Think Parenthood Hurts Productivity? Nearly 40 Percent Say It Made Them Better at Work |
Think Parenthood Hurts Productivity? Nearly 40 Percent Say It Made Them Better at Work
Researchers found that parenting skills—from prioritization to stress management—often translate directly into better performance at work.
BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC
According to conventional workplace wisdom, workers’ engagement and productivity often suffer once they become parents—sometimes considerably, as they prioritize domestic responsibilities over work duties. But new survey data is challenging that assumption. It found nearly 40 percent of respondents saying their job performance actually improved after having children—often thanks to learning to manage their increasingly limited time at home more effectively, and applying that to work.
That counterintuitive finding came in a recent survey of 1,022 international respondents by job hunting support platform Kickresume. Contrary to the widespread belief that employees become less effective on the job after they have children, 38 percent of working parents said their professional productivity increased after having their first or additional kids. Of that group, 16 percent of workers said their output had “significantly improved” after a new tot entered their lives.
In addition to that, another 34 percent of respondents said they maintained the same level of engagement and productivity they had before becoming parents. Only 28 percent reported a slight or significant reduction in their effectiveness on the job, bucking the prevailing workplace myth.
“One of the most common assumptions about parenthood and work is that productivity suffers,” Kickresume’s report on its Parenthood & Productivity Survey said. “The data doesn’t fully support that. … Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of parents did not experience a drop in productivity after becoming parents.”
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How did those working parents explain their steady or increased levels of productivity after kids had arrived? Most said it came from applying lessons they learned from juggling more responsibilities in shorter amounts of time at home to their work duties.
A quarter of respondents said they imported their improved domestic time management into the workplace, while another 17 percent said parenting taught them to stay organized in “controlled chaos” situations. That’s probably an understatement in describing most households revolving around newborn or infant children.
Other capabilities acquired or strengthened at home while caring for new children, and which also proved useful on the job, were multitasking skills cited by 17 percent of participants, better stress management mentioned by 12 percent, and enhanced patience at 11 percent.