Diaper Rash: An Engineering Culture in Desperate Need of Cleanup

by Kendall Cooney

You did it. You got your engineering degree (minus a few weeks taken off your life from a lack of sleep), nailed that interview, and secured a job. Most companies have fantastic benefit options, including paternity leave, which shows great promise towards a stable life for yourself and your planned future family. Congratulations; you made it! Or… did you? Down the line, you might be surprised by how many of your colleagues don’t take full advantage of company paternity/maternity policy; you yourself (to no fault of your own) might be shocked by your own resistance to taking leave as you progress through your career. It is vital for current leaders in mechanical engineering (and other hardware-focused disciplines) to initiate cultural shifts in the way employers and employees view parenthood to ensure the basic desire to have a family doesn’t disproportionately impact the career aspirations of young engineers.

Obviously, paternity and maternity leave is essential for the development of the next generation. It’d be rather challenging to give birth in the workplace (kudos to anyone who has), and there are a number of positive benefits parents receive when taking a healthy absence from work to care for their new child. A study from 2021 found that “mothers reported less… perceived stress and depressive symptoms when fathers took paid paternity leave. Additionally, fathers who took paid paternity leave appeared to be buffered from increases in stress and daytime fatigue” (Cardenes et al.). The science is fairly clear: when both parents take leave after childbirth, everyone wins. Despite these benefits, few employees actually leverage the full length of paternity leave, and unfortunately, this isn’t without reason. A 2018 study revealed that “domestic male leaders receive more negative evaluations when they take a long leave beyond the standard (from 2 weeks to 3 months)” (Gartzia et al.), and a 2024 study found that “women often feel the need to try and compensate for their absence working harder than before… as if maternity leave and motherhood were something to be ashamed of” (Franzoi et al.). It wasn’t even until 2020 when the U.S. allowed federal employees paternity leave (the U.S. still has not mandated nationwide paid paternity leave despite 41 other nations having done so), but employees are clearly still dissuaded from taking advantage of company policies that do exist.

This dissuasion is exacerbated for mechanical engineers, who can’t as often take advantage of hybrid work to transition back from paternity leave.

After the Covid-19 crisis, hybrid work has exploded in popularity; a number of engineering positions don’t require on-site work. For hardware engineers, however, this isn’t the case. In-person availability is not only essential to an employee’s overall productivity but also to their perceived value by others in the company. For starters, most mechanical engineers have no way of prototyping designs at home. 3D printers, machine shops, and tools (such as the bandsaw shown in Figure 1) are exclusively located on site, and even if prototypes are already made, they can be too large to reasonably transport to one’s home.

Fig 1: Most hardware-related tools are far too large and unsafe to be in a home.

In-person visibility also significantly contributes to one’s perceived value at a company, a phenomenon known as proximity bias; “Practitioner literature has found that proximity bias can negatively impact organizations… with women working hybridly reporting exclusion from decision-making activities and insufficient access to senior leaders” (Williamson et al.). In addition to insufficient access to leadership, mechanical engineers often must chat with technicians to diagnose problems on the physical assembly lines. Factory floor standups, shown in figure 2, are common, and working on a problem as a group can bond people together and

Fig 2: An example factory standup.

instill a sense of mutual respect; a study from Princeton’s Psychology Department in 2024 indicates that “voice calls, group calls, and online messaging generally predict increased feelings of well-being. However, the benefits associated with face-to-face interactions reliably eclipsed all virtual surrogates under investigation” (Liang et al.). Clearly, absence during paternity leave not only inhibits a mechanical engineer’s ability to perform their job but is also a missed opportunity to demonstrate the soft skills that are critical for team projects. How can we possibly balance the in-person needs of a company with the challenges of parenthood?

This is an area where leaders in mechanical engineering can step in. It’s clear that most working parents feel external pressure on the prospect of paternity/maternity leave, and while it’s unfair to give someone undue credit just because they’ve become a parent, the way someone handles their absence can reveal key skills. Can they predict how many resources will be required for certain objectives and cleverly utilize said resources to work in their absence? Do they have enough rapport with their coworkers to ask for some extra help during their departure? An employee may devise a very clever plan of attack outlining how they intend to foster momentum on their project before they leave if given the space to do so. Instead of labeling paternity leave as an absence to be dealt with, what if we spoke about it like an opportunity? Sit down with these soon-to-be parents: congratulate them, and let them tell you their ideas on managing their leave. Ask what they’re excited about, what they’re nervous about, and if the crib was easy to build

(hopefully so — we’re mechanical engineers, aren’t we?). Even the smallest change of phrasing can demonstrate a genuine care for an employee’s well-being. For a good amount of folks, having a family is an essential part of the human experience: who are we to deny that? And if you’re still not convinced, remember that one day, we’ll be gone, and we’ll need a new generation of engineers to pick up from where we left off. Giving parents time to raise happy and healthy kids means happier and healthier engineers, hopefully ones even smarter than we are. That sounds like a pretty good investment to me.

Works Cited

Cardenas, Sofia I., et al. “Associations between Paid Paternity Leave and Parental Mental Health across the Transition to Parenthood: Evidence from a Repeated-Measure Study of First-Time Parents in California.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, vol. 30, no. 12, 25 Oct. 2021, pp. 3080–3094, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02139-3.

Franzoi, Isabella Giulia , et al. “Returning to Work after Maternity Leave: A Systematic Literature Review.” Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 5 Apr. 2024,

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-024-01464-y.

Leire Gartzia, et al. “Male Leaders with Paternity Leaves: Effects of Work Norms on Effectiveness Evaluations.” European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol. 27, no. 6, 27 Nov. 2018, pp. 793–808,

https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432x.2018.1540466. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023. Liang, Nathan, et al. “In-Person and Virtual Social Interactions Improve Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Computers in Human Behavior Reports, vol. 15, 1 Aug. 2024, p. 100455, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451958824000885, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100455.

Williamson, Sue, et al. “Will Return‐To‐Office Mandates Prevent Proximity Bias for Employees Working from Home?” Australian Journal of Public Administration, 17 Apr. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12634. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.