Why Parenting is Harder Than HR
A career in HR is not for the faint of heart—but neither is parenthood. In fact, Human-Raising may prepare us so well that managing Human Resources feels easy in comparison.
I've been spending my days with my little ones lately, deeply vested in parenting operations while contemplating both the state of the (un)employment market and the vocation of motherhood. As an HR professional (or as I prefer to call it, a Talent and People Operations professional), I am sensitive to the contrasts between full-time employment and full-time parenting: in salary ($0), paid time off (none), and even bio breaks (minimal, and be prepared to have at least one person pounding on the bathroom door). At the same time, I am noticing where my professional and parenting skills overlap, with ample opportunities to apply the lessons from one domain to the other.
Onboarding
Take onboarding, for example. As a People Ops professional, I have designed and implemented comprehensive onboarding programs that introduced new employees to our organization's processes, policies, vision, and values. Every reading recommendation was intentionally curated to align with our company values and provide guidance on how we communicated. I used the project management tools at hand (Trello, Asana, Monday, Confluence, Slack, Google sheets...) to create checklists that kept everyone organized. Our onboarding teams knew that positive first experiences translate into productive, engaged employees and higher retention rates, so we pursued continual improvement to make our new hire programs the best they could be.
As parents, we're also involved in onboarding—this time, by introducing small humans to life outside the womb.
We're tasked with teaching people who don't yet speak English almost everything there is to know about the world. Those same people eventually learn our language (quite literally—nothing makes you so aware of your grammar and word choice as hearing it echoed by a toddler), and then, the questions begin.
Why do we have to sleep? Where do the librarians go when the library is closed? Where was I before I was born? Does ground beef grow in the dirt? What color is pain? (Thanks to my little man for the examples.) Every day of parenthood, we're defining words, explaining science concepts, teaching rudimentary geography ("Canada is far away and it's cold there"), and teaching values-aligned social skills.
New employees might be fully onboarded in 90 days, but even 10 or 15 years in, our children still need guidance to navigate the nuances of school, friendships, social media, and impending adulthood. Checklists can help us stay organized, but the work is ongoing.
So if you're a new employee and you need to ask me twice about where to find the health insurance plan documents, don't worry; I'm happy to help. Your orientation-related inquiries are far easier to answer than my three-year-old's deep meaning-of-life questions.
Recruiting
Selection is also a regular part of parenting. As parents, we research and compare pediatricians, car seats, and summer camps, reading an exhausting number of reviews before choosing the best one (or at least, the best one in our budget). We interview nannies, babysitters, and preschool directors, searching for indicators of responsibility, kindness, and good handwashing technique. On any random grocery day, we're reading the label on three different brands of "organic veggie puffs" to see if any of them are a legitimate source of vegetables for our picky toddlers (and what exactly "puff" is made from, anyway).
In HR and People Operations, talent acquisition (i.e. recruiting) is sometimes treated as a separate function, but for many of us in HR, recruiting and hiring is part of the people experience we're here to create. Keeping 1099 contractors organized can fall on HR as well. Parenting skills in locating suitable options, comparing the strengths of each possibility, and making a data-informed, budget-conscious decision are all applicable in corporate recruiting. We can even learn something from our preschoolers' insatiable curiosity; asking good questions—and actually listening to the answers—is a component of successful interviewing.
If, as parents, we can find someone who makes us feel okay about leaving our firstborn with a complete stranger, then as recruiters, we can find you the best product manager or sales account executive (or at least, the best one in our company's budget)—no problem.
Employee Relations
We can keep this section short. If you have ever settled a tug-of-war over the green toy when the identical-but-orange one is wide open, or handled a "He's touching meee!" complaint issued from the backseat of the car, you have already mastered the ultimate in challenging relationships: sibling relations. This is not to minimize the gravity of workplace employee relations, which can be complex, nuanced, and even have legal implications—and "Because I said so" isn't a viable justification for a proposed solution. But generally, as HR professionals, we are working with rational adults who want to reach a resolution. If we can gracefully de-escalate daily squabbles between siblings, we can bring a fair and professional approach to workplace issues.
