Remote working allows us to have more dads at day care
There’s a great conversation happening globally around gender imbalance in the workplace, particularly in the tech industry. We fully support this. Diversity in any work environment is positive, especially when you're creating solutions for a diverse range of customers.
We’re lucky to have incredible women on our team at Timely. At the rate we’re growing, we’ll be adding a bunch more. Across our team we cover a fair few demographics. We could be more diverse, and I expect that we will be as we grow.
We also have thousands of amazing women as customers. Timely is booking software used in industries where you find many inspiring women calling the shots. Unfortunately the same can’t be said in the tech industry.
When you make a shift in any ecosystem it must be compensated for, however. There’s another side to the gender ledger that goes hand-in-glove with this discussion. Crudely speaking, shifting the balance of chromosomes in the office means doing the same at day care.
One workplace trend that may help to achieve this is remote working. At Timely we have a crew of 23 who work remotely. On our team we have 9 dads. I’m one of them and I love seeing our other Timely dads kicking all sorts of ass on the domestic front. Ferrying kids around, domestic duties, nursing sick little’ns and being all around solid dudes.
As a workplace it’s something we not only support, we encourage and have baked into our culture. An environment where we can have both rewarding career and family. Dropping the charade that you switch modes between work and home is liberating. I’m not Clark Kent. I’m in all modes full time, and it’s great.
It’s not rocket science either. The things about remote working that enable work/life balance are simple.
1. No commute;
How long is the average commute time to an office? An hour per day? Remove that completely and you have 5 hours a week, 250 hours per year to spend doing other things. The times of day that you would normally commute are great for family time too.
“For me #timelylife means no commute. At 5pm (or earlier) we can all do stuff together.” – Rueben
2. Ever-present;
Work from home dads are useful without even doing anything. A skill that only a man could perfect, right? For example, when younger children go down for a sleep in the day, normally mum would be tied to the house. Legally you can’t leave young children at home alone, for good reason. Enter the work from home dad. All he has to do is stay in his office with the baby monitor on and he’s being helpful.
3. Proximity;
People live near to where important family things happen; schools, community groups, friends, sports events and so on. When you work from home, a quick commute to watch a music recital or join in on a swimming lesson is easy. Being there for your kids at those times is priceless. Being back at your office just as fast and picking up your role in a dynamic, growing company… even better.
“We spent heaps of time with Florence at the beach near our house in her first few months over summer. Beaching it as a family, often leaving my desk early while it was still nice and warm out. No way we could have done that if I was in an office in town until 5:30pm.” – Israel
Remote working is on the rise. GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com says that between 2005 and 2012, the number of remote workers surged by more than 70%. Based on our experience at Timely that’ll mean more dads at day care and more women in the tech industry. And that’s a bloody good thing.
The Timely Dads
- Alan and Otto at Montessori preschool.
- “Database” Dave and his 3 girls Kaitlin, Amy and Lucy in the car.
- Andrew, Milo and Violet, back when Mr Long had more hair.
- Jimmi and “The Major” in their woolly jumpers.
- Scoff (our CTO) and Lucas – matching shirts!
- Ruebs and his crew Toa, Ripeka, Rupene and mum Moana.
- Israel (the arty shot guy) and his youngest Florence at the beach.
- Me!… and my wee man, Jimmy (monkey see, monkey do).
- Kieran and and his spitting image Taika.
