There are three key benefits of an employer introducing family-friendly working practices. Firstly, it demonstrates the importance placed on employees' well-being. Secondly, it reduces stress and helps people maintain a good work-life balance. Thirdly, it reduces employee turnover whilst attracting qualified staff.
Have a look at the conversation below. You will find words and phrases that are useful when discussing a family-friendly workplace.
Expressions in context
Lena and Ed own a medium-sized manufacturing company, which is expanding. They are discussing the introduction of some new family-friendly policies to attract candidates for the positions that will need to be filled.
Lena: I've been looking at what some of our competitors offer their staff. Some of them go way beyond their legal requirements.
Ed: We're competing to attract skilled workers and keep the ones we have. I think we need to offer something unique.
Lena: As a start, perhaps we should do a survey of our present staff. They could fill in an anonymous questionnaire.
Ed: Good idea. What sort of questions should we ask them?
Lena: We could find out what sort of family obligations they have. And maybe ask what they find difficult in balancing work and family life.
Ed: Sounds good. We could ask them how they feel about working from home - and what benefits the company could introduce to improve their work-life balance.
Lena: We should find out about childcare needs.
Ed: We should also include parental-leave questions.
Lena: I'll get John from HR to draft the questionnaire. He's a new parent himself and very aware of many of these issues.
Remember!
What steps can you take to make your organization more family-friendly?
- It's a good idea to start with a survey of present staff's needs and to check what other organizations offer their employees.
- Childcare is a key issue for many employees. Some organizations have in-house crèches and kindergartens. Others offer compensation for childcare costs.
- Providing part-time work or job-sharing opportunities can be very helpful to employees with family obligations.
- The pandemic made working from home more acceptable. This option is very useful if a family member needs looking after.
- Some employees would like to start work later or finish earlier to drop off children at school or pick them up. Flexible working times could be introduced to accommodate those needs.
- Your organization might extend any private health insurance benefits to the whole family rather than just to the individual employee.
- Any such benefits affect an organization's finances and the cost-benefit would need careful calculation. But they can help an organization stand out from the crowd. They'll win and retain talent and increase employees' commitment and satisfaction.