It is National Work-Life Week 10th to 14th October, Working Families’ annual campaign to get employers and employees talking about well-being at work and work-life fit, highlights Jennifer Liston-Smith.
When Bright Horizons ran our Work+Family Snapshot survey of client employees earlier this year, we found 58 percent of respondents overall had placed higher priority on the family over the last year compared with previously.
This was a 21 percent increase, on last year’s figure and was the same across genders. Also, 31 percent had become more ambitious about career. When we looked more closely at the 18-34 age group, family priority had gone up for two-thirds (67%) and career ambitions for nearly four in 10 (39%).
Whatever the constraints of our times, there is an increasing expectation among employees of ‘having it all’, in a reasonable and balanced way. And there does not seem to be any indication that this trend is receding post-pandemic. In fact, it is becoming the new normal. The younger generation’s expectations are expanding to include both career and family balance.
Perhaps the essence of ‘quiet quitting’ – with which Zaid Khan sparked a TikTok storm – is not so much about disengagement as about wanting to have a satisfying life outside work as well as our professional lives.
So how can HR professionals support these ambitions and help to create a fulfilled, engaged and productive workforce?
The current recruitment market
The UK is currently experiencing record employment levels. While this can certainly cause headaches for businesses when it comes to recruitment, it also allows savvy HR professionals and their organisations to differentiate themselves in a competitive market by demonstrating how they support the twin desires of staff to balance a family life with a fulfilling career. Forward-thinking employers wanting to attract and retain talented people will plan ahead to facilitate both.
This year’s annual Modern Families Index Spotlight offered useful insight for employers into some of the considerations working parents have around changing jobs. Three-quarters of these randomly-selected UK working parents would carefully consider their childcare and eldercare responsibilities before accepting a new job or promotion. When asked separately what matters in a new employer, 91 percent of those with eldercare responsibilities chose ‘support with care’, as did 76 percent of parents with children aged 0-10 years.
Employees with caring responsibilities should be supported
With that pressing question – ‘How will my care arrangements work for this job?’ top of mind for three in four new hires, employers would be wise to have supports in place that help employees balance their caring responsibilities. Ideally, this means direct help with care or at the very least access to advice lines. And then it is important to communicate these supports to potential hires to stand out in a competitive talent marketplace. Sounds obvious but sometimes family support programmes remain a well-kept secret! Learnings from the pandemic include understanding that juggling care across life stages, whether child, adult, elder or all simultaneously, is complex and easily disrupted.
The employers Bright Horizons works with have risen to that, taking an ever-broader view of what family supports should cover. For example, back-up care now includes access to virtual tutoring for the majority of programmes, taking what was an emergency provision into the wellbeing space by responding to parents’ concerns about educational catchup. Back-up care will also soon include access to pet care, after strong interest among employers in supporting pet-owning trends.
Flexible working
Of course, following the upheaval of recent years, much has been written about the benefits of flexible working for work-life fit. It’s important to bear in mind that flexibility is not just about where work takes place, but also the time it occurs. Our 2022 Modern Families Index found flexible hours are even more important than flexibility of location, especially with younger workers for whom it is an almost unanimous expectation. Across all age groups, just under 8 in 10 (79%) say the opportunity to work flexible hours is important when considering a new employer. Over two-thirds (69%) also look for flexible locations, so hybrid matters too.
For employers looking to respond to these needs, it pays to be flexible about flexibility! Do not force hybrid working plans into a fixed shape. Flexible hours give autonomy and are important for all workers, especially younger workers, parents and carers.
Flexibility also appeals to older workers now grappling with the Great Unretirement and looking to balance part-time work with caring or other needs. While it can be challenging, the most capable managers and employers are finding new ways of measuring performance by outputs and contributions, getting beyond counting the hours and face time. Identify objectives and performance standards, with freedom on when and how to deliver.
A work-life balance
In the same way that “Pets are for life, not just for Christmas”, organisations should commit to supporting work-life balance, integration or fit year-round and not just highlight it for one week a year. Supporting employees with practical solutions such as care options and internal networks in which parents and carers can exchange mutual support and advice, as well as robust policies and approaches to flexible working, helps employees in their expectation of balance. And it will help employers too: our Work+Family Snapshot showed a clear link between employer-sponsored care provision and a positive impact across a range of metrics, including productivity, overall wellbeing and stress reduction, and return to work after time off to have a baby or adopt a child.
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Jennifer Liston-Smith is Head of Thought Leadership at Bright Horizons.
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
