In the modern workplace, the metrics that define productivity remain stubbornly skewed toward speed, scale and deliverables. Excel sheets brim with KPIs on efficiency. Dashboards track pipeline velocity. Performance reviews tally goals met and revenue influenced.

But what if the measurables are wrong? Consider this. True productivity—the kind that builds sustainable organisations and cultures—relies on something far more human and less quantifiable:Emotional labour. Relationship management. Community stewardship. In one word: care.

And who models care more holistically, consistently and invisibly than mothers?

This Mother’s Day, it's time we stop applauding working moms with token tributes and start structuring our work ecosystems around the values they model. It's time we enter the Mother Matrix—a radical reimagining of productivity that places care at the center of organisational strategy.

The cost of invisible work

Sociologists and feminist economists have long highlighted the ‘second shift’ many women—and particularly mothers—perform daily. After a full day of formal labour, they come home to unpaid caregiving, logistics, planning, emotional regulation and invisible coordination. This is emotional labour, and it rarely shows up in GDP or performance reviews.

But it’s not confined to home. In the workplace, care manifests in dozens of unnoticed ways:

• The colleague who notices team tension and smooths it over quietly.
• The manager who mentors beyond what’s required—nurturing psychological safety.
• The team member who remembers birthdays, plans offsites or calms nerves before a big pitch.

These acts are rarely rewarded, yet they directly impact retention, morale, psychological safety and team performance. In most companies, though, they exist in the shadows—outsized in impact, invisible in measurement.

Enter the mother matrix: A new model for measuring work

The Mother Matrix is not about maternal identity per se. It’s about maternal intelligence—the capacity to anticipate needs, foster belonging, build resilience and cultivate human connection. In an increasingly AI-augmented world, these are the differentiators that machines cannot replicate.

So why isn’t care part of the performance dashboard?

Here’s what the Mother Matrix proposes:

• Care as a core KPI

Every organisation measures ‘output.’ Few measure how that output is achieved. A culture built on care doesn't just deliver; it sustains. The Mother Matrix suggests tracking contributions to team wellbeing, emotional labour, and community-building. Example: Did an employee resolve conflict? Mentor a peer? Calm a crisis before it escalated? These contributions need to move from anecdotal appreciation to documented performance data.

• AI that detects connection, not just conversion

AI is already being used to track employee activity—emails sent, hours logged, meetings attended. But what if AI were trained to identify relationship-building behaviours?

Natural Language Processing (NLP) could assess tone in Slack messages to detect supportive language. Sentiment analytics could measure psychological safety in 1:1s. Peer feedback loops could help surface caregiving leadership traits: empathy, presence and advocacy.

In this version of productivity, AI becomes a mirror of relational intelligence, not just a referee of transactions.

• Community contribution scores

Much like GitHub tracks code contributions, orgs can track community contributions: onboarding support, DEI participation, team rituals sustained. These actions, often taken up by mothers and caregivers, are part of the emotional infrastructure of a company. A ‘Care Index" can make them visible.

Making the case: Why it matters to the bottom line

Some might argue this is ‘soft stuff.’ But ignoring care is an expensive oversight.

• Retention: Employees don’t leave jobs; they leave cultures. People stay where they feel seen, supported and part of a community. Careful cultures retain top talent better than high-pressure ones.
• Leadership Pipelines: Women and mothers disproportionately carry the load of invisible work, which builds high EQ. Recognising and rewarding it helps advance inclusive leadership, not just performative diversity.
• Crisis Resilience: During the pandemic, it was often mothers in leadership who stabilised teams, adapted with agility and provided emotional scaffolding. This isn't just anecdotal—it’s a business continuity case.
• Customer Success: Externally, customers respond to brands that behave like people. Care, extended internally, ripples outward into customer experience, brand loyalty, and trust.

Challenges and ethical watchouts

Of course, measuring care is complex—and fraught with nuance.

• Consent & Privacy: AI tools assessing emotional tone must be opt-in, privacy-compliant and bias-aware.
• Tokenism: Recognising care must not reinforce gender roles. Anyone can (and should) participate in care—fathers, singles, managers, executives.
• Incentive Design: Care KPIs shouldn’t become performative. The goal is to integrate care into leadership models, not turn it into another gameable metric.

From motherhood to management: What we can learn

Motherhood teaches a unique form of time management, prioritisation, crisis handling and deep listening. It’s high-stakes, high-empathy work. And it’s profoundly undervalued.

Leaders can learn from this model—whether or not they’re parents. They can start to:

• Reward team builders, not just task finishers.
• Design learning programs that value relational intelligence.
• Embed emotional labour into leadership frameworks.
• Train AI to recognise care-oriented contributions, not just through output.

This is not about sentimentality. It’s about elevating the skills that will drive future-proof businesses—the very skills mothers and caregivers model every day.

Beyond flowers and brunches

This Mother’s Day, let’s go beyond HR emails and cupcakes in the breakroom. Let’s build systems that reflect the intelligence of care, the strategy of empathy and the power of community.

The future of work is not just remote or hybrid. It is human-centric. And to get there, we must rethink our very definition of productivity—not as speed, but as sustainability; not as solo success, but as collective thriving.

Welcome to the Mother Matrix. It’s time to log care into the ledger.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the publication.