In the past, many families believed it was the mother’s job to stay home, raise the kids and handle the household. Today, most of us view parenting as a shared duty. Trends in the workplace have reflected this change: according to the Department of Labor, there has been a steady increase in the number of families in which both parents are employed. And with both parents working, families today have less time and energy to accomplish important tasks like shuttling the kids from school to soccer practice to friends’ houses.
As a result, companies are finding creative ways to attract and retain working parents. I recently chatted with Lacey Partipilo, Director of HR at Xenium, about how companies can accommodate working parents’ busy schedules and why it’s so important to do so.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach for every workplace, or even every parent at one organization. “Everyone has a totally different set of issues and problems, and one is not more difficult than another,” Partipilo said. “If we want people to perform at a high level, knowing they may have a lot going on behind the scenes, how do we offer a benefit program or a flexible work environment that meets everyone’s needs?” We brainstormed some ways to make workplaces better for parents—and ultimately better for everyone:
Consider offering a “menu” of benefits.
While generous paid parental leave is a great place to start, it won’t impact everyone at your organization. Some employees won’t have children, or their children will be grown and out of the house. So with a blanket paid parental leave policy, some employees will end up receiving more benefits than others.
“Instead, maybe we can offer a menu of options with a similar value.” Some other options could include money toward professional development, Partipilo said. The amount could be tied to years of service at the organization with increases every year.
Something to keep in mind is that it’s more complicated to administer a program like this than, for example, a straightforward 401(k) matching program that is the same for everyone at the company.
“But the easy thing isn’t always the right thing,” Partipilo said. A menu is an investment in your people that pays off for you in the end too, she said, by helping your organization stand out from others. It’s also a way to meet your employees where they are, and they will appreciate that.
“I think that’s what employees are looking for,” Partipilo said. “‘Understand me as a human.’ People say having their manager care about them as a person is important. What better way to do it than with something like this program?”
Consider offering flexible schedules.
A menu of benefits options may not work for every organization, Partipilo said. “But I do think if you can’t offer a menu of choices, or even offer some really unique benefits to roll out to everybody, that flexibility is the most important.”
Whether it’s shifting start and end times to match with school schedules, or allowing midday breaks for doctor visits and other appointments, offering schedule flexibility can be a huge help to working parents. Plus, by giving employees some say over when they work, they can work when they know they’re most productive and when they aren’t distracted by other responsibilities. This way, they’re more likely to focus and go deep in their work. “I’m into this concept of ‘deep work,’ where you set aside time to go all in on one thing and get it done,” Partipilo said. Schedule flexibility means being able to check out of work when needed to do this “deep work” in personal time too.
“I think some organizations would push back and say, ‘We need people here certain hours.’ But flexibility isn’t always schedule, right?” It could also mean allowing employees to work from home a day or two per week, or even just giving employees more autonomy over the projects they’re undertaking so they’re not stressed at work when they’re already stressed at home.
Check in with employees regularly—and deeply.
The real solution is simple: show your employees you care and listen to their concerns. “It’s all about managers taking a genuine interest in their people,” Partipilo said. “That really goes a long way. So training supervisors to care. It’s not always intuitive to prioritize being nice.”
A quick “How are you doing?” in passing won’t do the trick here. Checking in with employees in a deeper way—asking them how they are in private and showing that you actually want to know what’s going on with them—helps them feel appreciated and encourages them to reach out when they need help.
Accomplishing this goes back to the hiring level and placing people with strong social and emotional intelligence skills in supervisory roles. “When managers have those skills, they retain people much better,” Partipilo said.
Accommodating working parents isn’t much of an option anymore. “To stay relevant as an employer—to attract the talent you need to succeed as a business—you have to change and flex based on the demographics of the workforce around you,” Partipilo said. With more parents in the workforce, that means making room for those parents to thrive.