17 California Buildings News • Q4 2020
Will COVID Disrupt Working Mothers’ CRE Careers? A Leading Woman in the Industry Says, “It’s Up to Us” By Blake Peterson
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formidable pull towards home that was not built into anychool closures due one’s career path. Smart leaders understand that helping to COVID-related our labor force navigate these waters is critical to the short measures have and long-term success of an organization. As such, unprecabsolutely disrupted houseedented times call for unprecedented employee flexibility holds with working parents. and unprecedented resource availability. Families with kids that As a leader, it is my job to keep our employees delivercan’t effectively administer ing consistent quality service to our clients. If that means remote learning independently have taken on a potentialreferring childcare options, shifting work hours, providing ly unmanageable burden. Assisting children with remote home IT equipment or hiring additional support staff, we learning on top of a full-time job does not offer a clear path will ensure that standards aren’t compromised, and all to achievable balance, putting parents in a position to make commitments are met. Talk to painful compromises. your employees, know where Do I sacrifice my kids’ they are, and see how you can education or sacrifice my "High achievers... don’t accept the help. Consider accommodations work product? Due to mutually exclusive concept that one that have never been provided men statistically outbefore. earning women and women can be either an excellent parent or In addition to the "employtraditionally taking a more an excellent professional." er’s role, I think that partners, hands-on role with primary coworkers and friends of workeducation, it will disproporing mothers also play a part in tionately (and unfortunately) this. Support your local workbe women’s careers that will ing mother; she has likely never been spread so thin and a decelerate to accommodate family needs while men’s careers small amount of encouragement and help goes a long way. forge on. The headlines have indicated that this is already If you don’t know how to help her, simply ask her. happening at alarming rates. The high achievers that I know naturally seek success Although the overall commercial real estate sector still and inherently pursue maximizing potential in all areas of has a LONG way to go on diversity, we have seen some their life. They don’t accept the mutually exclusive concept recent and consistent progress in women earning leaderthat one can be either an excellent parent or an excellent ship roles in many major organizations. Not too long ago, professional. With the right support and creativity in and the only females in real estate that you’d find at the top of out of the workplace, we can avoid forcing women to the organizational chart were in non-producing functions choose due to COVID-19. like human resources. Let her be lovely and kind and maternal and let her We’ve recently seen a refreshing uptick in the number also be outwardly intelligent and skilled at her professional of women in top leadership roles across service lines — trade where she finds fulfillment and satisfaction and conparticularly in asset services. I celebrate this progress, but fidence by adding value to a call beyond the household. If let’s make a collective decision not to let COVID-19 impact she wants it all, let her go for it and help her through these this positive momentum. temporary, unique challenges. She’s worth it and I guaranThe underlying issues here are not due to the pandemtee she’d do the same for you. ic. COVID-19 has just publicly exposed working mothers’ classic tug-o-war between work and home, introducing a
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Peterson is senior vice president, asset services, for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. She lives in the East Bay, is a mother of three school-age children and is a former president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco and remains active in number of business associations.