, according to Prognos.
Regionality simplifies the job search
“Jobs for Moms” has built a network of around 40 family-friendly employers in northern Rhineland-Palatinate. Co-founder Hollatz emphasizes that regionality makes it easier to know the key players and to bring women and companies together digitally so that the common path can work analogously.
Elisabeth Meyer-Siemon also found her position through “Jobs for Moms”. “They’re doing a great job, closing a gap in the placement of mothers who want to work. We want to work, but it’s often made very difficult for us.” Your employer is – still – an exception, and has been for a long time. Managing director Klaus Kissel says: “We had a lot of mothers right from the start; over the last 20 years we have found that mothers are very, very committed. And the more flexibly we approach the employees, the higher the employee retention. And we feel that the greater the responsibility that our employees take on.”
Committed workforce thanks to “Life Balance”
These are experiences that are also passed on to customers who book consultations. “We have a special program called mom career coaching or family career coaching. Our consultants work to spread this further in companies to see how I can actually bring this topic of family and work together ?” says managing director Kissel. “We used to call it work-life balance. We basically just say life balance. And if employers understand that, they have much greater potential to attract new skilled workers.”
In terms of implementation, this means, for example, that companies have to stop asking what women do with their children during job interviews. Or that they don’t attach too much importance to rigid working hours. “As a result, you don’t get the highly qualified people you might need.” There is a lot of potential in mothers as well as fathers, even if they have more limited options due to their family.
On course for expansion
The founders Hollatz and Jones also know that their portal is just one of many pieces of the puzzle to make the working world more family-friendly. But they are expanding and already have a branch in northern Hesse, as well as a branch in Mainz.
The two women are convinced that the model has a future. “There is an opportunity to simply create a more people-friendly atmosphere. Productivity increases,” says Hollatz. “The question is: what harm would it be if women were able to get into the appropriate positions, be paid adequately, and develop and contribute their potential?”