Pandemic upsets work-life balance

During the pandemic, work and home have blurred in unprecedented — some say unsustainable — ways.

Work days are filled with back-to-back Zoom meetings. Employees report working more hours with fewer breaks. Many schools are teaching virtually, so parents must juggle their children's remote learning alongside their full-time jobs.

For women, who research suggests are more likely than men to not be working as they shoulder child care needs during the pandemic, these challenges can be especially acute, several of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women honorees say. They see the coronavirus taking a toll on work-life balance in ways that will require flexibility and support from the C-suite to the factory floor to overcome.

The rapid escalation of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the spring upended the traditional 9-to-5 workday. Those who could transitioned to working from home, while manufacturers created a series of safety protocols to bring employees back to the plants once vehicle production resumed after weeks of shutdowns.

While some female industry executives told Automotive News that many employees said they enjoyed a reprieve from the daily commute to the office, others shared that they now work late into the evening. The closure of in-person schools and child care centers has added complexity.

"We are really concerned about the COVID situation on our female work force at Ford," Lisa Drake, Ford Motor Co.'s North America COO, said during an Automotive News Leading Women roundtable discussion in August.

"They are more likely to leave to take care of a situation at home than our male employees are," Drake said. "And so we're spending some extra effort and extra time to really understand that experience and put some things in place that will prop up that experience for them."

Drake said Ford was considering additional subsidized child care and alternate work schedules.

A Ford spokeswoman said last month that the automaker introduced a sabbatical program of up to three months because of the pandemic. It provides employees 25 percent of their salaries and continued benefits during time off. Ford also launched an interactive platform that provides professional and personal development programs to employees.

Ford also has offered a child care tuition discount since May, directly in response to the pandemic, and is exploring other child care resources, the spokeswoman said.

Toyota Motor North America for years has offered on-site child care at its manufacturing plants in Kentucky and Indiana. The automaker added several COVID-19 support programs, including flexible schedules, wait list preferences and tuition discounts for off-site child care, plus a free college coaching service for middle and high school students, spokeswoman Carley Hummel told Automotive News.

In addition, Toyota created a virtual learning center at its manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Ky., with on-site teachers available to help employees' children in kindergarten through fifth grade with virtual schooling while their parents work. Hummel said 34 students were enrolled as of early October. Participation is expected to fluctuate as schools resume in-person instruction.

"We know there is additional support that all our members are going to need, especially the members with school-aged children," Leah Curry, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana, said in August. "We're looking ahead, and we're working on these different solutions."

Companies' efforts to support employees at home serve a human need and also a business one, said Lisa Lunsford, CEO of supply chain integrator GS3 Global.

Lunsford said her company is working to balance flexible schedules and other support with keeping production going "so we can provide opportunities to employ people. It's a real challenge right now. But it's one that I'm ready to face."

A recent McKinsey & Co. study found that women made up 46 percent of the U.S. work force before COVID-19 began to spread but 54 percent of the jobs lost in the pandemic. Women also have spent more time on family obligations, which may be a reason why they pull back from work, according to McKinsey.

Some female executives say it's important to keep the doors open to women who may have temporarily stepped back from their jobs out of necessity so that they can reengage with the workplace when the pandemic comes under control.

The regular face time that employees had in the office is no longer available, so keeping in contact via text message, email or phone call is important, said Ford's Drake.

"It's probably good guidance and counseling that we can start to give if they do want to take a step back in this environment," she said. "If they just make an effort to stay in touch very informally, they would be surprised how top of mind they will still be."

Several Leading Women honorees said their companies have gotten better at communicating with a remote work force during the pandemic.

But a key tool for that — video meetings — came up often as a barrier to achieving work-life balance. Specifically, several honorees noted the frequency of such meetings and how they lead to pushing off other tasks.

Some female leaders said their companies have blocked out time during which no meetings will be held. At dealership technology company DealerSocket, that day is Wednesday, CEO Sejal Pietrzak said. What started as a trial run likely will continue post-pandemic, she said.

The challenge mounts when meetings are global. The U.S. employees of Japanese automakers, for instance, have to account for the time difference when holding video calls, said Allyson Witherspoon, U.S. chief marketing officer for Nissan. One solution has been to block off two hours during the day with no Zoom meetings so employees can handle other things or build in time for a break, she said.

"There can't be a one-size-fits-all because everyone's going to have these different pressures, professional or personal, that are going to be impacting them," Witherspoon said. "What we've been trying to do is be as flexible as you can. We're trying to work with our headquarters to let them know that right now, this is unsustainable, and to make sure that work from home doesn't mean work 24 hours a day on Zoom calls."

Flexibility was a common theme among Leading Women honorees. Jennifer Johnson, CEO of Kendrick Plastics, said the auto industry already had given her experience responding as needed to business changes.

But, she added, "COVID took that to a whole other level because of the seriousness of, essentially, long-term health or life and death. The one thing I have learned — and I would say it's probably already changed me forever — is that you have a plan, but you still take that plan day by day and be very open-minded to adjust."

Hannah Lutz and Audrey LaForest contributed to this report.