Family-friendly, from the employer perspective, is all about getting more out of employees who happen to have family commitments outside work – more productivity, less absence and higher engagement.
Most businesses will talk about having the best people. If you believe that a great business is the one that attracts, and more importantly, retains talent, then anything you can do to retain your talent is fundamentally good for business. We know that more diverse businesses perform (think profit and share price) better than their peers.
Simplistically, 50% of the brains in the world are women and therefore if you have an equal number of women and men at every level, you will do well. Most organisations are pretty good at the ‘entry level’, recruiting equal numbers, but as we rise up the ladder to the boardroom the difference between the number of men and women becomes despairingly evident. So how do you make sure you retain talent and don’t lose these people?
For working mothers and carers the competing demands of career and family have significant implications for the workplace. Retention, personal performance, job focus and attendance are all effected, ultimately impacting on employee morale, retention and productivity. Employers who respond to the needs of working parents are shaping a workplace fit for an evolving workforce. Get it right and the employees who are helped to combine career and family successfully can be the most engaged, productive and loyal members of the team.
There are a number of cost-effective measures that businesses can implement to create a more family-friendly working environment that will, in turn, have a very positive impact on your business:
- Provide the opportunity for your member of staff to work from home. Technology now gives us the opportunity to work from a remote location, allowing members of staff to complete what they were working on in the office and remain contactable.
- As an employer, it is always important to look into schemes which will assist the working parents in your office. So, if one of your members of staff has a childcare breakdown but you need them in the office for that important pitch, thanks to having an emergency childcare provider in place, they will have a nanny to their door within two hours, meaning your employee will be at the meeting – and hopefully, winning you that business! Most forward thinking directors will be happy to pick up the costs for this if it means the business benefits in the long run.
- Lunch time seminars from an external work-life balance expert can also help build morale and show that you’re serious about introducing more family-friendly working practices. Make an effort to convince senior (preferably male) employees to attend and talk about the issues raised afterwards.
- Take advantage of Childcare Vouchers to help the costs of employees’ childcare. A lot of companies will have a childcare voucher scheme in place but it’s important to select which one is best for both employer and employee. Ask yourself the question, “what is more important, price or quality?” Then you need to decide whether you want more from your voucher scheme in the context of the whole family-friendly agenda.
- If you have staff on maternity leave, make sure that there is a proper process in place where they can keep up-to-date with what’s going on. Many companies have ‘keeping in touch days’ which have worked very well and makes the return to work almost painless.
- Attend events - such as The Work & Family Show (www.theworkandfamilyshow.co.uk) taking place on the 21st and 22nd February at the ExCeL London where you can speak with experts and discover more about family-friendly solutions that suit you.
Author: Ben Black is the Director of My Family Care (
www.myfamilycare.co.uk) who are passionate about helping employers with their work + family strategies. Together with Clarion Events, they are holding the first ever Work & Family Show (
www.theworkandfamilyshow.co.uk).
