With the rising collective awareness of employee well-being comes the attention towards individuals who are especially prone to mental health struggles, such as working parents.
In its survey on “South-East Asian Mothers at Work,” Milieu Insight collected input from 3,000 working mothers across South-East Asia. It is reported that “six out of 10 working mothers in the region struggle to find time for both work and family commitments.”
Clearly, juggling parental responsibilities with job demands can be tricky. However, employers have the opportunity to change this. By learning how an HR team can support working parents, you can enjoy better work satisfaction, employee well-being, and retention.
Core Challenges of Working Parents
To effectively support working parents, you have to target their pain points and challenges such as:
Schedule conflicts
Handling parental responsibilities with a nine-to-five job is challenging. Working parents often run into overlaps between their work schedules and children’s schedules, especially during back-to-school season.
On an average day, they need to: take their kids to and from school, which might create a conflict with their working hours; feed the children dinner and put them to bed at a reasonable hour, which makes overtime difficult; and let’s not forget after-school activities, parent meetings, and doctor’s appointments.
According to Alyssa Johnson, the vice president of global account management for Waltham, Mass-based Care@Work, “Back-to-school season brings an array of challenges. New caregivers, new students and new after-school programs all require a period of adjustment that working parents are balancing with their responsibilities in the office.”
Stress and anxiety
Stress is almost a trademark for working parents. Pickups, drop-offs, childcare, and school work combined with work requirements and high workloads will do that to a person. Changes and uncertainties concerning school and childcare schedules cause additional stress.
Stress and its repercussions are even more prevalent in working women, as they care for children and handle other domestic chores, as highlighted in the Asia-Pacific Care Economy Forum.
Isolation and lack of support
Parenting can make working parents feel isolated. When push comes to shove, family members might not be available to help. Furthermore, companies might not have proper procedures, regulations or support that assist working parents.
Due to these factors, parents scramble to balance their jobs and caring for their kids. As a result, they don’t have the time to nurture friendships and have deep, fulfilling interactions with adults. So, employees feel as if they’re alone, especially in times of distress.
Financial burden
Finances can also pose a challenge for working parents. They need quality childcare, but childcare costs might be beyond their means. One of the top concerns for parents is the affordability of child care and education.
Another is personal finances, such as debt and money. The financial stress of parenting can cause working parents to leave their jobs for better-paying ones.
Missing out on work opportunities
As working parents are scrambling to balance work and life commitments, they may not be as motivated or productive at work. This may lead to them missing out on work opportunities such as performance bonus, employee promotion and more.
On the flip side, some working parents may choose to give up or miss out on work opportunities in order to better provide for their child and family needs. This is further highlighted by the Milieu Insight survey above whereby “one in five working mothers across Southeast Asia feels that being a mother has had an adverse impact on their career, with the highest percentage being in Singapore at 40%.”
Benefits of Supporting Working Parents
As an HR manager, your efforts to support working parents can benefit both employees and the organization. Here’s how:
Improve employee retention and loyalty
If you’re dedicated to supporting your employees and mindful of the challenges they face as working parents, it makes them more appreciative and loyal to your company. They’ll find performing their jobs and caring for their kids manageable. Similarly, future working parents feel more confident and secure with the support the organization provides, boosting retention rates.
Read next: What is Attrition Rate? Tools and Tips to Calculate, Analyze and Improve Your Team’s Retention
Enhance employer brand and talent acquisition
By implementing initiatives to support working parents, you as an employer signal to employees that you prioritize their well-being and work-life balance. This HR effort improves your employer brand, making your business more inclusive and fosters a positive company culture.
Accordingly, you’ll have a wider talent pool to choose from as top talents typically hold companies to higher standards, and parenting support makes your benefits package more appealing.
Improved productivity and performance
HR practices designed for working parents promote employee well-being, self-care, and staying connected with the outside world, which is directly correlated with higher performance and productivity levels. You’ll find this particularly evident during back-to-school season and with new parents.
