Women comprise 46.8% of the workforce in America currently and yet many companies fail to keep their female workers long term due to lack of opportunities and resources to support women throughout their lives. A large part of that is providing opportunities for advancement and resources to support life changes as women embark on the journey of balancing career and motherhood. 

 

• Seventy percent of mothers with children under 18 participate in the labor force, with over 75 percent employed full-time.
   

• Mothers are the primary or sole earners for 40 percent of households with children under 18 today, compared with 11 percent in 1960.
   

• 43% of women with children leave their jobs due to the demands of motherhood
   

• 17% of workers in America have access to paid maternity/paternity leave
   

• And 45% of women have said they want more support from their employer in the transition of motherhood
   

• 80% of working mothers said that work did not become less important after having a baby
   

• Today’s working mother spends as much time with her children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s
   

• Up to 20% of women and nearly 50% of women living in poverty will suffer from postpartum mental disorders such as PPD.
   

• 1 in 4 women return to work just 2 weeks after giving birth
   

Many industries continue to place added burdens on employees with children, and especially women, rather than acknowledge their needs and values. In a study of hiring practices reviewed by Harvard, mothers were significantly less likely to be recommended for a job and were offered $11,000 less in starting salary than childless women were on average. Raters also said they assumed mothers to be "inherently less competent and less committed," according to Harvard. Fathers, on the other hand, were not penalized at all in the process.

 

In addition, many employers find employee health habits to be the top challenge in managing healthcare costs and cite lack of employee engagement as the biggest obstacle to changing employee health-related behaviors. Further, employers are very disappointed in the apparent inability of their health plan vendors to drive employee behavior change that would reduce healthcare costs by encouraging healthier lifestyles. And while 87% of surveyed companies have workplace wellness programs, most (61%) either do not measure outcomes or have any real sense of the effectiveness of those programs. For those measuring outcomes, only 4% indicate a strong positive return on investment (Towers Watson and National Business Group on Health, 2011).

 

A wellness program helps everyone win - companies can save on healthcare costs and absenteeism while benefiting from improved productivity and performance while employees and their families are healthier.  A healthy business is a business that thrives because it has employee health management strategies in place. Healthier employee lifestyles should also extend into their family and community’s health (Healthiest Maryland Businesses, 2012).

 

With this in mind, WMC Public Health Consulting enters and helps businesses change these staggering facts and get results that promote employee wellness and help to retain current talent, attract new talent, and grow into the future.