“Working Mothers Of The Year” At Children’s Healthcare Of Atlanta
Offer Advice In Hopes Of Helping Others

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, one of the nation’s leading pediatric health care systems, has been named a 2007 “Working Mother 100 Best Company” by Working Mother magazine for the third consecutive year.  In conjunction with the accolade, Children’s has named two employees “Working Mothers of the Year” for their commitment to enhancing the lives of children and their indispensable roles as caregivers—at work and at home.

Amber Cocks, senior performance improvement consultant and Donna Ramaswamy, pediatric nurse practitioner in the Children’s Sibley Heart Center,  are both working mothers with different philosophies on what makes their families successful.  Their approaches to juggling work and home are different just as every mother has a different definition of success.

“We are dedicated to helping employees meet their goals for work/life success, which we believe is defined differently for each employee, particularly working mothers,” said Linda Matzigkeit,  senior vice president, human resources at Children’s, who notes that women comprise more then 80 percent of the workforce at Children’s.  “We provide programs and benefits that enable our employees to achieve their unique level of work/life success and allow them to take the best care of our patients.

While Cocks and Ramaswamy have different approaches to how they achieve work/life success, they both rely on Children’s to support them as working mothers.  They are members of the Working Moms Network at Children’s, an online group of more than 400 women who provide input on improvements in working mom friendly benefits, as well as share ideas on how to best achieve success between work and home.  In their new role as “Working Mothers of the Year” at Children’s, Cocks and Ramaswamy plan to share their own experiences with the hope of helping other working mothers.

Amber Cocks

Cocks advises working mothers to find a schedule that works for them.  As a triathlete, she hits the gym every morning at 5 a.m. so she can spend more time with her 16-month-old son, Carter, in the evenings.  Her flexible schedule allows her to work 10-hour days Monday to Thursday and take Fridays off to be with her son. Cocks’ husband, Drew, also has scheduling flexibility in his job as a school teacher.  They rely on the Children’s childcare credit, which provides more than $1,000 annually to subsidize costs. The couple also keeps the Children’s Backup Care program top of mind in case they have last-minute sitter needs.  The program helps employees who need childcare on an irregular basis or at the last minute and provides access to 110 drop-off centers and 21 in-home care agencies in the Atlanta area.


Donna Ramaswamy

For Ramaswamy, the most important thing a working mother can do is decide what her top priorities are and not feel guilty about letting other things go. Ramaswamy puts her own children and her patients at Children’s first.  For her, this means letting other things go, such as certain household chores.  While Ramaswamy says she is most grateful for having two healthy children of her own, she is appreciative of the resources Children’s provides that enable her to best care for not only her patients but her own children.  For example, she participated in Small Wonders, a prenatal screening program where she received a $100 savings bond for each of her children.  When she returned from her 12-week maternity leave, Ramaswamy utilized the lactation rooms and lactation specialist on her unit.  She learned about these benefits at one of the Children’s Great Expectations Showers, quarterly baby showers Children’s hosts for expectant parents to learn about the resources and benefits Children’s offers. She is thankful to Children’s for supporting her in doing the hardest job she says she has ever done—being a parent.

Children’s was selected for the 2007 “Working Mother 100 Best Companies” based on a 575-question application, which included questions about workforce, compensation, childcare and flexibility programs, leave policies and more.  Seven areas were measured and scored: workforce profile, compensation, child care, flexibility, time off and leaves, family-friendly programs, and company culture.

Visit www.workingmother.com  for more information on the 2007 Working Mother 100 Best Companies and for a complete list of winners.