UNICEF puts it best: “The business case is clear: Investing in family-friendly policies helps improve workforce productivity and a company’s ability to attract, motivate and retain employees.”
The agency, part of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and development assistance to children around the world, recommends that employers: implement some strategies to support working parents.
These include a minimum of six months of paid parental leave, ensuring that women are not discriminated against, facilitating breastfeeding at work and supporting access to affordable and quality childcare.
Contents
Hybrid works
Working parents in the US have long been frustrated with what is offered in their workplace and while some companies are doing the work to support workers with families, since the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a brighter light on the issue. many workers home. Today, offices in major US cities less than half as busy as before, according to data from security provider Kastle Systems.
According to Gallup data, six in ten employees with jobs that can work remotely want a hybrid work arrangement. About a third prefer working completely remotely and less than 10% want to be in the office. That part of the picture is obvious, but for parents, what more do they want from their employers?
Supportive management
A 2021 study of 1,500 working parents of family benefits platform Cleo found that 40% of the workforce is made up of parents. With churn already a huge concern among the entire U.S. workforce (more than 47 million Americans have voluntarily quit their jobs by 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), parents who feel included and supported in their workplaces are 41% less likely to to leave.
In addition, Cleo’s research found that more than a third of parents who plan to leave their jobs do so because of a lack of flexibility. Childcare is the most requested benefit by parents, but less than a fifth of working families have access through their employer.
Customized benefits
Companies that offer additional family and health benefits tailored to family and childcare are at the forefront of the race for the best talent. For example, Adobe supports LGBTQ+ employees with progressive family planning and personalized support benefits, including same-sex partner health care coverage, adoption and surrogacy assistance, and non-birth parental leave for up to 16 weeks.
Professional services firm Deloitte has a well-considered set of benefits and benefits for its people, with the goal of creating a culture that promotes personal and professional development. It offers (depending on territory) a wide variety of programs to support families, among other benefits. These include adoption/surrogacy leave, parental leave, and parental leave, as well as foster and care leave.
The company has also made provision for the way its teams want to work, with options for compressed summer workweeks and hybrid work arrangements, which are so important and valuable to parents.
Cisco also offers family-friendly benefits. The company’s paternity leave policy provides paid leave that is determined not by the parent’s gender or which parent gave birth, but by which parent will be the primary caregiver. Grandparents who work there get three days off to help when a new baby joins the family, and the company also offers subsidized childcare, paid time off and insurance.
If you’re looking for a new role, check out the VentureBeat Job Board to see who’s hiring; we present three open roles below.
Senior Software Engineer, Labs, Google, Mountain View
Google’s software engineers are developing next-generation technologies that are changing the way billions of users connect, explore and interact with information and each other. Labs is a group focused on incubating early-stage efforts to support Google’s mission to organize information around the world and make it universally accessible and useful. The Senior Software Engineer will use their technical expertise to manage project priorities, deadlines and deliverables. You design, develop, test, implement, maintain and improve software solutions. You need a bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience, plus five years of experience in software development in one or more programming languages and with data structures/algorithms. View the full job description here.
Critical Environment Regional Program Manager, Microsoft, Redmond
Microsoft’s Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I) is the engine behind cloud services. You will play a key role in delivering and managing the critical environment infrastructure and fundamental technologies for Microsoft’s online services, including Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive and the Microsoft Azure platform. As a successful Regional CE Program Manager (CEPM), your performance goals include providing direction, guidance and oversight for projects, programs, and solving identified gaps in CE programs so that data centers can achieve more. View all application criteria here.
Software Engineer II — Ad Optimization Team, Indeed, Pittsburgh
This Software Engineer II role will be part of Indeed’s Ads Optimization Team, which builds large-scale pipelines, back-end services, and advanced models/algorithms. You design, develop and maintain pipelines and services and implement efficient algorithms. You’ll also continuously improve search quality and performance, and code innovative tools to support rapid experimentation and learning. To apply, you will need a BS or MS in computer science, engineering, mathematics, physics or related field as well as more than four years experience in production level software engineering and proficiency with high level object-oriented programming languages such as Java, Python, Kotlin , Go or similar. Read more about the role of Software Engineer II here.
Explore and bookmark the VentureBeat Job Board now to find your perfect tech position
The mission of VentureBeat is a digital city square for tech decision makers to gain knowledge about transformative business technology and transactions. Discover our briefings.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.