Flexibility and Yoga at Carolina Parent

With Carolina Parent's September Work and Parenting issue out on the stands, and our annual Women@Work Breakfast coming up Sept. 17, I think it's important to explain why Carolina Parent is a family-friendly place to work. After all, helping families balance work and parenting is not just a mission for us--we actually practice what we preach!

I've been with Carolina Parent just shy of 15 years now, and I have no doubt that flexibility is what attracted me to the job. At 40, I was just re-entering the working world after being a stay-at-home mom for almost 10 years. As much as I'd enjoyed my career in marketing before starting a family, I had serious mixed emotions about relinquishing my role as a full-time mom. My three children were still young--nine, seven and five--all finally in school, but I didn't want to miss one single minute with them if I could help it. Carolina Parent gave me the flexibility to achieve a balance that I could embrace.

Years before workplace flexibility became fashionable, Carolina Parent encouraged individualized schedules for everyone on the staff. No punching the time clock--as long as we got our jobs done, how and when we did it was up to us. I was able to drive on field trips, attend hundreds of sporting events, and stay at home with sick children. Flexibility made all the difference, and it still does.

A couple of years ago, our publisher, Liz Holt, decided to institute weekly midday yoga sessions for our staff. What a treat! Who needs lunch when you can take a free yoga class by walking down the hall. Carson Efird, who owns Evolve Yoga in Raleigh,  teaches a fantastic class for whomever can attend. Unless sick or on vacation, I'm always there. Now that my kids are grown and out of the house, I need flexibility of a different kind. It's time to bend and stretch and move to the flow, and what a difference it makes to the flexibility of my aging body!

Carolina Parent is a relatively small company, without the resources of a huge corporation to provide benefits. But for those of us who attend Carson's weekly yoga class, you couldn't ask for a better perk.
As long as we continue to have flexibilty and yoga, I'll be at Carolina Parent for another 15 years!