Is there anybody there?

A week or so ago I posted a question to employers on LinkedIn, asking if they had a strategy for the announcement that schools were closing in the UK. And by that I meant a strategy to ensure that their employees with kids can manage their jobs as well as everything else without breaking from exhaustion. And by that I meant all their employees, whatever their gender, because sadly most employers assume that women will be the ones who look after the home and childcare (which is what happens in the majority of families). Many men have told me that, even if their employer has a gender-neutral parental policy on paper, it is in practice really a ‘mum policy’ because they don’t actually expect their male employees to take them up on it, and it is frowned-upon and seen as a lack of commitment to their job if they do.

Now bearing in mind that there are over 20 million companies listed on LinkedIn and that this post had over 1600 views, can you guess how many responses I received from employers?

Zero. Zilch. Nothing. Nada.

I’d like to think this is because all the employers out there are so busy working on their gender-neutral strategy to help parents manage through this pandemic that they don’t have time to look at or comment on my post, but the feedback I hear from employees out there would suggest otherwise…

How short-sighted these companies and organizations are. Don’t they realize that if schools are closed, women will mostly carry the home-schooling burden, that their work capacity will be disproportionately reduced compared with men’s (unless they don’t sleep, which won’t help their work either) and that, as a result, their careers will be affected? And don’t they realize that this will lead to even more gender inequality in the workplace? And that gender inequality leads to weaker business performance than equality?

I should have been bombarded with responses from employers about their interventions. They should be in a total panic and all over this, because they should know that when something creates a problem for women, it creates a problem for everyone - especially ultimately them.