Why parents are assets to your company

Working parents bring essential skills to your business—multitasking, time management, prioritization, communication, organization, empathy, staying calm under pressure, negotiation, flexibility, and understanding. In addition, parents are often incredibly adaptable, resilient, and masters at dealing with distractions. Aside from their natural talents, working parents can offer new perspectives, diversify your team, inspire innovation, and help promote a flexible workplace.

Work-life challenges for parents

There are never enough hours in the day for parents. It’s a full-time job just to keep up with taking care of children and endless household responsibilities like cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard work, grocery shopping, running errands—the list goes on. Add a 40-hour work week, and parents are exhausted come Friday. Did you notice the one thing in the above example that working parents don’t have time for? After tending to all their responsibilities, working parents may not have the time or energy to look after their own health and wellbeing. Fortunately, you have the opportunity to instil a healthy work-life balance in your workplace by helping take some of the pressure off working parents.

15 ways to support a better work-life balance for parents

Establishing a better work-life balance within your company may help you keep top talent in your workplace and build a company culture that attracts new talent. Here are 15 ways you can support working parents:

1. Establish a hybrid company culture

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit back in 2020, most parents found themselves without daycare and schools were closed—they had no choice but to work from home. And so, the flexible work schedule began. Parents love the flexibility of working from home, and many may have dreaded returning to the workplace. By establishing a hybrid company culture, you could maintain this flexibility and keep your employees happy, engaged, and devoted.

However, ensure your remote employees don’t feel isolated by including them in all communications. For example, when holding meetings, make sure to include your remote employees, so no one feels left out. Provide them with all the tools and equipment they need to succeed at home. Flexible schedules are also attractive to job seekers.

2. Promote asynchronous work

You could also offer flexibility with asynchronous work—not requiring all your team members to be online simultaneously. This type of work enables employees to maximize their productivity without waiting for their colleagues to complete tasks. While team meetings are essential, there shouldn’t be so many that they consistently interrupt employee focus or fill their schedule. If you have remote employees in different parts of the world, you also need to consider differing time zones—while it may be time for breakfast for you, your employees across the globe may be getting ready for bed.

3. Family benefits

For working parents, benefits packages may be just as important as wages. You could choose family-friendly packages offering healthcare, dental, family leave, and dependent care. Offering a paid-time-off policy could also give parents peace of mind should they need to miss work to care for a sick child or to get much-needed rest.

4. Employee resource groups in the workplace

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are employee-led communities that exist in many workplaces and often centre around shared experiences or interests. In some organizations, these groups provide opportunities for connection, peer support, and knowledge sharing among employees with similar life circumstances, so you could look at setting up an ERG for working parents.

5. Offer professional support

Working, raising a family, and taking care of the household can overwhelm your employees. If you see signs of employee burnout happening in your workplace, you may consider hiring an expert on work-life balance. Some specialists coach working parents by teaching them tips and tricks on handling their daily routines, so they have an easier time keeping up with work demands while taking care of their family—and themselves.

6. Put employees first

You could build a strong, healthy company culture by putting your employees first. Initiatives like flexible schedules, focusing on productivity instead of time, hybrid work, paid-time-off policies, convenient family-centred benefits, and encouraging employees to take breaks form the foundation of a company that supports and cares about its employees.

7. Allow customized schedules

You could empower your employees by allowing customized schedules. The traditional Monday to Friday, 9-5 doesn’t work for many people anymore, especially working parents. Here are some ways you could modify schedules:

• Periodic extended lunch breaks to take care of errands or for a mental health break
• A four-day work week working ten-hour days to allow for a three-day weekend
• Three days of remote work and two days in the office

As long as your employees stay productive and meet their targets, these ways of working may be optimal.

8. Ask for employee availability before scheduling meetings

Consider employee availability before scheduling meetings, check-ins, or catch-up calls, whether in one-on-one or group settings. Working parents rely on their schedules, so any interruptions or adjustments require advance notice. Otherwise, accommodations may not be possible.

9. Label communications clearly

Categorizing your communications, especially after hours, shows courtesy and respect. When employees receive an after-hours text or email with no indication of whether an immediate response is necessary, it causes unnecessary stress. And not just for working parents. You could help employees maintain a healthy work-life balance by including a simple header that says something like:

• Not urgent
• For next week
• Need ASAP

This small yet courteous step goes a long way toward employee satisfaction.

10. Promote transparency and communication

Practising and encouraging open communication, honesty, and transparency in the workplace may lead to more highly committed, loyal employees. Your leaders could regularly check in with their employees regarding priority management and scheduling; this is a way of receiving honest, constructive feedback and opening the lines of communication to resolve issues before they escalate. It’s likely easier for employees to have a healthy work-life balance with honesty and complete transparency if they don’t need to worry about what’s going on “behind the scenes.”

11. Start with empathy

Working parents returning to the office require understanding and empathy to succeed. Between busy schedules and learning to navigate balancing work and personal life, working parents may need quite a lot of support from you. Allow time for them to adjust, be supportive wherever you can, and offer alternatives if they need them; this may help improve their engagement and wellbeing.

12. Emphasize quality over quantity

Your company culture could focus on the quality of work over the quantity of hours worked. Businesses that haven’t adopted a flexible work schedule may find it difficult to retain employees. Why not let your employees work when they work best? You could encourage your leaders to promote inclusive work styles and avoid the typical 9-5 schedule if it’s no longer working in your organization.

13. Cover childcare expenses

If you offer a wellness account for your employees, you may consider expanding it to include childcare for working parents. This benefit may not only be appreciated by current employees but also serve to set you apart from your competitors and attract a wealth of new talent.

14. Language considerations in caregiving discussions

In workplace conversations about caregiving responsibilities, some organizations choose broader terminology to acknowledge that employees may care for children, aging relatives, or other dependents. Using flexible language can help reflect the variety of caregiving situations employees experience. For example, they may use terms such as “working caregivers” instead of “working parents”.

15. Don’t rush “back to normal”

What may be considered back to normal for some people may not look the same for others. When people become parents for the first time, they may find it hard to figure out what their new normal is. As an employer, you likely want to reach a point where things are stable, business is good, and your employees have a happy and healthy work-life balance. When making plans for the future, it may be best not to share them until they are certain. Sharing unconfirmed plans could unnecessarily stress out your employees.