In January, we released our 2025 Rosie Report about the state of the marketing industry and talent trends that every marketing leader needs to know. The biggest headline from our data? Freelancers are officially required for marketing success.
And P.S.: They’re also required for parental support in the workplace. Read on to learn how companies can leverage freelance models to reach a gold standard of care for working parents and caregivers.
Michelle Doucette is a writer who loves her work. As a marketing specialist, she’s spent the last decade tackling lots of fun projects for an international hospitality company. She’s developed print and digital ads for the brand’s credit cards, penned luxury newsletters, and promoted special events. She has that rare job—one that pays her to scratch her creative itch.
But last year, her busy life started getting more complicated. Her older son was about to start kindergarten, while her younger son was still in preschool. “Schedules were getting a little trickier with the kids in two places, and two car pickups,” she says. “And then, my husband took on a more demanding job at his company. So it became a constant juggle. Who’s going to be there for the kids? Can I be there in the evening if you can’t? How is this going to work?”
At the same time, her pandemic-related remote work options were beginning to dry up.
“The return-to-office policies made it a lot harder,” she says. “Initially, it was two days in the office, and then it was going to three days. And there was always talk that it could be more.”
Michelle realized she couldn’t continue full-time, so she began to consider other companies—ones that hired marketing talent on a freelance basis.
It’s an all-too-common scenario: 38% of mothers of young children say that without some workplace flexibility, they’d have to leave their company or cut back on their hours. That might be why, in the 2025 Rosie Report, parents and caregivers reported being more dedicated to freelancing, with 73% stating they were likely to still be freelancing in three years, compared to 60% of marketers without caregiving responsibilities.
While Michelle was considering her transition into freelance work, an opportunity opened up at her company. “On my second to last day of work, one of our copywriters announced she was leaving,” Michelle says. The role was freelance-friendly, and “the timing was just Kismet.”
The happy upshot? Michelle still gets to work for the company she loves, but these days she scales her work around her schedule. Though she often puts in a 40-hour work week, she doesn’t have to. “I’ve been able to volunteer at my son’s school as a mystery reader, in the science lab, and for holiday parties,” she says.
P.S.: Offering caregiver support benefits companies, too.
Make no mistake: The hospitality company was making its own shrewd move by offering Michelle a freelance role through We Are Rosie. Its leaders held on to a high-performing employee with a decade of experience at the company. According to a study published by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, in the long run, working mothers tend to be more productive than their counterparts without kids.
There’s a reason for that, says Latham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow, a global maternal health and education platform. She says that in this volatile moment, when long-term job security is a thing of the past, working mothers are equipped for success.
“The thing about women, and mothers specifically, is that they’re very good at juggling,” she says. “They know how to project manage, because their entire life is project management.”
But as things stand right now, the corporate work landscape has few structures in place to nurture working parents, especially mothers. In many ways, women are penalized for starting families—and sometimes incentivized not to.
She points to the number of days off that women are given after having a baby. “People need a period of time to be able to move through maternity and settle into this new phase of their lives,” she says. “But one in four women go to work 10 to 14 days after having a newborn.”
Latham would like to see companies offer longer parental leave options as part of a system that’s designed around the idea of village-keeping. “When our children are born, there’s an expectation that community shows up, right? That’s actually how we’ve evolved.” A company with this cultural mindset would give parents the freedom to step away while others pitch in—and then to return to work without fear of repercussions.
Who can provide the workplace support that parents need? Freelancers.
One way companies can help is to harness the power of freelancers. And since there’s already a thriving freelance workforce in place, the path to change is relatively easy.
“Sometimes that looks like matching a freelancer to project-based work so they have the flexibility that caregiving requires,” says Marie Lamonica, managing director for creative strategy at We Are Rosie. “It might also look like providing highly skilled freelancers to cover parental leave, so new parents don’t have to worry about work and can focus on their family during those critical early months.”
“I love thinking about it from an intergenerational lens,” Latham says. “You might hire an older, more seasoned person who no longer wants to work full time—but is still interested in working in some capacity.” In this scenario, the employee on leave benefits from knowing that the work is in capable hands and will be in good shape when they return.
An employer’s willingness to provide parental leave coverage also signals that the worker herself is valued—which makes her more likely to stick around. Statistics bear this out: Companies that offer 12 weeks of paid leave experience a 70% reduction in employee turnover. And there have been similar findings in studies of new fathers, with one firm’s research showing that paternity leave positively impacted productivity (89%), performance (91%), turnover (96%) and employee morale (99%).
