By: Ashlee Krawczyk, New Moms Employer Engagement Specialist
A mom’s journey toward success doesn’t end once she graduates from our Job Training program. Most of the time, her career is just beginning, and employers can play a huge role in her long-term success.
Being an employer partner is a unique way to make a long-term commitment to New Moms and the young moms we serve. We have a number of partner companies and organizations, both large and small, who are dedicated to hiring young moms from our Job Training program.
In this series, we connected with a few of our employer partners to discuss how they began their partnership with New Moms, how the partnership changed their workplace and why hiring from the community is important to them.
Christian Harris, the owner of MaidPro, a family-run cleaning service located in Oak Park since 2013 said he first heard about New Moms a few years ago while working with the Oak Park Homelessness Coalition. Since then, Harris has been an active employer partner with New Moms. He has not only attended New Moms resource and job fairs but has also interviewed and hired our moms.
“When I heard about the New Moms mission, I realized that it would be a perfect partnership,” Harris said. “We are able to offer stable employment and schedules that won’t infringe on their most important job — motherhood.”
Harris said it’s important that he creates a sense of job stability and security for the moms he hires. He recognizes that the first job of any mother is just that — to be a mother. By providing a flexible schedule that doesn’t require working nights or weekends, moms don’t have to choose between being a present mom and keeping their job.
“As a result, moms with young children have been interested in working with us over the past 7 years,” Harris said. “This allows them to still pick up their kids after school, make it to the evening sporting event, take the kids to the park on the weekend, or take the day off to care for a sick child.”
Harris also said partnering with New Moms has changed how MaidPro approaches certain policies and processes.
“When we began hiring from New Moms, we realized that [the young moms] all wanted to be excellent employees,” Harris said. “However, we never explicitly told them exactly what we expected from them.”
Harris said that MaidPro is now more intentional about explaining their expectations to staff from the beginning. Their onboarding process now includes Expectation Contracts to ensure management and staff are on the same page.
This passion, flexibility and innovation are what make MaidPro a great employer partner for New Moms. Harris is willing to make changes to his company to create a more equitable and accessible workforce, especially for young mothers.
“We can only exist because of community support, and it is important for us to show that same support to our community,” Harris said.
By working with strong community leaders like Harris, our moms are able to connect with employers who are dedicated to helping them succeed.
If your business is interested in becoming an employer partner, you can fill out our “Hire a Graduate” form through our website. A member of the Job Training team will connect with you about next steps and answer all of your questions!
Check out our other employer partner spotlights – Rush and Venture Imports, LLC.