Modern Day Moms

In honor of Mother’s Day, we asked a few moms at Solidigm for their take on work-life balance and the evolving benefits and needs of modern-day working parents. Read on to hear about life at Solidigm and our team members’ take on what companies can do to ensure parents feel supported and empowered throughout their personal and professional evolution.

Neha (kid: 5): I'm glad that my son can watch me while he’s growing because he's seeing his mother balancing both work and responsibilities to him as a mother. I'm trying my best to attend to both my work needs as well as his needs in school and life, and I’m happy that he's watching me do that so he can respect or see other women the same way. I want to bring up a socially responsible son or a man in that way, and being home together gives him that broader perspective.  

Christina (kids: 22, 19, 16): One thing that's just amazing is our work-life balance that we're able to have through Solidigm. Quite frankly, it's a massive evolution when I think about when I first had children. We’d be stressed about trying to go to their school events and leave work.  You had to ask permission. It was really stressful and I'm sure a lot of parents at the time missed a lot of things because we didn't feel like we could attend most events. We were prioritizing the best we could – two evolutions I distinctly recall are getting laptops to work remotely and the necessity to balance work/life during the pandemic.  Now everybody is very supportive, and we support other parents attending their children’s events without guilt.  

Pam (kids: 21, 18): I totally agree. I used to get asked “How do you do it all? How do you balance it all?” And I used to tell people, mentees, other women, you can't do it all. You don't ever get to do it all. One day your kids get to win. One day your boss gets to win. One day your husband gets to win. Every now and then you get to win, and you get a day for yourself. But the fact is someone always lost. Being able to choose the work-life balance I needed, and being able to choose what you wanted to prioritize at that time has been great. I know for me personally, since joining Solidigm, I got to attend freshman college orientation, college move-in day, and this week, I can attend college graduation!  

Caecilia (kids: 7, 4, 1): I can't even name the number of things that I feel empowered to do now! Earlier in my career, I was in a role that was very much butt-in-chair. I had to drop my kids off at 7:15 a.m., go to work, and didn't pick them up till about 5 p.m. Eevery day. Just being able to build a schedule that works for all of us - the hybrid work and then the flexible time off. It’s honestly amazing. It makes life far less stressful. My little one is having surgery in two weeks, and it was scheduled last minute. I just put it on the calendar, and no one blinks an eye. I don’t stress about taking them to doctor’s appointments or after school activities like I used to. The flexible time off was probably the best choice Solidigm made, to be honest. It really fits with our culture of trust. 

Tatjana (kid: 10-months): The top things an employer can do, and we are currently doing this at Solidigm, is to offer fertility benefits - especially as more and more women work on their careers first, kids start to come later in life and fertility treatments are expensive! I think it's a great motivator and retention tool for our women and moms in the workforce. And it’s important to not just offer fertility benefits, but to offer generous fertility benefits enabling people to build families on their own terms and without undue stress.  

Pam (kids: 21, 18): A family member used EAP for some counseling when we went through the pandemic, which was helpful. We have also definitely made use of the homework help through tutoring services as well as the SAT prep and the college essay preparations. We used that extensively as our kids got older. So I would say make sure you are supporting parents through all stages of parenthood with the benefits you’re offering, because being a parent and needing support doesn’t disappear after those few weeks of maternity leave.  

Christina (kids: 22, 19, 16): Yeah, no matter what age your children are, you're balancing trying to be there and be present for your kids, so creating things like the flexible time off and allowing parents to take advantage of it is awesome. Another great benefit is backup childcare. There are times where your daycare or sitter are not available and it's hard to have them at home while working. We have a backup childcare option through Solidigm and I think that’s a fantastic benefit.  

Caecilia (kids: 7, 4, 1): Paid/supplemented maternity and paternity leave. A lot of people don't take it because they can't - their state benefits aren't enough. They can't manage without their full income, like the supplemental income isn't enough. My husband and I are both fortunate that we work for companies that do supplement, so we were both able to take that leave and spend time bonding with our newest little guy. A lot of people aren't in that position.  

Shannon (kids: 4, 3, 6-months): The flexible time off is really helpful, but it's not just offering it, it's that it's encouraged at almost every single meeting from a senior leader. And it helps that senior leaders also take flexible time off. I think it's really important for leaders to exemplify the behaviors that they want from their team members. And I do the same thing as a mom. If I want respect from my children, I need to show them respect. If I want them to say thank you, I means I need to say thank you. And I've seen that throughout the company, those modeled behaviors. 

For more information about our culture at Solidigm, visit our Who We Are page.