08 Jan How to Maintain Balance While Working from Home

Balancing Act: Women of color often face greater challenges

By Renée Bacher

Cropped shot of a little girl using a laptop with her mother at home

Last spring, when Frankie Robertson, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, started her social justice consulting firm, The Amandla Group, she had no idea she would be launching a new business at a time of unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19.

“Now I am building a business from scratch during a time when so many people are hurting financially and face-to-face contact is limited. I am trying to determine what my new normal is in terms of productivity and what type of workload I can support in the absence of structured, full-time off-site day care,” says Robertson, mother of Levi, five years old, and Zoe, two. “I have always been an overachiever, but that standard can’t truly exist in a global pandemic.”

Robertson isn’t alone. According to a recent New York Times survey of more than a thousand people working remotely, 35 percent of mothers said it was difficult to balance home life with work duties. A survey from Telus International found that since working from home became a necessity for many this year due to the pandemic, nearly four out of five respondents found it a challenge to “shut off” from work at the end of the day; more than half said their sleep patterns were negatively impacted; and 45 percent said they have felt less healthy mentally. Not a great recipe for balance or wellness.

Women of color are being impacted disproportionately. While all people may face challenges in working from home during the pandemic, disparities prevalent prior to last spring may exacerbate some of these challenges for Black and Brown women, says Makisha Boothe, founder of Sistahbiz Global Network, a business accelerator for Black women entrepreneurs.

A recent survey from the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that when it came to diversity and inclusion, 32.7 percent of respondents said that there was a disruption of leadership development at their organization; 26.5 percent said that all or most diversity and inclusion initiatives had been put on hold; and 26.5 percent said that there was less mentoring and Employee Resource Group/Business Resource Group activity.

“This is a very challenging time for all of us,” says Katrice A. Albert, PhD, founder and managing member of Third Eye Consulting Group, a diversity management consulting firm. “I’ve heard it said that we are in a global pandemic, a financial pandemic, and a racial pandemic.”

According to Albert, Black and Brown women are especially impacted by this crisis: on top of challenges associated with working remotely due to the pandemic, they bear the burden of the United States’ past-due reckoning on race, racism, and anti-Black hate speech and violence. They are also most likely to have white colleagues ask them to offer examples of their lived experiences. “Black and Brown women are struggling with racial battle fatigue,” Albert says. “This is the psychosocial stress response from being a racially oppressed group member in society.”

Women of color face additional work challenges due to the pandemic, particularly since COVID-19 has taken a toll on Black and Brown people in far greater numbers than white people. According to the Centers for Disease Control, COVID-19 cases in the United States are 1.4 times as prevalent in Black or African American, non-Hispanic people compared to white, non-Hispanic people, with Black people 3.7 times more likely to be hospitalized and 2.8 times more likely to die from the virus. Hispanic or Latino people are 1.7 times more likely than white, non-Hispanic people to contract the virus, 4.1 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 2.8 times more likely to die.

Frankie Robertson knows that she and her family members are at higher risk for complications due to COVID-19, which she says is keeping her home more than others. “I know that I am missing out on valuable opportunities to grow my business, but because COVID-19 has hit my race disproportionately, I have to take extra precautions to keep myself and my loved ones safe,” she says. “This is taking a lot of sacrifice in terms of the types of things I can do and where I can go.”

Black and Brown women working from home may also be affected by a concept called “distance bias,” in which white supervisors may give the best assignments to those working in close physical proximity to them rather than to those they see as a small square on a screen during a video conference.

Another challenge, according to an article in Harvard Business Review by Laura Morgan Roberts, a professor of practice at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, is that Black employees, who are often underrepresented in professional work spaces, sometimes adjust their behavior, speech, and appearance in the office (aka code switching) in an attempt to counteract negative racial stereotypes that can hurt their careers. Working from home via video conference, however, may undermine these attempts, with glimpses into living rooms, home offices, and identities that have not been whitewashed, so to speak, for the benefit of white colleagues and supervisors. Implicit bias may prevail as others have a window into private lives where the size of one’s work space, the furnishings, and other decor can be judged and increase feelings of vulnerability about a Black person’s professionalism.

Boothe suggests some ways in which organizations can help their employees of color with the twin challenge of working from home and an increased focus on issues around race in the workplace.

• Include Black and Brown people at the table for key discussions at the leadership level as organizations transition and evolve to respond to COVID-19.

• Avoid using your employees of color as the resident DEI experts for your organization without knowing if they want to take on that role. Pay or reward them for their expertise and contributions; otherwise it’s invisible labor that is often mentally and emotionally taxing.

• Be mindful of the already challenging nature of cross-cultural communication and know that video delays, lack of body language visibility, and other tech-related issues can make communication difficult and misinterpretation easy. Black and Brown people typically are the ones who are most negatively impacted by these challenges.

Women of color working remotely can keep their career trajectory on target during the pandemic by taking the following steps.

• Exceed expectations when and where you can because most industries are struggling with simply staying afloat. Also, take on new responsibilities when asked or when you see opportunities emerge. • Keep track of your wins with a “brag sheet” where you list all of the new contributions you have made during this unusual, challenging time. This will come in handy when you might be up for a promotion or when updating your résumé.

• Take the initiative to schedule more frequent meetings with supervisors, mentors, and champions to learn about the work productivity that is happening at your organization and to stay on their radar. DW

Renée Bacher is an award-winning Louisiana-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post Magazine.

Extra!

Here’s how to find that elusive balance

Experts say the following can help women seeking more balance working from home.

Stay connected.

Working from home can be isolating, and one day can blur into the next. Make time for positive interactions with family and friends during your day, whether it’s a lunch date on Zoom, a quick call to your best friend while unloading the dishwasher, or taking a walk before you get to your desk. Stay connected to your higher self by keeping a gratitude journal and jotting down a few things you are thankful for each day.

Practice radical self-care.

Go above and beyond to take good care of yourself. This means nurturing yourself with daily exercise and fresh air, eating a healthy diet, and, if you drink alcohol, doing so in moderation. It also means going to bed at a decent hour and getting seven to eight hours of sleep. Download apps that help calm your mind and restore your spirit. Read books that you can’t wait to dive back into each night before bed. If your budget allows, splurge on one small indulgence every week, like fresh flowers or a dinner delivery.

Maintain healthy boundaries.

While working remotely may be great in terms of flexibility and saving time and money on your commute, the boundary where work ends and personal life begins may be unclear. If possible, create a designated work space in your home—and try to keep it out of your bedroom. If you’re working from home and have kids, do your best to explain when you can and cannot be interrupted during the workday. If you’re working in a common space, use earbuds and play white noise instrumental music or use noise-canceling headphones to minimize distractions. Try to keep regular hours, and when those hours are over, turn out the light and shut the door to your home office if it is a separate space. If you’re juggling work activities with helping your kids and keeping regular hours isn’t possible, track your work hours by logging them with pad and pen when you sit down and get up. If your phone is a distraction, try an app like Forest (forestapp.cc/), which allows you to plant a virtual tree for a predetermined amount of time and start working, then the app alerts you when your tree has grown. Touch your phone to do something else, however, and the tree dies. You can also use an app like Freedom (freedom.to/) to block social media and distracting Internet sites during work hours.

Be gentle with yourself.

This is a time of adjustment for everyone, and it doesn’t do anyone any good if you beat yourself up. If you’re stressed out at the end of the day, remind yourself that tomorrow offers a new chance to find more balance. — RB