The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many vulnerabilities in America's healthcare system, including a worsening shortage of nurses and physicians. But recent data indicates a new surge of interest in nursing, medical and other health-related career programs.
Like many working professionals, I’ve spent the better part of the past year and a half working remotely. And over that period, I’ve realized how many remote meeting standards amplify the bias against working mothers. Just a few weeks ago, for example, I was in a Zoom meeting when one of the members—a notably single, child-free white man—suddenly interrupted the conversation to chastise two women whose children were fussing in the background.
Afterward, an email circulated calling for new meeting standards to minimize distractions and replicate an in-person workplace. Dumbfounded, I pushed back. In the age of remote work, background noise is to be expected—whether it’s a barking dog, a honking car, or a crying baby. But the only distractions cited in this email related to childcare.
In 2014, the executives at a brand-new start-up called Andela made a decision whose consequences they would only understand much later. Andela’s model was to recruit and train promising African engineers, then place them at Western tech firms, which meant its employees and clients were scattered across time zones; it desperately needed a way for its distributed workforce to share information and make decisions easily and asynchronously, ideally without subjecting anyone to a deluge of emails. So the company started using Slack.
The maker of the chat software had recently become one of San Francisco’s trendiest new companies, based on a promise to make work communication more transparent and fluid. And at Andela, it did. As the company grew, Slack became its central nervous system, the place where business was conducted and where the company’s culture was formed.
Lori Taylor benefited firsthand from the opportunity to return to a career in banking after taking six years off from work to raise two children. Currently a managing director in Goldman Sachs' credit risk management division, Taylor was among the lucky minority of folks who take lengthy breaks and yet successfully relaunch their careers.
Taylor retooled her skills through what Goldman Sachs calls a "returnship" for individuals like herself. Many more women in particular are searching for similar pathways back to work after the pandemic forced them to the sidelines.