Elizabeth Biederman used to worry about becoming a mom. How would she balance her job and a baby? Could she do both?
Now, with a 2-year-old at home and a sales manager role at a Best Buy in Dover, Delaware, she no longer worries about it.
“Best Buy has been a great place to work as a mom,” she said.
Elizabeth has left work early to take her son, Zachary, to see the Easter Bunny and been late because of potty training. But she has also stayed late to help customers and comes in early when her team needs her.
That flexibility is one reason the part-time job she started working at Best Buy eight years ago turned into a career at the same store.
“That culture has grown and gotten better the past few years as we’ve increased our focus on hiring more women and being diverse and inclusive,” she said. “It helps that I am a female leader because I can give that perspective, too. I have several moms on my team, and we definitely try to give the flexibility they need.”
And she loves telling anyone she can about it. She recently posted a selfie on LinkedIn sporting her Best Buy T-shirt that reads, “Best Mom.”
The shirts were designed by Best Buy’s Families Focused Inclusion Network (FIN) a few years ago as a way for employees to celebrate their identity as parents and grow awareness of the Families FIN. Along with our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), the FINs are a way to provide belonging, community and allyship at Best Buy.
A mom to many
To Elizabeth, the shirt encapsulates not only being a mom to her own son but being a “store mom” for her employees, too.
“The running joke is that I’m the mom of my store, and I know that’s the same for a lot of people who are moms at Best Buy,” she said. “It’s absolutely one of my favorite things — that my people come to me, and I take care of them the way I would my son.”
In addition to coaching her employees on sales skills, she has taught them how to cook dinner and balance a budget. She’s helped them with their homework and texted them to see how exams went.
And she’s developed a new skillset in motherhood.
“Being a mom has made me a better leader here. It’s made me more patient, empathetic and given me a different viewpoint on things,” she said. “It’s given me more emotional intelligence and, I can help my team develop that.”
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