How can companies support and retain parents working from home?

It’s 9 AM on a warm and sunny day of July, and your working day officially starts.

You sit down at your kitchen table, place a steaming mug of coffee beside your laptop, and open your inbox. You sigh when you see seven high-priority emails waiting for you, but you crack your knuckles and start typing.

“Good morning Alissa,

Thanks for following up on my latest request and sending me the

The sound of a ball bouncing against the floor of the living room echoes all the way to your kitchen office. Your fingers freeze over the keyboard, and for the third time today, you open your mouth to tell your son not to play with his ball inside the house. Unfortunately, this time you’re not fast enough and you can only listen as the ball hits the coffee table knocking something that tumbles to the floor and smashes into pieces. As you stand up, hoping the broken object is not the antique blue vase, a cry breaks into the silence. Your toddler who was peacefully sleeping in her crib is now awake.

Quite a morning, isn’t it? Working full-time from home while parenting two kids isn’t ideal, but what else could you do? Your partner is a healthcare provider who can’t work remotely, the grandparents live too far to babysit, and schools and kindergarten are close.

A journey back in time:

Let’s take a moment to travel back in time all the way to 2020, aka the year everything changed.

With the outbreak of the pandemic, the whole world has faced unprecedented challenges that have called for radical adjustments. When it comes to working life, we all have witnessed (and many of us tested) the shift from office-based work to remote work, which has proved that not only employees can successfully work from the comfort of their living room, but this can also enhance their productivity.

The benefits of remote work are many, and let’s not forget it can boost inclusivity by allowing companies to hire promising prospects regardless of their location, economic means, or physical abilities.

However, it’s only fair to have a look at the other side of the coin. Among the numerous benefits of working from home, there are still a few cons. We’re talking about lack of human interactions, extra distractions, decrease in motivation, mental exhaustion and burnout.

Now, what if on top of all the aforementioned challenges of remote working, we add up real-time childcare?

Parenting is itself a tough job, not to mention doing it between meetings, phone calls and emails. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has taken a huge toll on parents all around the world, and studies have also shown that the pandemic has taken an even greater toll on women, who are more likely to take on the majority of childcare duties compared to their male counterpart.

In their study about Women in the Workplace 2020, authors at McKinsey & Company have stated that:

“The pandemic has intensified challenges that women already faced. Working mothers have always worked a “double shift”—a full day of work, followed by hours spent caring for children and doing household labour. Now the supports that made this possible—including school and childcare—have been upended.”

The study has also revealed that more and more women are considering downgrading their career in order to find a better work-life balance or are even contemplating the drastic decision to leave the workforce altogether.

Any business committing to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) should strive to provide every member of its team with the means to succeed. So, the question is, how can companies effectively support and ultimately retain parents working from home?

We have gathered some core tips for you!

#1 Quality over quantity

Let’s begin with an important question: are you a “more hours = better results” type of company?

If the answer is yes, we’d like to invite you to revisit this metric and redefine the way you measure success. More and more new and old businesses are slowly shifting towards a quality over quantity culture that allows employees to tailor their own working schedule according to their lifestyle, rhythms, and obligations.

Think about it, as long as your employees attend all the important meetings, does it make a difference whether they punch in at 9 AM or 12 PM? As long as they’re productive and meet all the goals and deadlines, must they sit at their desk 8 hours a day? Only imagine the critical difference a flexible working schedule could make in the life of a busy parent juggling work and childcare duties.

Of course, a flexible working schedule can’t be applied to every single job, but when possible it’s definitely worth trying. Also keep in mind that, when it comes to tailoring a working schedule, basic guidelines are nonetheless required, and you can still expect your employees to work during some established core hours.

All in all, consider switching your success metrics from the number of hours to effective results and let parents customize their schedule as it best suits their needs, the results will show. We’re talking about a boost of productivity, higher levels of satisfaction and increased loyalty towards the company, less time spent looking at the clock versus more time invested in getting the job done, and ultimately profits for the whole business.

#2 Parental benefits

Offering a flexible working schedule will go a long way, but as already mentioned in the previous point, this isn’t always applicable. Some jobs, especially the ones requiring contact with the public, call for workers to follow fixed working schedules. For example, think about a call centre open every day from 9 AM to 5 PM.

However, you can still support parents working from home by providing parental benefits that will help them with balancing work and childcare duties and finally relieve them of that heavy boulder on their shoulder.

Benefits you could offer specifically for parents working from home are:

Virtual tutors. Virtual tutoring is an online service that provides academic assistance outside school hours for kids of any age.
Other than offering standard parental leave, you can opt for what some companies call Covid-19 leave. This consists of a defined number of hours during the working day parents can “lock” in order to focus on childcare duties and keep free from anything work-related.
Together with childcare related benefits, never underestimate the value of free mental-health counselling for parents. This can help them develop healthy boundaries between work and childcare duties, avoid burnout, detected and address their concerns, and overall improve the whole remote work/family dynamics.

These are just a few examples of parental benefits you can consider to support parents working from home, so don’t worry if you don’t find anything suitable here. Ultimately, whatever extra help you decide to offer, keep in mind the ultimate goal is to ensure that workload and childcare are as sustainable and stress-free as possible. This takes us to the last point.

#3 Always aim at a tailored solution

Whether you decide to shift your success metrics to quality over quantity and/or to offer parental benefits for remote workers, remember that there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.

Some hurdles might be more common than others, but in the end, every family is different and the optimal solution can be tailored according to a few variables. For instance, is your employee a single parent? And if they have a partner, how flexible can they be? How many kids do they have? How old are the kids? Do the kids have any special needs?

Before you take any action, set up a meeting to talk with working parents and better assess their situation, the resources they already have at their disposal, and what type of extra aid they require. Not everybody will need a virtual tutor, and not everybody will benefit from a flexible work schedule. So, always aim at tailoring your support strategy to better fulfil the context-specific needs. This will also help you evaluate the services you can offer, how flexible can you be, and what other benefits or company culture shifts you can implement.

Key takeaways:

The pandemic has taken a huge toll on parents all over the world, with the majority of the weight being carried by women who have gone as far as considering quitting the workforce. Implementing a support strategy for parents working from home should be part of the goals of any company committing to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), in order to provide everyone with the means to succeed.

Due to the context-specific nature of work-life balance, a company should first assess each situation in order to find the best support strategy for parents. This said, there are still some core tips every business committing to Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) should consider:

Redefine how success and productivity are measured by focusing on the outcomes and not the actual amount of working hours.
Offer the possibility to tailor the working schedule as it best suits the individual’s lifestyle and obligations. You can still expect your employees to work during some established core hours, but any amount of flexibility can work wonders for parents.
Childcare-focused benefits like a virtual tutor or Covid-19 leave, and free mental-health counselling for parents.

Keep in mind that every little effort from your side will be welcome and valued, and this will pay off in the long run. The parents working from home will experience less stress, their overall mental well-being will improve, and they will achieve an optimal work-life balance. This will ultimately lead to a boost in productivity and more profits for the company, other than a lower turnover rate.

About the author:

Giulia Pernisi is a content writer with solid expertise in educating and assisting people of all backgrounds and nationalities.

In the past 8 years, she has been working for different international and multicultural Finnish businesses where she has experienced first-hand the importance of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). She has now made it her mission to be an active D&I advocate. Diversity & Inclusion are also at the core of her creative writing, as Giulia is a fantasy author with a book series in the making.

Contact Giulia on her LinkedIn profile.