Being a working parent is, well, hard work. During the height of the pandemic, many parents were forced to juggle working from home while also caring for their children as schools and daycares closed. Frankly, it was a LOT.
There’s been a return to some sense of normalcy as schools reopened, along with some (but not all) child care providers. However, many of the challenges for working parents faced during COVID-19 will continue to be an issue—particularly when it comes to child care.
Here are some of the biggest issues your working parents are struggling with right now, and how you can support them to achieve a better work/life balance.
The challenges working parents are facing
1. Sick kids and closed schools. Just when parents thought they might be catching a break with declining covid rates, boom, along came the tripledemic. Outbreaks of the flu, RSV, and covid spiked nationwide, particularly among children. Disruptions to their child’s schedule due to illness are not only throwing a wrench into care plans, it’s also stressing parents out.
2. Being called back to the office. Many companies are requiring employees to return to the office, at least part time. This is a problem for working families that don’t have reliable care options in place because, until now, they were able to manage care and work duties from home.
3. The cost of child care is up, care options are down. According to Care.com’s Cost of Care 2022 survey, 63% of parents reported their child care expenses increased in 2022. In addition, 43% of parents said it’s now harder to find child care. It’s no wonder that 59% say they’re more concerned than ever about child care costs, and why 21% of parents left the workforce to care for their child.
4. Women were forced to choose between their child and career. A lack of access to care forced 45% of mothers with children five or under to leave the workforce during covid. It hasn’t gotten a lot better. At the start of 2021, approximately 10 million mothers of school-age children weren’t working. This hurts companies as they’re not only losing talent, but it can also have a negative impact on DEI efforts.
5. Their parents need care too. Caring for children is just one piece of the puzzle for some of your employees—they’re also a primary caregiver for an aging relative. Members of the “sandwich generation” are continuing to rise. Caring for multiple people can make it difficult for employees to carve out time for self-care, which can lead to stress and burnout.
How companies can support their working parents
1. Child care benefits. Want to help your employees with parenthood pressures? Provide them with access to a marketplace to find child care, like a Care Membership. Parents can search for background-checked caregivers in their area, and even book housekeeping services. Another child care solution is Backup Care. This employer-sponsored benefit provides working parents with access to vetted caregivers for those times when their normal care falls through.
2. Predictable schedules. Parents in industries such as healthcare, retail, restaurant, and hospitality often struggle with unpredictable schedules, and some employees may not know until the day of if they need to clock in. The further in advance employers can schedule workers, the more likely it is that employees can line up child care and not be forced to miss work.
3. Offering greater flexibility. It’s impossible for parents to predict when their child might catch a cold or need to see a doctor. The ability to work from home, at least part-time, helps many working parents master the balancing act of kid and work duties. So much so that a study found that 68% of working parents said they’d be more likely to accept an offer from an employer that offers flexible scheduling for child care needs.
4. Create a parents’ employee resource group. If your company doesn’t already have a working parent ERG, it’s time to launch one. ERGs are a great resource for employees with a common background, like parenting, to forge connections. You can start small, by creating a Slack channel specifically for working parents, and then build on that by hosting monthly events to focus on a particular topic or challenge.
Supporting working parents builds loyalty, increases retention
Offering support for your working parents will help reduce their stress and better manage the competing demands of being an employee and a parent. Need more reasons? It can also help boost their loyalty to your company. Providing working parents with benefits like child care can help increase retention and recruitment rates, and also lead to higher levels of productivity. It’s a win for them, their kids, and your company.
Download The Modern Workplace Report to learn more about what working caregivers want, and need, in this new era of work.
