Conversation with the Director

CONVERSATION WITH THE DIRECTOR

The University of Utah MBA programs have a mission to increase the number of women in leadership in the business world through education, collaboration, and community. A big part of this initiative is connecting with our female MBA students and alumni by hosting events, facilitating online networking, and executing individual outreach. Below is a recent conversation between one of our MBA Directors and a Professional MBA alumna.

Stephanie Geisler

Francesca Ferrara

Executive Director University of Utah Full-Time MBA and Professional MBA

Nursing Manager University of Utah Healthcare Professional MBA Class of 2020

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With COVID-19, the volume of unpaid work increased as children were not attending school and hence, were home needing to be homeschooled, fed, entertained, and cleaned up after. This has affected women more dramatically than men. Tell us about your experience regarding this problem.

Often it has been our female workers that need to stay home to provide daycare to young children while male workers were able to report to work. Other managers in my peer group have struggled with this as they attempted to be both educators to their children and full-time managers attempting to lead the COVID-19 response, which often required many hours above the normal full-time commitment.

Women hold front line jobs at a much higher rate than men. In healthcare specifically, women hold 70% of the jobs, putting them at higher risk of exposure. What has your experience been as you’ve watched this reality play out?

As an operational leader in healthcare, I had to be increasingly flexible to team members for which access to childcare was initially limited or non-existent. As a team, we had to work together to find solutions to take care of our patients and our teams. This required flexibility of the entire team so we could shift some team members to work from home while others had to be available on-site to support live patient care activities.

What are some possible solutions?

Solutions we’ve tried include asking those working at home to do some of the less desirable “paperwork” and also allowed some flexibility in working hours. We continue to work through these challenges as we see around 5-10% of our workforce on symptomatic rule outs each week. Rather than offer teams sick time, we ask them to work from home as much as they can. They appreciate the flexibility and ability to keep their banked time off, and we rely on the support from those working from home.

65% of working men have a support system at home (stay at home spouse or similar), while only 37% of women have a support system at home. How does this impact the stress and health of workers as they continue to shoulder work at their jobs and at home?

Sheryl Sandberg published an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Companies and Women are at a Crossroads.” In her findings, she recognized that senior-level women are 1.5 times as likely as men at the same level to think about downshifting or leaving, and the top reason they cite is burnout.

What do you think this means for women in the long term?

Women need to start asking for help and advocating for themselves. At home, that means housekeeping, lawn care, childcare, food delivery, etc. At work, that means networking outside of key meetings to build support for your plan, speaking with confidence: using phrases like “I have a plan” rather than “I think we should...”, pursue more responsibility/promotions rather than waiting to be approached, turn down offerings that don’t support your mission, keep your hand up and share your opinion, etc.

What are examples of resilience you have seen around you during COVID?

Resiliency is so relevant now more than ever. Finding ways to support our teams through flexible work hours, child care, counseling options, safe spaces for conversation through 1:1 meetings or team meetings, creating opportunities to share recognition or moments of gratitude, mindfulness training, workplace yoga, and emotional support programs. Resiliency isn’t one thing; it is many things.

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