Companies urged to be more flexible with working mothers

Businesses providing childcare services and being flexible would go a long way to reducing some of the challenges working women face.
That is the view of Operations Manager at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) Camille Clarke who said businesses must acknowledge that employees are individuals with circumstances that can affect their productivity.
“In terms of how businesses can embrace equity, for me one way is flexibility. Businesses need to understand that when someone is working for them, they are not only a worker, they are human beings with different responsibilities and different roles which will have an impact on how they perform,” she said, suggesting that workplaces should embrace work-from-home policies wherever possible.
“Also provision for childcare. There are a lot of persons within the workforce who do not have a support system that can care for their children while they are at work. You feel as though you are not being a good mother because you are not being there for the child and then the other tug is at work – ‘is it because I am a mother that the boss thinks that I am not going to be able to give the level of commitment that is needed because I may have to run off to take my child to the doctor?’. So having resources in place that can help us relax in knowing ‘my child is just around the corner being taken care of’ can go far,” Clarke added.
She was one of the panellists at Wednesday morning’s Pink Wings: A Conversation with Women of Aviation seminar hosted by the GAIA Inc. in celebration of International Women’s Day.
Supporting Clarke’s view, Virgin Atlantic’s Country Manager-Caribbean Hannah Swift said the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns were particularly tough on women who still had to perform their daily jobs all while doing household and childcare duties.
She said in response to the challenges women encountered, her company had introduced several programmes, including flexible working.
“There are small aspects of support that we as women need that I have found at Virgin Atlantic. They don’t mind if you get pregnant, or if you have multiple children, or if you are looking after your mom or dad at home; they encourage it. So support, I will say, is very important in growing your career,” Swift noted.
Speaking on the challenges encountered in a male-dominated profession, electrical technician at GAIA Odelia Regis-Sobers said the school curriculum should be adjusted to encourage more female students to learn a wider range of trades.
“Schools need to broaden their scope in terms of trade, not just electrical but masonry, carpentry, plumbing, because we are in a narrative where we go to home economics and accounts but we don’t see the transition of females having options of coming to trades,” she said.
“I always believe that persons should have a trade under the belt because it is something to fall back on, because the accounts job may become redundant and you may say ‘I don’t know what else to do’, but with a trade where you can do a little plumbing or painting, then you can still make a living.”
Meanwhile, air traffic control officer Sandra Gibbons said it was important for more careers not to be determined by gender.
“If this is going to be the norm, then you need to make a focused effort to put the resources not only to be equal but to be equitable. If it means we need to pump more resources into females, expose them more to jobs available in aviation, for example, then that’s what we need to do because at this point we are looking for the people most suitable . . . as opposed to the person we think should be doing the job because they are male or female,” she added.
(JB)