Your efforts to support parents help you avoid employee burnout, which is common in high-performance environments. After all, you encourage your employees to use their paid leaves and practice self-care in general. Preventing burnout protects your employees’ performance levels and helps parents avoid lashing out at their kids.
Learn more: Tips for Increasing Workplace Efficiency and How HRIS Can Help
Compliance with regulations
As an HR specialist or business owner, implementing working parent-friendly practices helps you stay compliant with federal and local labor laws. Think parental leave regulations, selected family-friendly policies, bonus issuance, and promotions. Complying with such laws protects you against costly penalties and legal action.
5 Ways HR Can Champion Working Parents
Now that you’ve gotten a better understanding on the benefits supporting working parents bring, here are 5 actionable steps you as an employer and HR leader can take:
1. Establish flexible working arrangements
Workplace flexibility gives employees more control over how, when, and where they work. These arrangements include remote or hybrid work models, customizable working hours, part-time arrangements, and compressed work weeks. If your team can work remotely, they should be able to. If not, offer flexible leave or time-off options.
Flexible working arrangements can accommodate the commitments of working parents and other changes throughout employees’ lives. As a result, parents can manage drop-offs, pickups, and sports games, and fit work within their schedule.
Not to mention, flexible work saves money on childcare, transportation, and food. It gives parents more quality time with their kids and enhances the overall quality of their lives, which means more job satisfaction.
Additional reading: How to Implement an Asynchronous Work Environment
2. Provide financial and resource support
Since finances are one of the top concerns for parents, you should provide resources and financial support. This could look like a benefits or rewards package that caters to parents. Also, focus these resources on transition points in your employees’ lives, such as returning from maternity leave, having a second or third kid, or changes in the work schedule or role.
Here are some examples of financial and resources support:
- On-site daycare
- Prepared meals
- Lactation consulting
- Breastfeeding support
- Child care assistance
- Maternity concierge services
- Paid parental leave without career setbacks (for at least 12 weeks)
- Back-to-school stipends
- Childcare stipends
- Cash payments for parents of newborns
- Incentives and gifts
- Contributions to college savings plans
- Education assistance programs to help cover educational expenses, potential tuition reductions, and scholarship grants for children
Read next: Understanding Employee Financial Wellness Programs & Their Benefits
3. Cultivate a supportive work culture
Your workplace culture should be supportive, promoting work-life balance and empowering new parents. You should normalize caregiving in the workplace and put an end to the glorification of workaholic patterns.
You can do that by celebrating and recognizing the contributions of working parents, listening and empathizing with their issues and needs. Additionally, you can promote breaks and focus on productivity, not how many hours they’ve worked. Finally, create a community page on your internal communication channels where working parents connect and support one another.
4. Prioritize leadership and training
Train your HR team and managers on all levels in the challenges of new parenthood, the protocol for their return from leave, the sensitivity of discussing caregiving, two-way communication channels for working parents, and available resources.
Also, train leaders to manage parenthood with their jobs adequately. This way, they can “lead by example” and instill the belief that it’s possible for new parents. For instance, they might have photos of their kids on their desks and leave early occasionally to attend their kids’ games while having a positive, eager attitude about work.
5. Invest in employee wellness programs
Finally, you can implement wellness programs to boost employee health, both mental and physical. These have a direct effect on employee productivity levels because they help them manage stress and prevent burnout. For accessibility, these programs should be easily available and accessible.
To support working parents, wellness programs can include parent coaching sessions, well-being strategies, and mental health support. Your parent coaching should focus on career coaching (to walk employees through parental leave) and peer coaching (to help working parents with performance, skills, and employee engagement).
Empowering Working Parents for Success with Omni
An environment where working parents have the support they need for success is crucial for maintaining productivity and driving results.
Employee management software helps you streamline administrative HR functions so you can focus on building the perfect support system for your employees who are working parents.
Omni offers a solution that combines people and performance management and workflow automation to manage the end-to-end employee lifecycle. Wherever you are in your journey, Omni has a module that suits your needs.
Let Omni help you champion working parents while increasing productivity and driving impactful business outcomes. Book your demo with our team to learn more.
