Working parents face a difficult balance. These parents must take care of their children. At the same time, they must commit the time, energy and resources necessary to perform well at work.
As a manager, you can do your part to support parents. In doing so, you can provide these parents with plenty of support and help them maintain a healthy work-life balance. Plus, you can make your business an attractive choice to parents and many other talented job seekers.
Tips to Support Working Parents
Here are five things you can do to support working parents.
1. Learn from Parents
Understand the challenges of working parents. Meet with parents and learn how they balance their professional and personal lives. Ask these parents what you can do to support them at work, too. Then, you can use feedback from parents to determine the best ways to support them.
2. Open the Lines of Communication
Encourage working parents to come forward with any concerns or questions. You want these parents to feel good both at work and outside of it. To achieve your goal, parents should be ready to share their feedback with you. That way, you can continuously learn from these parents and seek out ways to support them.
3. Establish Realistic Performance Expectations
Make it clear what you expect from working parents. By giving parents clear-cut performance expectations, they’ll know what to anticipate when they work with you. Also, you can find out if parents feel any expectations are unrealistic based on their personal responsibilities. In this instance, you may need to adjust your performance expectations accordingly.
4. Offer Resources
Look for any resources your company offers that support working parents. Share these resources with parents. And, keep parents up to date about any new resources that become available.
5. Provide a Positive Work Environment
Remain accessible to working parents. Give them a positive work environment where they can feel good about what they do. In addition, take time to check in with parents to learn how they are feeling at different points. Stay connected to these parents, and they can feel like a part of your team.
Add Top Talent to Your Team
Working parents are difference-makers at businesses of all sizes and across all industries. Meanwhile, your ability to support parents can impact your ability to recruit and retain top talent.
Do what’s necessary to provide parents with ongoing support. You can offer assistance to parents who are doing their best to manage their professional and personal lives. Furthermore, you can help your company stand out from the competition. You may even be able to boost your employee engagement and retention levels, too.
Of course, if you’re on the lookout for top talent, Marquee Staffing can provide assistance. We are a professional staffing agency that can connect you with outstanding professionals in Orange County, San Diego and Los Angeles. To learn more about how we partner with California businesses, please contact us today.