Kelly
Herring July 31, 2019
It’s true when people say that having children
completely changes your world — including your work life, and all of the
components that go along with it.
I’ve been fortunate to work remotely at Help
Scout for four years on our Customers Team, with some of the smartest and
kindest people I’ve ever met. From the moment I told my team I was pregnant
with my first child, I had their complete and total support (and the company as
a whole) to do what I needed to in order to feel like I could still do my best
work. Without their backing and encouragement, it would have been difficult to
create the positive work-life balance that I enjoy today.
Not everyone is fortunate to have such a
supportive atmosphere in their workplace, though. Emily Oster, an economist at
Brown University, found that after
parents returned from parental leave, they’d default to being “secretive” about
their children and home life. They did this not because they wanted
to, but they feared that discussing their family life in the workplace could
jeopardize their job or how seriously they were taken.
“Why pretend kids are of ‘little importance’?
When work and parenting seem at odds — because our culture tells us they’re at
odds — mothers and fathers feel forced to demonstrate their commitment to one
(the work side) by minimizing their concern for the other (the parenting
side).”
—Emily Oster, Brown University
—Emily Oster, Brown University
But work and family don’t have to be at odds
with one another — they can coexist harmoniously, and it
starts with the workplace making a conscious choice to care for parents.
4 ways to support parents in the workplace
When companies choose to care for parents
within their work lives, it creates a culture wherein working parents
feel their
entire self is valued — not just the part they bring to work with
them, but the self that extends to their partners, children, and family members
at home. Encouraging team members to bring their whole selves to work leads to
greater employee satisfaction, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what
higher employee satisfaction does for the bottom line.
Here are some ways to create healthy and
nurturing environments for the working parents on your team.
1. Offer paid parental leave
Depending on where you live and work in the
world, this may or may not apply — but U.S. companies should recognize that
paid parental leave is integral to creating a safe space in the workplace.
Parental leave policies show that as a company, you not only care for the
employee, but that you also care for their family. There is a lot of research
showing the benefits that paid parental leave can have on parents as
well as children:
·
Mothers are able to
breastfeed for longer, and their babies are more likely to receive consistent
medical care (since parents can take them to appointments).
·
Mothers experience
improved mental and physical wellbeing when given time to recover from childbirth.
·
Working parents
experience lower stress and pressure regarding finances due to job/financial
security.
What’s apparently less obvious, however —
given how few American companies offer decent parental leave benefits — is that
offering employees paid parental leave gives your business a significant
advantage as well:
·
Lower turnover when
women are incentivized to stick around — the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the
U.S. economy could add as many as 5 million workers to its labor force by
offering better incentives for women to remain in the workforce.
·
Greater productivity
at no increased cost — after
California enacted its Paid Family Leave program, 96%
of companies reported costs remaining the same or savings improving.
·
That goes for fathers,
too — HBR reports
that “fathers
who felt that their employers supported them as parents — with flexible work
schedules, financial and social support during family leave, and other
allowances — were more likely to be engaged with their jobs and to
stay in them longer than they may have otherwise. … these parenting perks
provided a stronger incentive to stay with the company than increased salary
did.”
One key to ensuring paid parental leave is
done well is to eliminate any assumptions about how families should look. Help Scout recently introduced 12 weeks of
paid parental leave for all new parents, including adoption and foster care. Our goal is to support and
enable parents regardless of their gender, so they can play equal roles in
nurturing their families. Traditional policies often dictate that the parent
who gave birth is the primary care-giver, but that isn’t the case with all
families. Putting aside traditional beliefs or assumptions means that parents
are able to focus on what works best for their family.
Having been through parental leave twice, I
can say that thinking through how to transition parents back
into work after parental leave is hugely important, and key to their success. I
benefited from email updates or “check-in” days so I could gradually catch up
on work — that way the transition back to work wasn’t drastic or difficult.
The Harvard Business Review finds that in
order to ensure parental leave doesn’t damage anyone’s career, an
open dialog is crucial. This should begin before the parent goes on leave,
“… and include how to approach leave, the individual’s communication
preferences while on leave, and the return phase. Make a specific plan for
handovers at the start and the end of the leave.” Setting a clear path and
goals for the parent will help them feel less alienated and more confident in
their first few days (and weeks!) back at work.
2. Build family-friendliness into your
company culture
Giving parents the opportunity to celebrate
and take care of their family is important in creating a company culture that
leads to a sense of belonging for working parents. At Help Scout, we do this in
a variety of ways, starting with giving everyone the opportunity to have
flexible time off — including days off for physical or mental health. This
gives team members the chance to take time off as they need to, and
particularly comes in handy when they have children who are home for school
holidays, or when they’re home sick.
