Caption: Jessica Lall, President & CEO of CCA and Angela Gibson-Shaw, President of GLAAACC host a Women's Roundtable in April 2021 to discuss the longstanding inequities of women compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential solutions.

COVID-19 has created immense struggle and loss, with each person having their own unique experience depending on occupation, background and more. Yet, this trying time has also sparked a new sense of community and creativity for many of us. With over 300 CCA members' diverse experiences in mind, we continue to envision a recovery that reflects the needs of the people, industries and communities that were most impacted by the pandemic. As we continue to address ongoing issues to help ensure a stronger, more inclusive and resilient region -- supporting working women, who represented half of American jobs in December 2019 -- is key to Downtown and our city's full recovery.

There has been a lot of discussion about the outsized impacts facing women, especially women of color and moms, over the last 15 months. Millions of women have left the labor force across the nation and have yet to return, hurting livelihoods and plummeting tax revenues. Interconnectedly, many childcare facilities have shuttered or reduced capacity and hours while many school-age children are still on a hybrid learning schedule. It is reported that one in four women who became unemployed during the pandemic said that this was due to a lack of child care. Further, senior-level women are much more likely to experience burnout than senior-level men, and these women are more likely to lower their positions or leave the workforce entirely.

To deepen understanding of employee needs for women business owners and leaders, CCA convened a virtual roundtable of more than 30 women executives, business owners and leaders across industry and size in partnership with the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce (GLAAACC). The discussion explored various impacts of the pandemic and potential organizational and governmental policy recommendations that can help address longstanding inequities worsened by the pandemic, including the following:

Public Policy

Leverage pandemic recovery to address historic inequities for women and women of color.

• Support policies, especially those that incentivize organizations, to ensure gender pay parity.
• Direct American Rescue Plan resources and other federal relief packages to women- and minority-led small businesses and organizations through strategic communications and outreach to constituents that were overlooked during the pandemic.
• Explore how working women with children can be identified as a protected class in preparation for future crises.
• Continue to embrace for-profit organizations' participation in world affairs to protect and support employees of color and advance human rights.

Incentivize and promote workplace resources for parents.

• Increase grant funding for organizations that provide extracurriculars and enrichment for children, including tutoring, mentoring, transportation to childcare and more.
• Consider identifying digital access as a right to help address disparities that prevent remote learning.
• Offer tax credits and other benefits to businesses and organizations that provide on-site childcare, staggered and hybrid schedules and/or study spaces for school-age children.

Individual Organizations

Embrace flexible, responsive work schedules.

• Normalize work time flexibility including late and early start times and extended lunch breaks so workers can fulfill caregiving responsibilities.
• Solidify boundaries to ensure parents can support children and families after work hours.
• Incorporate wellness policies that allow sedentary workers to get outside and be more active.
• Ensure all workers have access to flexible schedules to share parenting and household burdens with their partners.

Acknowledge that children's struggles impact working parents' wellbeing and productivity.

• Explore opportunities to subsidize childcare, coordinate with a nonprofit afterschool program and other small businesses in the community like dance studios that provide enrichment and supervised care.
• Recognize that employees and colleagues that are caregivers feel the stress of their children's learning losses and emotional distress during the pandemic.

Prepare to meet employees' needs for networking, mental health and community.

• Prepare for increased interest in mentorship, networking and community, especially from younger employers, upon returning to in-person work activities.
• Anticipate upticks in requests for vacation time and other personal needs that were put off until now.
• Devote targeted time to building organizational culture and fostering employee belonging for organizations working from a remote or hybrid model.
• Continue prioritizing women as people first and employees second as we collectively navigate the next phases of the pandemic.
• Explore updated workplace environments that provide outdoor options and open space.

As we have done with our roundtable, we will continue to convene conversations and partnerships across sectors to raise the above recommendations for further discussion. Many of these considerations reinforce ongoing CCA advocacy priorities including the importance of bringing more childcare and school facilities to dense urban areas like DTLA and creating opportunities to repurpose commercial spaces through adaptive reuse. We urge stakeholders to share resources and lived experiences with one another and our policymakers to inform policies that support pandemic recovery for all and increase opportunity in our region.