Why Now is the Time to Create a Parent and Family-Friendly Work Envirnment!

We have all heard a lot about work-life balance and the importance of making time to do what we are passionate about at work and have a family life. However, Covid-19 has changed what our perspective on many fronts. Business leaders in order to keep our teams moving forward we must consider creating safe workspaces. Our spaces should not just be sanitized and covid ready but, also socially and emotionally healthy and supportive. Our teams are made up of people. Napoleon Hill in his 1937book, 'Think and Grow Rich', wrote about business becoming focused on the humanity of the worker and the need to treat our teams with dignity and respect as fellow humans. I read something similar in Simon Sinek’s book, 'Leaders Eat Last' published in2014. LinkedIn Decenber 2020, has said that in the coming trends for 2021 shows that family-friendly policies and practices are going to be an essential labor practice in 2021. It is clear these practices are important business leaders have been talking about treating our teams and their family life's with respect, for almost a century.

 The pandemic is giving every company leader the time and space to revitalize our workspaces into environments where the humanity and family lives of our teams is both recognized and appreciated. We need realize that our team’s lives outside the workspace affects the quality of their work in it. Leaders can create a culture, where their teams have the room and support to deal with life outside the workspace; building an area of appreciation for our teams needed in today’s working world. The start of this process is in checking policy. Is the company giving the consideration to?

• a parent with a sick child
• A foster parent who needs to go to court
• a daughter dealing with an Alzheimer’s parent
• a team member whose pet just got hit by a car

Ultimately, these policies are more than about time off or working from home: It is caring for our teams as whole people. We all know that it is imperative to maintain an air of professional composure during the workday. However, having the leader take the time to go by a desk of a teammate and ask after a sick spouse, gives a sense of connection to the company. The team member feels cared about and appreciated, because, they sense they as an individual are cared about; the leader cares about them and not just their ability to produce. The purpose of creating a parent and family-friendly work culture is the development of a space where these types of working relationships can thrive.

The practice of a parent and family friendly culture is far more important than what is simply written on paper. Writing it down is only the s t art. Creating an environment where these policies can thrive is where the real work begins. Now, is the time to create these policies, get them written and then determine what the daily practices we will be implemented to ensure the environment maintains the policies.

As companies explore their current policies here are a few thoughts:

1. How do our mission and vision reflect this change?
2. What current company policies or practices will get in the way of creating this culture?
3. Which ones will foster our development of this culture?
4. What new ones need to be created?
5. How will the leadership team train about these new policies and why they are being implemented?
6. How will leaders help those who will be resistant to the changes?
7. How will you market the changes to your team? How will you know you have their buy-in?

These are all things that can be explored while companies are preparing for the vaccines to come online and workers to come back into the work environment on a full-time basis. During this lag time leaders can begin to craft what they want their work environment to become. Now is the time to think about crafting workspaces that are as much about supporting our teams as human beings as we do the bottom line.

Want to chat about what these changes may look like in your business?

Feel free to meassage me.

 [BH1]