Policy Creation and Enforcement
Your house might have standard rules like mine does. We try to phrase them in the positive when possible:
Use your walking feet. (No running in the house.)
Stay in bed during rest time. (Go to sleep. It's not playtime.)
Say please and thank you. (Be kind, not rude.)
But then there are the policies you never imagined creating until a small human creates the situation. Sometimes these need more direct wording.
The couch is for sitting. (Not for races, wrestling, or assembling a pillow fort with a slide exit.)
No cars in the kitchen. (I don't want to step on a Hot Wheels toy with a hot pan in hand—or lose your favorite racecar under the stove.)
Don't lick the floor. (Seriously, just don't.)
In comparison, writing up 2020's never-before-needed remote work procedure and company illness policy was simple. Company policies sometimes state what seems obvious ("Do not come into the office with a high fever and share your germs with all of your coworkers."), and even the more nuanced policies are usually met with more understanding than you'll get from a child who has just been told not to sing at the table. To make things even easier, now we can have AI do the initial drafting, whether it's an expense reimbursement policy or a compensation philosophy. (Although I question the wisdom of using AI to write policies that govern the use of AI.)
Both household rules and HR handbooks require communication, creativity, and adaptability to address new challenges as they arise. But at home, there is no threat of termination for noncompliance; family is forever. And while office workers are adults responsible for their own actions, we parents must balance the right and responsibility of shaping our children's conceptions about appropriate behavior. The structure we put in place creates the environment—which leads right into our next point.
Inclusion
Even without a diagnosed special need in the family, parenting kids at varying ages and stages of life is a constant exercise in making reasonable accommodations. When we go to church, my teenager gets a notebook and pen to take notes; during a long car ride or a wait at the doctor's office, she's allowed to play games on her phone. In contrast, my preschooler gets a fidget popper, a travel-size doodle board, and maybe a snack. The baby gets something to chew, or in a pinch, some distracting item he's never seen before from the bottom of the diaper bag—and we readily excuse the spitting and shrieking noises that would be unacceptable from the older kids.
As parents and caregivers, we maintain an ever-evolving awareness of what supports our children need in order to thrive. So in the corporate environment, if you need to work remotely in order to cope with your chronic health condition or care for an aging parent, we get it. If the office chaos distracts you from work, noise-canceling headphones are the least we can do. (At least you don't burst into tears at the sound of a trash bag being opened like one of my babies did.) And navigating new cities and shopping malls with a stroller—which I suspect is far easier to jump up over a curb compared to maneuvering a wheelchair—makes us realize that accessibility is critical. Without adequate ramps and elevators, or even wide-enough store aisles, we get a glimpse of how challenging life can be without the right accommodations in place.
The people we love need unique supports in order to be at their best. Intentionally creating an environment that honors each individual's needs fundamentally benefits the family, yielding more peace and joy in our day-to-day experience. Similarly, for those of us HR leaders who care, we want every person on our teams to feel valued, included, and empowered to contribute—and we're here to advocate for you.
Real HR
Human Resources and Human-Raising each bring their own challenges, but it turns out, there is plenty of overlap in the skills required for success. The capabilities we hone in the crucible of parenthood make us more competent HR leaders, ready to show up with compassion, correction, a birthday cake, or a box of tissues as the situation warrants. And good news for any HR professionals who may be expecting: the People skills you've practiced in recruiting, onboarding, relations, policy, and inclusion will equip you to show up as a more effective parent.
Leading HR, People, and Talent—and doing it well—is far from easy. It takes skill, care, empathy, humility, and a willingness to learn—all qualities that also serve us well in parenting. At times, parenting can seem harder than any HR job, but it has one undeniable advantage. No matter how great our coworkers are, our children are actually family—and raising them is a privilege worth every unpaid minute.
- MJ
Life of You
How do the skills you practice at work relate to your home life? How does parenthood shape the way you show up at work?