How to create a family friendly workplace that supports your staff during the summer holidays

Balancing work and family life during summer holidays and beyond is challenging for parents and carers, but creating a supportive workplace can make a significant difference, writes Bespoke Careers' London based MD, Jimmy Bent.

While summertime brings a sense of joy to most of us (when the British weather plays ball), for parents it can be a stressful time. School holidays and usually at least six weeks and some even more, this can be incredibly disruptive for parents who’ve worked hard to make their family and work schedules coexist in term time. Those with younger children in nursery may not be interrupted but that’s not always the case as some follow school holiday schedules. Ultimately the holiday season can be expensive and disruptive for parents.

But parental challenges are complex and creating a family friendly workplace goes beyond just making allowances during school breaks.

"You want to create an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing family commitments without fear of negative repercussions."

Establishing supportive family policies can boost employee morale, loyalty, and productivity, which will in turn have a positive effect on business.

What you are able to offer as an employer will depend on company size, resources, and infrastructure. Large, well-established firms may be able to offer initiatives such as onsite childcare and dedicated play areas, which would be the holy grail for many. For most SMEs this simply isn’t a viable option. However, small adjustments can make a big difference.

Flexible working is a great starting point. All employees have the right to ask for flexible working. This means they can request changes to their hours, location, or working pattern. If they do, their employer must follow a specific process and properly consider the request.

If a parent needs to adapt their work schedule to manage childcare responsibilities without impacting their performance, it’s worth considering. After all, a happy, less stressed employee is generally more productive. You can find more details about flexible working requests here. 

When considering family friendly adjustments, it’s important to recognise that parenting roles are diverse. While traditionally, the focus might have been on mothers, today, fathers can be primary caregivers, and it’s way more common these days for parental leave to be shared. Also, don’t always assume a parent is in a couple, approximately 23% of families are headed by a single parent. Furthermore, families can be formed through adoption, fostering, or surrogacy, all of which rightfully qualify for parental leave as well.

Another straightforward initiative is to create a forum for parents which can build a sense of community and offer support for navigating work-life balance challenges. Organising weekend family social events such as family picnics or gallery visits can be a great team building activity. Setting aside a day for a bring your kids to work day during the holidays is an excellent and fun way to support parents and make them feel included. For those without children, it can bring a great energy and sense of fun to the workplace.

We did it recently at Bespoke; the children socialised and played together with little disruption to our working day (it helped that we bribed them with cake!). All team members felt lifted by the change in energy within the office and we all had an enjoyable day. It also sparked thoughtful discussions among our staff about work-life balance and the evolving nature of our professional environment.

As always, communication is key. You want to have an open-door policy where people can voice their concerns and talk openly about the stresses that their work life balance might pose. But also, be mindful to involve the wider team, if you’re making changes to policies or certain people’s working patterns because of their family situation, be transparent and open.

In a market that remains skills short, you want to keep hold of talent. The ideal is that you want parents to return to work after expanding their family and taking parental leave.

"By offering benefits and a culture that shows you support parents will not only help you retain great people, but it will also amplify your company’s reputation as a progressive and supportive employer."

It’s also a great selling point when trying to attract staff. If you do a great job, promote it publicly and talk about it when interviewing potential hires. Most importantly, supporting parents means investing in the future and is essential for society as a whole. It’s a win-win.