Hayley Van de Ven, CEO of the Limitless Group, has this to say in the wake of International Women’s Day.
This week, through International Women’s Day, we celebrated the women who strive to have it all, a career, a family, goals and dreams. We also celebrated those who have the choice for family… for career: the choice to have both, one or one.
We celebrate the ability to have those choices.
Our team is unique in this industry as not only does it have a female CEO, but it also has an all-female leadership team. This was not intentional but driven by wanting to have the best candidate in place for the task at hand.
You will find no bra burning within the ranks but a team that is client focused and driven. In our business, our leadership and support teams’ clients are the agents; and property managers and their customers and clients are sellers, buyers and landlords.
International Women’s Day gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we do to acknowledge and support women.
In the last two years, working mums have been stretched to the absolute brink with school closures, work from home orders and home learning.
When faced with the reality of 70 per cent of our work force having to work from home with kids, it was almost inconceivable. So, we had to head to the war room and roll out a strategy to assist our team with managing their stress levels and give them an option to remain productive in one of the most unsettling times in our working lives.
The question was, when faced with the prospect of near 70 of our now 100-plus team members needing to work from home through COVID and extended school holidays …What should we do?
If we could organise an educator to look after the kids during these extended holidays - entertain them, walk them to the park, take them to get Subway, watch movies and chill - would that take the pressure off the team to not have to try and juggle everything?
Knowing their children were safe and happy and all together would be a huge weight off their minds!
So, that’s exactly what we did. Drop off was 8:30 am. There were trips to Bounce and Jungle. There were no additional childcare fees. There was great peace of mind knowing that the kids were happy, and our team of working mums could focus on getting the job done with zero mum guilt, which is a philosophy and uncomfortable feeling that almost every working mum I know has in common.
Although it was tough, it was just one way the business could continue to function at full capacity when the unexpected occurred.
And it wasn’t a once-off! We offer flexibility and freedom with the expectation that the work is done and we always deliver! We lift the lid off the jar; we aren’t limited to the belief that 9-5 is the only way it can be done.
I’ve become a bit ‘famous’ for saying ‘Not a problem. I don’t care if you’re in Tahiti, as long as the work is done, I’m happy.’
In an ever changing and corporately challenging environment, my belief is that flexible working for both males and females is essential in retaining the world’s best team.
After saying ‘Happy International Women’s Day!’, we continue to celebrate the robustness of women and how adaptable and innovative we can be! We celebrate our success, and we learn from our opportunities. We honour these women and our male champions that back us the whole way!