Why you should invest in the motherhood advantage

What if the springboard to your company’s long-term success and greater profitability was a targeted investment in the success of the mid-level manager about to go on maternity leave?

Instead of considering her a writeoff for the next six- to 18-months, the growing weight of evidence shows that new mothers have the potential to offer companies a path toward greater innovation and an even healthier bottom line.

It’s no secret that women’s equal participation in the workforce means increased innovation and stronger profitability; the Government of Canada estimates that increased workplace equity will add $150 billion to Canada’s GDP by 2026.

But motherhood is the single biggest off-ramp in a woman’s career, and with 86 per cent of women choosing to become mothers at some point, addressing the motherhood challenge must be considered business critical, despite the current economic downturn.

Amid reams of proof that women benefit the bottom line, we continue to operate within a system that stubbornly upholds gender disparity in general, and actively discriminates against new mothers in particular.

While the number of women achieving advanced degrees increases, the percentage of women in the workforce is declining and the data points directly to motherhood as the inflection point.

When men become parents, they are generally promoted and get an uplift in pay, while women get passed up for new opportunities amid long-standing assumptions they are no longer interested in — or able — to take on challenging work. This type of microaggression has an even more negative impact on women of colour.

As society’s most devoted and consistent caregivers, new mothers are pushed to the fringe of the workforce, yet historically mothers have shown higher levels of ambition than women overall, according to a 2021 report from McKinsey & Company. Mothers are an underserved and undervalued demographic within organizations, and they hold the key to bridging the gap in the talent pipeline to create more equity in the senior ranks of their organizations. The lack of unsupported reintegration support is costing companies time, talent, and money.

As companies consider the future of work — the post-pandemic term bandied about liberally in LinkedIn thought pieces and conferences alike — leaders must recognize that the solutions that got us to where we are today will not be the same ones that we need to turn the ship of gender inequity. Research has shown that increased time off for mothers has not improved reintegration back to work. Further, millennials and gen-Z are choosing jobs that offer more targeted family-friendly benefits over a higher annual salary.

Companies with goals for equitable gender representation in their senior leadership ranks have the opportunity to lead this change. Driving equity requires a twopronged approach that addresses both the systemic and individual challenges that moms face in the workplace. People leaders at all levels need to better understand the impact of unconscious parental bias in the workplace, how to manage it and create inclusive spaces that prioritize mothers.

As a society, we must acknowledge that when a baby is born, so is a mother. Two births have happened, yet our culture’s eye is trained to only acknowledge one as the “big event.” Building equity requires targeted support, including personal development, engaging life partners, actively encouraging paternity leave, and additional funding for child care and household labour that typically falls to mothers.

Formalized reintegration programs for that create a consistent return-to-work experience will help mothers navigate the pressure of doing two jobs, while managing an entirely new psychological, mental, emotional, and spiritual state.

This opportunity is emerging against the backdrop of a challenging economic cycle, where progress on equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and closing the gender gap in particular, have stagnated. Training and program activities are being shelved as companies redline initiatives that aren’t considered “business critical.”

As central banks continue to cool inflation with higher interest rates, companies are at risk of regressing to a more traditional — and harmfully short-sighted — understanding of what might sustain their business through the lean times and recharge growth as the pendulum swings to positive again. But the data is clear: companies that champion gender equity in the U.K., U.S. and Canada with 50 per cent or more female executives and directors show greater long-term growth, according to a 2022 gender equality report from Equileap.

This cycle is an opportunity for corporate leaders to play — and win — the long game by investing in an equitable future, inviting moms to go first — for once — and establishing supports for moms where they spend most of their time: the workplace.

SAPHINA BENIMADHU WATERS IS CO-FOUNDER OF THE DEBUT COLLECTIVE, WHICH IS ON A MISSION TO