Care.com’s Sigrid Daniel and Gillian caught up recently to discuss work-life balance and keeping women and other parents in the workplace. Gillian is the founder of on-line recruitment service, Workingmums.
Sigrid: Tell me more about your company, Workingmums, and your inspiration for setting it up?
Gillian: I launched WMs in 2006 as a result of my own experience – and that of my peers – and because I needed the service myself. I’d built up my career over the best part of nine years, latterly as a senior manager in large financial organisations. After having my first child I wanted and needed to go back to work. However, I wanted more flexibility than Monday to Friday inan office. Nevertheless, I knew they existed – in companies of all sizes. For example, as anyone who has run a small business can tell you, you very often need people with certain skills or experience – but don’t need or can’t justify paying someone to work full time. It was that and the birth of my second son and the desire for even more flexibility in my own working pattern, which provided the catalyst for Workingmums.
Sigrid: What does Workingmums do?
Gillian: The aim of Workingmums is to provide employers with a high number of very skilled and motivated professionals who have a wealth of experience across many industry sectors. We also give working mums access to employers who can offer jobs and opportunities on a flexible basis to help them balance work and family life, whether that means full time jobs with flexi hours, the ability to work from home or to work part time or some other combination.
Our jobs cover everything from positions at all levels with top corporates, through to SMEs as well as franchise and self-employed opportunities. We now have over 170,000 candidates registered and work with hundreds of employers.
Sigrid: How did you go about setting it up?
Gillian: On the client side, I had a number of face to face sessions with corporates and small businesses. On the candidate side – the mums side – I used viral marketing. A survey monkey email to 100 of my friends and fellow nursery and school mums quickly got forwarded on around the country to other mums. This research not only provided me with valuable information, but also with a ready-made database for launch.
It was through Business Link that I was put in touch with my first mentor, through a mentoring scheme run for pre-start ups. I found this invaluable, talking to an incredibly experienced business person, who could be completely objective about my business plan and aims and objectives.
Sigrid: How did you fund it initially?
Gillian: I self-funded the business initially. My start-up costs were very low and there was just me. In the early days, I let employers advertise for free to drive traffic to the site, build the database and thoroughly test the concept. Very soon after launch, we benefited from some fantastic PR and from then things started moving more quickly than I’d anticipated.
Within a year I had a handful of staff working with me from their homes around the country – all recruited through the Workingmums.co.uk.
Sigrid: How big is the WM team now?
Gillian: The WM team has grown and evolved considerably since we launched in 2006. From being a wholly home-based business with all the team working from home, we now have a small office in central London where most of the sales team is based, but everyone else continues to be home-based. Everyone has an opportunity to work flexibly whether they are parents or not. The benefits of having the rest of the team being home-based is that it’s opened up a talent pool that wouldn’t otherwise be open to me. I am not just limited to people who can work in London.
Sigrid: Do you work flexibly yourself?
Gillian: In terms of the day-to-day running of the business, I definitely work the equivalent of a full-time week, but how and where I work varies.
Sigrid: What are you plans for the future?
Gillian: I’m very proud of what Workingmums.co.uk has achieved in a relatively short time, but we plan to constantly evolve and rely on regular feedback from those who use the site. One of the popular parts of the site is our Advice and Support section where we give careers advice and one to one expert advice on issues ranging from childcare and career progression to employment law. Our new Business Zone adds a whole channel of information on setting up your own business or franchise. And our live events provide individual women with one to one advice.
Sigrid: How do you manage the childcare of your children now that they are school age? Do you use nannies or au pairs?
Gillian: I’ve used a combination of childcare over the years – from nursery to grandparents – but now the boys are older working flexibly allows me to be around more for them.