Anja Honnefelder. Chief People Officer & General Counsel at trivago.
getty
Working parents have worn many hats during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many took on additional household roles like full-time chef, nanny and teacher, all while continuing to balance the increasing demands of a full-time job.
Even before the pandemic, parents around the world have been working longer workweeks as jobs become more demanding. According to data from the OECD family database from 1995-2017, many developed countries saw noticeable increases in women working 40 hours a week or more, and several saw increases in men working 40 hours or more a week as well.
Add a global pandemic to the equation and conditions become even more dire for parents. Boston Consulting Group surveyed parents in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Italy last year and found that 47% of parents felt their performance at work suffered due to spending an additional 27 hours each week on household responsibilities, nearly double that of pre-pandemic levels.
As lockdowns lift, the return to the workplace presents an opportunity for companies to conduct an honest evaluation of their current policies to support working parents. According to recent data from a joint study by Great Places to Work and Maven, businesses that invested in employees and their families saw increased innovation, better retention and productivity.
Here are four ways your company can consider better supporting parents going forward.
1. Provide more flexibility but be mindful of potential pitfalls.
If the pandemic has shown us one thing it is how much we can all adapt. Many companies were afraid to lose productivity and engagement with their entire workforce working from home, but then observed the contrary.
At trivago, we believe that a fixed set of hours doesn't create a high-performing organization. To support parents, we introduced a program that allows primary caregivers to work from home for the first three years after a child is born if they choose and offers flexibility around when parents are expected to work. Allowing new parents to start later and leave earlier, take breaks in between to take care of their children’s needs and freely choose whether to work from home or in the office are subtle but important changes that will allow parents to better juggle family and work life.
Allowing for this flexibility sends a big message to your employees that you trust them and that they will not have to choose between having a child and keeping their job. While this flexibility creates a great opportunity, be mindful of pitfalls. Women are still more likely to take care of the children and thus more likely to continue to work from home, while men are more likely to return to the office. It is important to raise awareness among team leads and introduce processes that ensure employees working from home get the same visibility as their coworkers in the office.
2. Examine your employees’ journey with parents in mind to identify gaps.
Consider the full employee lifecycle from talent acquisition to the average workday of your employees and look into your current processes and policies, including relocation support programs, maternity/paternity leave, easing back into the workplace post-parental leave and remote work. How do these processes and policies impact parents? Do they support an inclusive workplace?
While you iron out long-term changes, see if you can implement quick fixes to identified gaps. For example, consider moving important meeting formats such as company-wide all-hands meetings from the late afternoon to earlier times. While afternoon hours might work well for most employees, these hours often prove difficult for parents who may have to pick up children from school or daycare. Also, look at your overall benefits offering and consider adding a couple of family-friendly benefits to it. For example, at trivago we gave some of our IT equipment to parents to support homeschooling. We will also be introducing a remote babysitting offering and adding a kids' area at the office for emergency situations or days when childcare is not available. Providing or even outsourcing these kinds of solutions helps parents feel less alone.
3. Create a community for parents and use it as a sounding board.
Being a working parent may feel isolating but there is strength in numbers. To fully embed a community for working parents into company culture, encourage employee resource groups for parents to connect. This can be easily done by creating a Slack channel for parents in the company to exchange experiences. These spaces can also serve as a great platform between your HR department and the parent community to foster an open dialogue and gather immediate feedback on the changes you are striving to make toward a more inclusive workplace.
To create the feeling of belonging from the start, consider connecting your new employees with a welcome partner to support them while settling into the new company and sometimes even country. These small actions make a tremendous difference.
4. Continue to have an open dialogue with parents on leave.
When parents go on leave, it’s easy to lose touch when they are no longer at meetings or company events and their name isn’t popping up regularly on emails. That’s why companies need to put in extra effort to maintain connections with new parents. Keeping the connection will also help to keep them motivated to come back to your company.
Especially in countries where parental leave is longer, it is crucial to define a clear process around the return of parents. HR should make sure that parents are considered for open positions and work on creating an environment that is open for part-time roles or job sharing.
All in all, small steps can create positive ripple effects across the company, relieve some of the burdens and show employees and candidates the ways that your company has doubled down on supporting the parents within your workforce.
