The Washington Street Journal:
They’ve been coined mommy SWAT teams, which stands for “Smart Women with Available Time.”
According to Sue Shellenbarger’s Work Family column in Wednesday’s Journal, these are groups of talented at-home moms who don’t want full-time work, but want to keep their skills sharp and dive into the occasional professional project. According to the column, these women are becoming valuable commodities for businesses that need expertise from cheap, temporary labor. (It says such women work more for a professional challenge than for the money.)
One example: The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School called on eight at-home mothers — including a Stanford University Ph.D. in neuroscience, a University of Virginia M.B.A., an attorney and a former news executive — to teach leadership skills to M.B.A. candidates last year by role-playing difficult management situations with them and critiquing their performances. Cost to the B-school: $21 an hour per woman.
In another case, a team of five at-home moms hopped on a one-month project at Lending Tree to rewrite 600 job descriptions after several acquisitions and integrate them into its organization chart, the piece says. One participant, a former Bank of America senior manager, talked about why she took the work. In becoming a stay-at-home mom, she says, “I found myself a little stir-crazy.” Another says she enjoys “using the brain cells, making contacts, and being productive and useful.” (Staffing firms that cater to at-home moms include flexibleexecutives.com, flexibleresources.com, and flexperienceconsulting.com.)
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