Recently, many articles have appeared fanning the flames of debate over whether women can 'have it all.' I don't know what the 'all' is that we're supposed to want, but I can say that I have one of the best work/family balances I've encountered. And this was made possible by the culture of startups.
Consider working in, or creating, an environment where flexibility is celebrated, no matter what your life choices and needs may be.
When my daughter was born, I worked for a big financial services company and my husband literally founded a startup that same day. We ended up choosing a daycare in the same building as the startup. I thought this was a great idea in recognition that, given the same skills, men are on average rewarded more when they are fathers, and every study I've read says that mothers are paid less, in part because of the perception that mothers need more flexibility than fathers.
Here's why I believe that startups are the ideal family-friendly settings, even if you don't consider yourself to be the type of person to center your life on family (or at least not yet):
- Should you choose to become a startup founder, you set the culture and decide the policy. It may still be tough to balance workload with family life, but at least you are the one doing the choosing. I have met many women who started their businesses because, although the income was less predictable, their lives were under their own control.
I spent nearly 20 years working for medium and large companies, in many roles from engineer to management consultant to VP of Product. I have noticed in many of these roles at larger companies that the women around me who were successful either had no children or had adult children. Or, maybe worse, a larger company would create a 'mommy-track' (does anyone else cringe whenever they hear that?) that was 'family-friendly.' Those jobs inevitably paid less to start, and had a lower pay trajectory, in a way that sometimes came off as predatory rather than supportive. They also reinforced stereotypes that women should be the ones to take on a flexible workday when family needs arose.
Maybe as my daughter gets older, I will return to a larger firm. Having seen both sides now, I firmly believe startups can and do provide an environment that is not just accepting of people with families, but actually provides a great support system for working parents of young children that benefits both men and women. To be fair, I should also note that I've been called a workaholic more than once in my life. I love to work, and working at off-hours has always been normal to me.
Something else to keep in mind is that companies started 30 or 100 years ago are culturally designed around a family model that existed at the time they were founded. As the definition of family evolves, more established companies have significant cultural and policy barriers to overcome in order to keep up. And their approaches to redefining the work environment can by definition only be patches.
About the guest blogger: Shereen Shermak is a Co-Founder and VP of Product Management of Buyside FX, a Boston-based startup backed by Google Ventures that is bringing transparency to the Foreign Exchange industry. Her first startup was Fashionplaytes, which she co-founded, then she returned to financial services for her next three startups. Shereen holds an MBA from MIT's Sloan School, an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School, and an undergraduate degree in engineering from Duke University.