Working moms spend every waking minute striving to keep their family life and work responsibilities—sometimes simultaneously—up and running. They run their lives based on contingency plans for the “what-if” scenarios and recovery plans from the inevitable everyday disasters, all with the goal of minimal impact on home and workplace operations. If you’re out there earning the title “working mom” every day like I am, adopting a business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) mindset might help you in your everyday quest to maintain seamless operations at the office and on the home front.
Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Working Moms
Since my recent debut as a working mother when I returned from maternity leave, I haven’t been able to help to see my role akin to that of a BC/DR planner. Some of the most striking similarities, which have become quickly and vividly clear to me in recent months:
Round-the-clock availability
Both businesses and working moms are 24x7x365 operations where uptime is critical. As we all know, businesses must tend to the wellbeing of their operations—and the network that supports them—around the clock while maintaining a relentless focus on meeting customer needs. Similarly, working mothers strive to be constantly available to support their children’s well-being, while also meeting deadlines.
Preparedness
BC/DR is all about planning ahead and being prepared; so is successfully functioning as a working mother. Companies need detailed contingency plans that specify how they’ll respond to a natural disaster or a manmade crisis. In the same way, working moms must constantly think through the what-ifs: “What if he needs another change of clothes at daycare? What if this fever does not break by tomorrow? ” To address the what-ifs, just like businesses, moms live by contingency plans—from extra changes of clothes to backup childcare.