Charlotte, N.C. - Stay-at-home mom Heidi Marky has been on the workplace sidelines for two years. For someone looking to get back into the business world, she had a curious way of selling herself during a recent job interview.
"With two small children, they are the heavy side of the scale. But if I can fit anything in (work-wise), I'd appreciate it," said the 36-year-old Waxhaw woman and former human resources executive.
The interviewer didn't flinch but nodded approvingly. April Whitlock expects job candidates to say the kids come first. They do for her.
Whitlock traded in a successful career with Lending Tree to open the Charlotte office of Mom Corps, a staffing agency for at-home parents - a slice of the population that's much bigger in Charlotte than in other cities, thanks to fatter salaries relative to a lower cost of living.
Mom Corps was started a year ago in Atlanta - by who else but a new mom juggling work and family. The Charlotte office opened this month.
With four offices - the others are in Chicago and Washington - Mom Corps specializes in finding temporary or contract work for highly skilled and educated parents, those who in their professional lives were lawyers, accountants, vice presidents of marketing and the like. The work typically can be completed in 10-20 hours a week. Some projects can be done at home; others require in-office face time.
"I had the idea a long time ago when I saw friends having their own kids and trying to figure out what to do," said Mom Corps founder Allison Karl O'Kelly. "I thought, `Gosh, here are all these women staying at home not because they want to but because they have to.' "
O'Kelly, 33, can relate. A certified public accountant with an MBA from Harvard, she left the management track at Toys R Us after having her first child. She tried being a stay-at-home mom for three months but said it wasn't for her. She started a bookkeeping business from home and got more work than she could handle.
She gave the extra work to her at-home mom friends, and Mom Corps was born. The company is too small to be profitable yet; O'Kelly expects profits next year. Mom Corps takes a cut of the paycheck when it lands work for a client.
The Mom Corps concept appeals to stay-at-home moms - and dads - who want to keep their resume and skills current for when they want to re-enter the work force full-time, O'Kelly and Whitlock said. The extra income is nice, they said, but most of the parents the company targets can afford to stay home, so the money is a secondary motivation.
The company is a natural evolution for corporate America, which is realizing helping employees make work and home life jibe is a requirement, not a concession for a token few employees, said Heather Rocha, a work-life specialist for the online job site Monster.com.
"With all the talk of baby boomers leaving the marketplace, I think a lot of bigger companies are coming to understand that it is all about work-life balance and if they aren't offering that to employees or relying on (outside) contractors, they will lose out on some of the top talent," Rocha said.
Whitlock read a Mom Corps article in Working Mother magazine in April while on a business trip. Having a career and two young daughters, Whitlock, 36, thought the concept was inspired. In a recent interview with the Observer, Whitlock explained why she thought it would work in Charlotte. She recalled what it's like to take her daughters to Latta Park.
"You meet people and ask what they do ... and nine times out of 10, you hear, `I am at home now, but I was a lawyer or a vice president at Bank of America.' Or, `I used to do this or I used to do that ... but it wasn't flexible enough.' "
A month after reading about Mom Corps, Whitlock had met O'Kelly and made her bid to open a Charlotte office from her Dilworth home. The magazine article had generated 30-some such proposals. Whitlock's was one of only two that O'Kelly said she accepted.
O'Kelly said she liked Whitlock's entrepreneurial skills - she joined Lending Tree in the company's early days - and that she had experience working from home for the company after she became a mom. O'Kelly also said she immediately detected Whitlock's passion for making life better for working moms.
Whitlock says you "don't lose brain cells" after you have a child and that you are still valuable to the workplace - whether you want to work 80 hours a week or 10.
Marky, the first job candidate Whitlock interviewed, moved to the area from Connecticut when husband Russell was transferred by his employer, Odyssey Logistics. She left behind a job she loved, vice president of human resources for Carvel Ice Cream. But she discovered this area's lower cost of living afforded her the opportunity to stay home with son Jackson, now 4. She had another boy, Cameron, now 1.
Marky is ready to tiptoe back to work. She says she misses using the business side of her brain. Besides, she wants to be well positioned to go back to the corporate world - ideally at the same level she left it - in three to five years.
"Hopefully, when I am ready to step back into the work force, it will be an easy transition," she said.
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