Each year, we give employees a surprise summer
day off (or winter if they’re in the Southern Hemisphere!) to encourage the
team to get out and do something fun — and to include their partners and
children in the excitement too!
Our family-centered Slack channel, called
#cubscouts, is where folks can share photos or stories of their little ones
(including nieces, nephews, cousins, etc). It’s fun to read through the funny
stories the team share about their kids, while others ask for advice, or share
helpful articles. It’s a safe place to talk about all things little
people-related.
Many other remote companies are also following
suit in promoting family-friendliness, such as Cliniko, where they realized that including
families led to less employee turnover:
“If [the partners] feel connected to the
people in that company, they like the company, [and] they feel like the company
does right by you, [it’s] a lot less likely that person’s going to leave.”
—Joel Friedlaender, Founder, Cliniko
—Joel Friedlaender, Founder, Cliniko
3. Create a safe space for working parents
If your company shares a brick-and-mortar
office, creating a place where parents feel comfortable talking about their
kids is important too. Team
leads and managers can lead this effort by putting up photos of their
families, or even their kids’ drawings — modeling for other team members that
they’re welcome to do the same. Studies show that being
able to personalize your workspace positively impacts productivity,
and being able to display special effects (such as family photos) causes
employees to connect with one another, and “form successful work groups that
are productive, content and able to work together.”
Having a designated breast-pumping area is
also essential in including parents in the workplace. The Washington Post found
that some
breastfeeding parents in the U.S. are subjected to spaces without a working
lock to pump — or if they are private, they’re in storage rooms or the
bathroom. Yet it is
required by law to provide a functional and private space for pumping. In a
world where working mothers already face stigmatization and are less likely to
excel in the workplace after having children, not having a place to pump can
decrease their productivity and overall physical and emotional well-being.
Taking the necessary steps to ensure that nursing parents are well cared for
will have a lasting and profound impact on them and their dedication to the
company.
4. Two words: remote work
If your company operates remotely, you’re
already in a better position to support working parents. Working from home
offers so many advantages to those who are raising children. In How
Remote Work Makes It Easier to Balance Family and Career, Nicole Swift of
Litmus reflects on how impactful it can on one’s family to be able to have the
flexibility of working remotely:
“From slowly easing my daughter into daycare
to pumping in the comfort of my own home, remote work helped make a tough
transition much more bearable and in turn made me all the more grateful and
eager to contribute to the Litmus culture.”
—Nicole Swift, Litmus
—Nicole Swift, Litmus
I found the same to be true as I transitioned
back to work each time after having both of my kids, but I always had the
support of my team to do what I needed to do at home in order to do my best
work. This could mean taking more breaks throughout the day to take our
youngest for a walk, or to take them to activities like a play date. Brenna
Loury of Doist encourages employees to work around the hours that work best for
them and their family in her guide, The Remote
Working Parent’s Survival Guide.
Since I’m based in Australia, I changed over
to a 6 a.m.- 2 p.m. schedule a few years ago, and it made a tremendous shift in
my life. I was able to get a ton of work done while my teammates were still
online and my kids were sleeping. It also meant my afternoons were free to
spend with my family to go for walks, get errands done, and have a buffer
before the dinner and bedtime routine started. Several of my teammates in
Australia also start their days early to be able to have the afternoons free
with their families. It gives us the flexibility to do all of the “parent life”
tasks without having to dash out of the office early, and also deal with as
little commuting as possible.
A parent-friendly workplace benefits
everyone
With so much focus on diversity and inclusion
efforts right now (including what we’re doing here at Help
Scout!), it’s important to include parents and caregivers in that
conversation.
Parents are an integral part of the D&I
movement, and creating a secure and safe place for them to do their best work
will naturally cause them to excel. Unfortunately, despite overwhelming
evidence to support the business case for it, not enough companies have made
this vital shift toward inclusivity for parents.
Creating an environment where parents are supported and
cared for allows your business to compete for top talent.
At the end of the day, a person’s
personal/family life is what’s most important, so if that piece of their world
can be nurtured in the workplace, it will make all the difference in their
growth as a worker and as a person, and their devotion to the company that
cares for them.
Kelly Herring - Kelly is on
the support team at Help Scout. She enjoys helping our customers get the most
out of our product and eating her way through Melbourne’s delicious cafes.
Connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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