Who benefits when freelancers support new parents? Everyone.
Clearly, bringing in freelancers positively impacts both employees and companies. And the third winner here? The freelancers who contribute their expertise.
Christin Jackson is a Rosie who’s in the midst of a three-month marketing stint at a global, US-based airline—a role she took over for a project manager on maternity leave. “I’m just keeping the wheels moving,” Christin says. “I’m here to make sure that everything is going well so that she can come back to a train that’s still running nicely!”
The employee on leave had the added bonus of knowing her temporary replacement because she and Christin are former colleagues. “I think it gives her some peace of mind at home,” Christin says. “She knows me, so she knows her projects are not going to fall under the radar.”
In this interim role, in the Community Engagement department, Christin works with nonprofits that partner with the airline. She organizes functions and collaborates with employees who lend their time to Junior Achievement programs, children’s hospitals, and other organizations. With each project Christin tackles, she’s adding a new experience to her portfolio.
Noting the fierce competition for positions in her field, she says that contracts like this one can open doors to fresh opportunities. “You’re able to grow in a lot of areas and work with a lot of companies that you wouldn’t normally have access to because it is a very challenging job market,” she says.
Tori Allen is also a Rosie filling in for a marketer on parental leave with the same airline where Christin is freelancing. Like her other temporary stints, this role is expanding Tori’s knowledge base. And it’s all part of a master plan: She’s been using contract work as a career strategy for over a decade now.
“My goal is to become a chief communications officer for a large company,” she says. The broader the span of her experience, the better positioned she’ll be to move into a seasoned leadership position down the road. Now at the midpoint of her career, Tori’s already had a hand in many pies, tackling roles in both internal and external communications at several companies.
“I’ve done international media relations. I’ve done union and labor projects,” she says. “It really diversifies my portfolio.”
In her current, six-month stint, Tori is the interim manager for the airline’s Reservations and Care team. “We’re responsible for putting together the information that specialists need when customers call,” she says. That means providing employees with details about weather disruptions and special promotions, and equipping them with necessary technology to do their jobs well.
Tori’s enjoying the job, but she’s totally comfortable with handing the reins back at the six-month finish line. “It’s very clear that she’s coming back,” she says. “It’s not like she could potentially be replaced.” She adds that this is important, because women shouldn’t feel they’re putting their jobs in peril if they choose to have a baby.
It’s also why companies need highly competent freelancers—marketers who can move in and out of an interim role as seamlessly as possible. “With a parental leave situation, it really is jumping in with both feet,” Tori says. “Actually, I’d call it a belly flop! There’s not much time to onboard you. So they’re very specific when they interview you to ensure that you can truly just jump in and not be hesitant, because they can’t afford to have lulls in the work.”
This airline finds its top-shelf freelancers (like Tori) through We Are Rosie, which takes care of the talent matching and helps with onboarding and back-to-work transitions.
Because of Tori’s prior experience, her team members are able to handle a crisis (like storms grounding planes) while she keeps the day-to-day communications running. “They can put some trust in knowing that I’m going to be able to execute at a really high-quality level and not have a lot of questions,” Tori explains.
While neither Christin nor Tori has children, they like contributing to a system that nurtures kids—and that makes child-rearing a viable option for everyone. “I believe it takes a village,” Christin says.
In her current workplace, she’s not just getting an employee’s job done while she’s away. “I’m helping a family in a whole other capacity,” she says. “I’m giving this mother peace of mind as she’s taking care of her brand-new baby. I can do the role very well so she can be at home and focus on what’s important right now.”
When will this much-needed cultural shift happen? It’s already begun.
For a while now, the current system simply hasn’t been sustainable for working parents. “People are starting to develop a sense of agency—to design their lives and their work in ways that serve them,” Latham says.
In a 2024 study by Parentaly, 94% of mothers said they consider a company’s parental leave policy when evaluating a job offer. For those who do receive paid parental leave, the study found their number one concern was “continued career progression.”
Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently suggested in a New York Times essay that we can support parents by expanding access to affordable childcare and enacting a federal law that ensures all parents can get paid parental leave. (Less than 30% of employees enjoy this benefit right now.) He’d also like to see a shift in how companies view working parents. “Workplace leadership that understands the complex demands on parents can help immensely,” he wrote.
Michelle’s story proves that seasoned workers don’t have to be sidelined when they start a family. Her company figured out a way to utilize her professional gifts while also supporting her as a mom. The most successful companies will be the ones that follow suit.
For more details on the state of the marketing workforce and how companies are leveraging freelancers, download the 2025 Rosie Report.
