Why should companies support working parents?
An employer who provides support to working parents allows them to balance their work and family life providing them with the opportunity to manage their childcare responsibilities and career demands effectively. For the employer, there are significant advantages to their business of being accommodating to employees with children and they’ll see improved engagement, retention, and increase diversity and productivity in the workplace.
For the employee, and plenty of working mothers and fathers, this will make a significant difference to their lives. The struggle for parents is real, especially single parent families and those caring for people with disabilities, making the need for flexible working arrangements and support more apparent. With support for parents and carers, employers can attract and retain top talent and create a positive work environment that will benefit all in the long-term.
In the UK, there are around 19.5 million families, according to the Office of National Statistics of which 3.2 million (around 16%) are lone parent families and 84% are headed by single mothers, many of whom rely on informal childcare arrangements to help them manage.
So what can employers do to provide support for working parents, including these lone parents, and enable them to have a good work-life balance while still enjoying progression in the workplace?
There are a number of changes in workplace organisation and culture that need to be made to ensure that a company is doing its best for those employees who are constantly juggling work and home life.
Creating a Supportive Work Environment
1. Consult your staff
Consult with all staff and try and find out what will work best for them. It’s important to listen to both parents and non-parents so as not to cause any conflict and avoid disadvantaging those on your staff who are not parents.
For example, a policy that gives priority to working parents when booking time off during school holidays can cause issues with non-parents who may feel they are consistently being blocked from booking time off when they actually want to take it. Also don’t overlook adoptive parents or parents of children with special needs or disabilities.
2. Flexible working hours
Depending on the nature of your business, there may be opportunities to vary working hours and work patterns for staff to better suit their needs. Introducing options such as staggered starts (where employees start and finish at different times), compressed work hours (allowing longer working hours but fewer overall workdays), or flexitime (allowing employees to vary the time that they start or finish work, but with an agreed total number of hours to be completed) can all assist parents with management of their childcare needs without having a negative impact on income or their careers.
Having family friendly policies that allows parents raising children (and potentially all staff) a working pattern that suits them will be beneficial to a business. While these types of working hours arrangements rely on a degree of trust, the end result is usually one of better commitment and productivity from employees.
3. Hybrid/remote working arrangements
Where the nature of business allows it, you should look towards other flexible work options including hybrid working and remote working to help working parents to balance their work responsibilities and family life. Allowing staff to split time between working from home and physically at a place of work can help free up more time by reducing the amount of commuting time in a typical working week.
Being at home for a significant portion of their working week (and potentially allied with flexible work hours) can assist with childcare issues and ensure that staff are perhaps less stressed, and therefore allow them to be more productive and focused when they are actually working.
4. Create a parent-friendly environment
For some employers their work environment may not be the most parent-friendly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t do something about it. If there is sufficient need, could you offer daycare facilities during working hours? Is there the opportunity for parents to bring their children to work if they absolutely need to?
For those with young babies, do you offer dedicated child changing facilities? And what about a private space for breastfeeding or even those that need to express milk? Having a proper consideration for these types of needs for employees and their children will lessen the difficulties that can arise when childcare issues like this are relevant.
5. Other Childcare Support
Childcare costs can be crippling for some working families, so any contribution that employers are able to make will support parents and enable them to better manage their financial commitment alongside their family and work commitments.
Childcare support could take the form of on-site childcare facilities, or it could involve partnerships with local nurseries or childcare vouchers to contribute toward the cost of external assistance. Supporting working parents in this way can make a significant difference to them financially but also boost staff morale and retention. Equally, offering paid parental leave to cover events when parents need time off work to look after their children will be a positive.
6. Enhanced maternity leave
How generous is your maternity leave for employees? Do your employees just receive the statutory amounts or do you have a company maternity scheme that offers extra leave or pay?
In many cases, working mothers are taking much less than the 52 weeks of maternity leave that they are entitled to. Sometimes it’s financial pressures that force them back to work earlier, so employers should take a look at their maternity leave policies to ensure they are not just benefiting those who can afford to take the time off. Also consider whether you are willing to offer any sort of paternity pay or parental leave for fathers when their partner is having. baby or even adopting a child.
7. Focus on results not hours
A key change of the culture of businesses trying to support working parents can be to focus on what employees actually achieve rather than the actual hours they put in. Working parents may in fact be more focused during the hours they are working because they know that their day may be time limited because of childcare issues.
This approach requires a good degree of trust, but when employees are getting results, it shouldn’t necessarily matter how many hours they are doing as long as the hours they are actually putting in are highly productive. If you offer a results-led bonus scheme, this can be highly beneficial to those who may not be able to operate under a typical 9 to 5 working arrangement, yet they can still receive the rewards.
8. Carefully schedule important meetings
For working parents who have daily childcare commitments that are set in stone, employers should attempt to schedule key meetings well in advance and try to avoid certain times of the day. For a committed employee and parent, sitting in a meeting and watching the clock because they know they need to soon be somewhere else is going to be a distraction.
Employers should try to keep meetings with core hours – such as between 10am to 2pm – to ensure they won’t overrun or cause issues for those doing the school run or needing to look after the kids after school or nursery. On the rare occasion where this may not be possible, and the parent is vital to the meeting, providing sufficient notice will give the employer opportunity to make alternative arrangements.
9. Change the company culture
Overall, providing better support can make a big difference to working parent’s lives but relies on workplaces to create flexible cultures and adopt supportive policies that meet the needs of working parents. By showing trust and compassion, and ensuring this approach is shared with line managers can make all the difference.
A flexible working environment, without a necessity to always be physically present, can lead to better results and ensure that employees feel valued. Your business could consider setting up an employee resource group (ERG) to provide a supportive community for working parents, and allow them to connect with other parents, share experiences, receive mentoring and general support to help them balance work and family life.
Employer support for working parents conclusions
Employers can offer a range of family-friendly benefits to their employees to help support them with childcare responsibilities. Supporting working parents not only helps them manage the practicalities of their personal life and family responsibilities, but it also contributes to helping staff feel more engaged, valued and productive at work.
Companies can demonstrate to their working parent employees that they genuinely support them in their roles and care about their wellbeing. This will help working parents better manage stress and improve their mental health and general wellbeing.
While you may have some flexible working practices, these arrangements may need to evolve further, especially as priorities change for working families, not just in relation to how they manage childcare but also in relation to other matters such as caring for elderly family members.
Perhaps you could go one step further and offer ‘duvet days’ for staff where they can take time without advance notice simply because they don’t feel like working or they have to deal with unexpected issues. How far you take it as an employer is up to you, but if you want to encourage career growth for all your employees and improve staff retention, evolution of your organisation and its employee support is key.
The post 9 Ways For Employers To Support Working Parents appeared first on Real Business.