Working moms put their super skills to use
a. hartrodt promotes equality and enables employees to take on leadership roles whilst raising a family.
The family-owned company a. hartrodt views parenthood as a natural part of professional life. Josina Peters, IT Business Consultant in Hamburg, was hired as a mother of three: “It wasn’t an issue at all during my job interview,” she says. Yvonne Boldt-Mehl, also IT Business Consultant in Hamburg, made a deliberate move to a. hartrodt after her parental leave “because I was given important projects with responsibility there.” Both are part of a diverse team of employees with and without children. Everyone supports one another – including, of course, when a child gets sick.
Limited childcare hours in Germany
Projects involving global contacts present a particular challenge. For example, during early-morning online meetings with Australia before daycare or school, Josina Peters sometimes has a child join the call: “While the clients react calmly, I have to stay focused.” Yvonne Boldt-Mehl sees the limited childcare hours in Germany as a disadvantage for working mothers. She finds her son’s holiday periods particularly challenging because he has twice as many days off as she can take as vacation.
Flexible working hours, remote work, flex days
Yvonne Boldt-Mehl and Josina Peters work part-time because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to balance family and work. Thanks to their “super skills as moms,” as Josina Peters puts it, both are particularly “resilient, performance-oriented, and efficient.” Their daily work is dominated by routines. “Because we have less time, we handle things more concisely,” says Yvonne Boldt-Mehl. This means that mothers often prioritize their tasks more clearly and tend to get straight to the point in meetings. Josina Peters appreciates that a. hartrodt shows them “a lot of trust and understanding.” Flexible working hours with two days of on-site work per week plus flex days to offset overtime help them meet all their obligations.
“As parents, we try to divide up the responsibilities as fairly as possible,” says Yvonne Boldt-Mehl – which isn’t always easy. “We’d like to achieve absolute equality,” says Josina Peters. At a. hartrodt, she suggests job sharing in leadership positions. Yvonne Boldt-Mehl calls for better childcare options, especially in rural areas.