Working from home as a parent: The ‘new normal’ and how we’re supporting Chime parents at home
Whether it’s setting up a physical barrier like a door your toddler can’t open, investing in noise-canceling headphones, or getting your kids their own alarm system for their online classes, one of the most common pieces of advice you’ll get about working from home as a parent is to set boundaries.
“When I first started at Chime, 11% of Chimers were parents,” says Kari Sears, our Head of Banking Partnerships. “Now, that number exceeds 20% — and we’re not just parents, we’re work from home parents, which is a completely new reality.”
The new reality of being a work from home parent stands in stark contrast to being a working parent. For Ameena Hannah, a Dispute Investigator based in Chicago, it means managing her daughter’s school schedule and answering questions throughout the day. And for Kari, it means swapping school drop-offs and commutes to the office for household chores and a rotating school schedule with neighbors. “Life was always a boogie from the moment we woke up,” Kari says, “It still is now, just to a slightly different rhythm.”
Making the shift to work from home parenting
The transition to working from home is one that comes with its own challenges — finding a comfortable workspace, figuring out meals at home, and balancing schedules with other members of the family — but when you throw in kids, it gets even more complicated. For Joe Koizim, an Ops Manager in Chicago, structure has been key. He joined Chime as a new dad to his daughter, Vera, and has learned tons of lessons from taking on a new job and having a new baby at home. “I’ve learned that my life requires more structure than ever before,” he explains. He views time as finite and sets goals accordingly, labeling his goals as achievable or translatable to the next day. “One thing I’ve learned from working from home is that I could always do more, but there is also always another day — it’s important to strike a balance between the two,” he says.
For Kari, being a work from home parent has involved many transitions around the home itself. She’s worked to create a peaceful, joyful environment as much as possible since everyone is spending more time at home. “I’ve bought plants, we got a dog, and I try to keep our home feeling like a sacred space — it goes a long way for my mental health,” she says. “With the collision of all of our worlds happening under one roof — work, family, home, and education — crafting a space where all parts of life can be lived and enjoyed has made a huge difference,” Kari says.
How Chime supports parents at home
Creating a comfortable, positive space to spend your days in isn’t everything — part of being happy, productive, and present while working from home is feeling supported by your workplace. At Chime, we’ve taken extra care to ensure that all Chimers feel supported while working from home and that parents have the extra support they need to thrive.
For Natalie Miles, calendar boundaries are crucial to tending to her parenting and professional responsibilities. “Chimers are great about respecting my calendar hours,” she says. And though Natalie doesn’t have her working hours set on Google Calendar, ‘Tine Zekis, Software Engineer on the Risk and Member Services Engineering team, does. “Using my calendar helps me be clear about when people can and can’t schedule meetings with me,” ‘Tine explains. “I love that my entire team extends the flexibility of being human to one another, whether that’s to look after our kids, pets, or just to take care of ourselves.”
When Chimers aren’t available, we’re lucky to have various channels for asynchronous communication to support parents and non-parents alike. For Natalie, asynchronous communication has been a game-changer as a parent. “Things inevitably come up when you’re parenting — a sick child, childcare that doesn’t show up — so it can be super helpful to have flexibility around communication,” she says. “Moving from real-time to asynchronous communication to accommodate those hiccups can make the difference between a frazzled, stressed out day, and one that goes smoothly.”
Another way we support all Chimers while working from home is frequent check-ins and communication. When Kari’s husband was slated to work in a New York City hospital during the first wave of the virus, she received an outpouring of support from her manager and other members of the leadership team. “People checked in on me, sent me gift cards, and made sure I had a handle on my work,” she says. “It made me feel truly supported and helped me stay productive without all that worry.”
From a company perspective, our Workplace Experience team works tirelessly to keep Chimers connected, productive, and engaged. They produced our annual summer event, SummerChime, with kid-friendly activity tracks that included Lego building and reptiles. They also sent Halloween candy to all Chimers with children to sweeten the holiday this year. For Natalie, the Workplace Experience team makes her feel looked after: “A lot of startups can feel isolating to work at as a parent,” she says. “Chime has done a great job of bringing us into the fold, and our Workplace Experience team is a huge part of that.”
Starting a new job as a parent — while working from home during a pandemic
Interestingly enough, many Chimers who have joined us since March 2020 are parents. Not only is it a tumultuous time to change jobs, it’s especially tricky while you’re juggling life at home, family, and your children’s education, too. But that didn’t stop many Chimers from coming on board with us.
Natalie’s choice to join Chime in the middle of a pandemic is, as she puts it, uncommon. “Right now, everyone is craving job security — there’s a fear that a new job won’t accommodate your responsibilities,” she explains. So during the interview process, Natalie gathered the data points she needed to feel she was joining the right company. Her manager has kids, and she felt that Chime’s benefits support parents very well. She also learned about the support network of parents that would keep her from feeling isolated. “We have a Slack channel for parents where we share photos and ask for advice,” she says, “It’s helped us all connect over the unique challenges of being a parent during COVID. After doing my research and feeling supported in my first few weeks here, I felt confident in my decision to join Chime.”
‘Tine, on the other hand, was looking for more job security in the face of the pandemic after her last company implemented pay cuts. Not only is Chime aligned with her personal values and interests, but changing jobs meant she’d have financial security for her family of four.
Regardless of why our new Chimers joined our company, we’ve noticed a common theme in the feedback from new Chime parents: Chime values parents. Whether that comes from our founders, Chris and Ryan, who were starting families themselves when they founded the company, or our Be Human value, our goal is to make sure every Chimer feels supported — especially those who might be carrying a heavier load at home.
For Joe, he’s found that Chime’s regard for parents comes across in his team’s empathy for one another. “My team has made the adjustment to a new job — and being a new father — a smooth one,” he says. “For the first month and a half working at Chime, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for being a work from home dad to become impossible,” he says. “It never did.”
After all, we’re all human, which means some of us might be raising small humans at home — and Chimers are prepared to support each other through that, whether we’re facing working from home during a global pandemic or not.
The silver lining of being a work from home parent
While working from home as a parent (during a global pandemic) comes with its challenges, there are also a ton of things Chime parents love about it. For Ameena, getting to see her daughter go to school is an added bonus. “I really enjoy seeing Aria get excited for her classes, and when she’s engaged in her schoolwork, it’s so fun to witness — that’s something I otherwise would have never seen.”
For ‘Tine, working from home can feel overwhelming until she notices the small developments her children are making. Whether her son pulls himself up or her daughter learns a new word, she appreciates the little moments that she would have missed had she been in the office.
Tony Deweese, our Lifecycle Marketing Lead, has taken to co-working with his kids while they’re in class. He sets up his laptop next to them and they both get to work. “I’ve had to set some boundaries and clarify that co-working means paying attention in class, but it’s been a really nice way to bring us closer together,” he says.
“I hope that going through this odd time together, knowing we reacted and changed our lives in these ways, will allow us — though it’s been difficult at times — to look back on it fondly,” Tony says. “After all, times like cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, or ‘co-working’ are bringing us all closer together — both literally and figuratively — and it’s pretty great.”
Not only are families getting closer, Chimers are, too. Working from home — for parents and non-parents alike — has given us all a little more insight into each others’ lives and humanized every Chimer. We’re bringing our full selves to work, and sometimes, our full families, and we believe that our experience working together is richer for it.
