How to have a respectful conversation with your employee about what they need as a working parent
Key takeaways
- Encourage employees to be open about what they need in terms of work/life integration.
- Curiosity and respect will go a long way when having conversations with employees.
- Ask, don't assume!
- When considering the needs of working parents, don't forget about fathers and non-birth parents.
There's still plenty of stigma about being a working parent today. Many parents hide their challenges or minimise their responsibilities to avoid being judged or discriminated against in the workplace.
As we all know from working at home over the past few years, there's no such thing as completely separating work and life. Although some may try, parents can't fully separate their home lives from their work lives. Instead, encourage employees to have conversations about what they need to help better integrate their work responsibilities while raising their families.
Be curious and respectful
Building a culture where workers feel comfortable raising issues takes time. In these early conversations with your new parents, be open and curious to their unique challenges. No parenting experience or child is the same. At this stage, parents may be experiencing fatigue, mental health challenges, or struggling to let go of what they can't control. On the other hand, they may be absolutely loving the return to work and want to work more, or travel more than they currently do. Have some strategies in place to discuss things like flexible work, remote work policies, changes to working hours, travel, taking unpaid leave or mental health days.
Don't make assumptions
It can be very easy to make assumptions about what your working parents need. If you're a parent yourself, sometimes you might make some assumptions based on your own experience. Or maybe you found something that worked well for an employee in the past, so you're replicating a tried and true method. Sometimes what worked the first time around, doesn't work the second, third or fourth time around. Financial situations change, support changes, health and mental capacity can also change. Remember to always ask before jumping in and making an assumption about what a new parent may need or want.
Don't exclude dads!
When thinking about what your working parents may need, people sometimes default to thinking about the working mums, but don't forget about the working dads. The pressures and stressors fathers face are also challenging, and they often aren't given the same opportunity to work flexibly, or face stigma for wanting to do so. Supporting working fathers or non-birth partners has a flow-on effect to benefiting working mothers too.
Flex like you mean it
Once you understand the challenges and accommodations your working parents need, implement those requests. You can read more on flexibility here.
Talk openly about your own childcare responsibilities, if you have them
If you have children, openly share your experiences with others in the team. Being transparent about your own life as a working parent helps create a better environment for all employees, not just parents.
By having regular, respectful conversations with your staff, you're not only supporting your staff, but leaving room for adjustments to be made to anything you've agreed on before. After all, what a parent of a young child needs is different from what workers caring for teenagers need and you can't know what those needs are without having an open and honest conversation. When managers and employers listen with empathy and take action, employees feel valued and, in turn, see the value of the organisation.
Now you know the steps to having a conversation with the working parents in your business. Next, we cover what the parents of babies and toddlers may be experiencing.
