That’s why he introduced some rules about when he works and where he goes when they are issues to pay attention to the company.
Sutherland-Wong said she refuses to watch her children work on weekends or late at night, and instead starts the session when the children are in bed.
The CEO who has led Glassdoor for the past four years said CNBC Do it: “With my (my) kids, I want to be the leader to not have digital products around or be distracted by my email and text messages all the time.”
Working remotely five days a week it gives him a degree of flexibilitybut Sutherland-Wong added that if something happens when her kids are around, she’ll take herself to a home office instead of working in front of them.
Sutherland-Wong said her two children “get it” when their father keeps an eye on his emails instead of contacting them.
As a result, she structures her day to “be there when my kids come home from school, so I can be offline, spend quality time with them, go to bed, and then go back online.”
Balance of working parents
The 44-year-old CEO isn’t the first employee to identify the conflict between parenting and the immediacy of work, especially when calls, emails and notifications are sent directly to your phone or watch.
This problem is defined as “technoreference”, when an individual is digitally distanced from the people in front of them.
More than 20 years ago, Stewart D. Friedman, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, surveyed 900 business professionals and their relationship with their children.
Of course, this was before social media, the iPhone, smartwatches and, in many homes, WiFi.
So in 2018, in an article Harvard Business ReviewThe professor emeritus of the practice reviewed his research to examine what might be even more relevant.
Friedman found that parental discretion over work, workload control, and psychological interference with employment are related to children’s behavior.
“Cognitive interference from the father’s work in family and leisure time—that is, the father’s psychological availability or presence, which is noticeably absent when he is on his digital device—was associated with children having emotional and behavioral problems,” Friedman wrote.
The findings went deeper when it came to mothers. The study found that working mothers who had authority and discretion over work had children with healthier minds.
However, what she did in her free time at home also affected her offspring: “Mothers spending time with themselves—relaxation and self-care—and not so much on housework was associated with positive outcomes for children.
“It’s not just about moms being at home and working, it’s what they do with the time they’re not working when they’re at home,” added Friedman.
