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Balancing Career and Family

Working mothers finding new careers while also raising families

The pathway to dental health aide therapist
Two working mothers, two pathways to careers: one is an aircraft mechanic and the other is a dental health aid therapist

Working mothers are a major part of the workforce. Two-thirds of moms in married couple families and three-quarters of unmarried moms are employed, according to the latest number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

February is National Parent Leadership Month, and WorkingNation would like to celebrate two working mothers from our Do Something Awesome series who balance their roles in the home and in the workplace while going through the rigorous process of switching careers.

Jennifer Treeman, an aircraft mechanic and mother of two sons, faced a lot of challenges when pursuing her certification from North Idaho College’s Aviation Maintenance Program, including a 3:30 am start to every morning.

Anna DeGraffenreid, a Coeur d’Alene tribe member from Idaho who takes care of two children and a grandchild, also faced similar problems while facing the rigorous classwork of the Alaska Dental Therapy Educational Program so she could become a dental health aide therapist.

The dedication of parents like Jennifer and Anna leaves their kids better equipped for the workplace than their counterparts. For example, daughters who grow up with working mothers earn as much as 23 percent more over their lifetimes than daughters of stay-at-home moms, according to a Harvard Business School study.

Balancing work with family life can be challenging. So how do we work to make a satisfactory work-life balance easier to attain?

Experts suggest that employers offer more paid family leave, add better protections for part-time workers, put less emphasis on overwork, institute better scheduling practices, put limits on overtime, improve access to affordable childcare, and eliminate the gender pay gap.

Additional Videos is our signature digital series that shines the spotlight on the most innovative initiatives helping to train and re-skill Americans for the most in-demand jobs now and in the future.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.