Employment info for homemaker/SAHP

Rachael Walker 3

Hi all,


Can you share how - or even whether - you track "employment" for homemakers, stay at home parents, or folks currently between jobs? I'm looking at someone who went on maternity leave (she even has it on her LinkedIn) and while I'm comfortable end-dating the last employment she had, I don't love leaving employment completely blank because that's just as likely to mean that we don't know someone's current employment as that they are not currently employed.


I'm noting it elsewhere on a record (in Notes), but wondering if it should be in employment information as well.


Thanks in advance!


Rachael

Dariel Dixon 2

It really depends on how you plan on using that information.  I don't think there is anything wrong with leaving employment information blank.  While I agree that a blank employment could mean "we don't know" or "unemployed", for most practical purposes, both of those results mean the same thing.  Unless you would try to find information about homemakers or SAHPs for a special appeal or reporting purposes, I don't know what is gained with adding this information, however it doesn't hurt anything to add it.  However, I would consider it if you are using it as a measure of influence.


I don't think I would end date a person's employment if they were on maternity leave.  Unless you have reason to believe they are not going back.

Karen Stuhlfeier

People who stay home with their children are often the most valuable volunteers and could also be the person deciding how the household's discretionary income is being distributed in regards to charitable contributions. It's also interesting information for your major gift officers to have when they are contacting them. I wouldn't discount that information.

Lauren Burgess

Hi! We use a Constituent Attribute called "Overall Employment Status." It's actually a legacy code from our previous system, but it does come in handy for folks who don't fit into the standard employment bucket. Drop down options in the Description field include:  Student (for people continuing their education at other institutions), Homemaker, Self-employed, Employment unavailable (when you can't find this info), Unemployed, Retired and On Leave.


 

Angela May

Hi Rachael, and great answers so far, everyone! I like Lauren's idea of the constituent attribute. 


I realize my work-around isn't always ideal for every org, but, at a previous org, we always captured whatever we knew about the individual on their business record, as the non-constituent primary business relationship (non-primary business records were for recording previous employment history over time). So, a blank primary business record was an indication that we did not know anything about their employment status. For the individuals you're asking about, we created a non-constituent primary business relationship, and named it No Org Name (Note: having data consistency with the org name was important, so we could query to suppress these folks from exports when needed, using the criterion "primary business name does not equal No Org Name"). The only other fields that were populated were Position, Date From, and the Primary Business checkbox. We used the Position field to capture the employment information/status, such as Retired, Semi-retired, Self-employed consultant, Stay at home parent, Freelance writer, Full-time volunteer, or whatever best described them. I liked the freedom of the free-text field, but that can get kind of carried away, and data consistency can get thrown by the wayside. 

Christine Cooke 2

It depends on your org and how much you use the Employer info to some degree.


I agree with you that a blank Employer would read as more of an indicator that we do not know.  Therefore I enter Stay at Home Parents as just that as their Employer.  I consistently enter them all the same way -- even if they said Homemaker, or Stay at Home Mom or Stay at Home Dad, -- so that if you query or export and Sort on the Employer field they will all come up together in the same place.  And this also lets us know we know that they are not working.  And if at some point they get a job or business, we can give it an end date and add the new info.