Normalizing the Sick Kid in Your Zoom Window

A few weeks ago, I met over Zoom with a candidate interested in a search. The conversation began with an apology: “My child is home sick. I’m so sorry.” The child, a toddler, squealed at their side. I smiled and suggested they hold the child if that felt right. They did, and through our 45 min call, the child wriggled and ran about, making occasional demands, like any child.

It was … delightful.

During our call, I had the great pleasure of getting to know my candidate’s professional accomplishments and desires for the future, as well as their ability to multi-task and hold a meaningful conversation with multiple competing challenges. The conversation was both productive and enjoyable. I also got a window into their life off the resume and, importantly, I had a moment to normalize and embrace caregiving among professionals.

Those caring for young children are acutely aware that the current system wasn’t established with working parents in mind. Our Monday to Friday, 9-5 in-person culture is born of a different era, introduced in the 1920s at Ford Motor Company, decades before dual-income households were the norm. Nearly a century later, the standard remains, but the ground has shifted dramatically. Today, 60% of households have two parents working outside the home.

The pandemic has of course been a particular challenge for caregiving workers. Fortune recently reported that 16,000 childcare centers shut down during the pandemic, that’s a whopping 9% decline in providers nationwide. In February, I spoke with a nonprofit leader with two children under five who shared that in the prior two months (with ~40 working days), they had 10 days of childcare. Childcare had stopped; the demands of their job had not. The worst of the pandemic may be behind us (we hope), but caregiving workers continue to struggle with inconsistent or limited support, and many feel embarrassed and apologetic when worlds collide.

In the face of this, leaders have an opportunity to take a more holistic view. Jessica Wilen, executive coach and Assistant Professor at Yale University, recently noted,

“Organizations would benefit from recognizing that the roles and responsibilities that employees hold outside of the professional realm actually enhance and reinforce, rather than distract, form their professional skill set.”

Leaders have an incredible opportunity to embrace caregivers – for their strength, their diligence, their ability to resolve conflict, their executive function and ability to make things happen when faced with conflicting priorities. Not doing so, Wilen adds, “Is a really huge loss … because many of the same skills that make a good parent make a good leader. Fostering meaningful relationships, effectively transmitting values, resolving conflict, practicing emotional intelligence…”

I recently attended Hunt Scanlon’s Linking Culture to Growth, an event that addressed the many ways that culture is impacting both day-to-day life and long-term objectives, particularly in these late pandemic days. Speaker Karen Lynch, CEO of CVS Health noted, “The pandemic has changed the definition of leadership – today it’s about authenticity and connection.” As my colleague Marynanne Wanca-Thibault recently shared, “We don’t always get involved in personal matters, but in this time... it’s hard to separate professional from personal, and leaders who understand this and adjust are coming out ahead.”

If we connect with our caregivers, normalize – celebrate even – the child in the Zoom window, perhaps we will make working caregivers feel whole, and we will all be better off for it. As nonprofits struggle with the realities of the Great Resignation, the time for this couldn’t be better.

Let’s normalize the sick child in your Zoom window.