Family Friendly Workplace Initiative/Toolkit
Living Wages
Living wage (different from a minimum wage) covers the necessities for life: food, water, housing, healthcare, education, clothing, transportation, and childcare. It allows employees to meet basic needs based on community costs, while maintaining a baseline standard of living.
Flexibility
Flexibility can be defined as allowing work to be done outside of traditional Monday-Friday, 8-5 schedule or in different locations. Though it does require a culture of mutual trust and an emphasis on results over face time, it allows employees to manage work and personal responsibilities more effectively.
Comprehensive Health Benefits
An employer offering health insurance helps attract and retain top talent, as well as keeping employees healthier and happier. It exceedingly contributes to the financial stability and well-being of employees and their families, along with providing preventive care, which reduces absenteeism and lost productivity.
Supportive Services:
Lactation (or breastfeeding) support is one of the most common supportive service benefits among employers, as women are more likely to return to work after maternity leave if they are able to pump and/or breastfeed onsite. Other services might include expectant and new parent parking, infants-at-work, and new parent support groups.
Paid Leave
Paid leave provides a bank of hours in which the employer pools sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allow employees to use as the need or desire arises. Some employers also offer paid parental (maternity or paternity) and paid family leave, which is useful for new parents.
Career Development
Employees at all levels are interested in advancing their careers. With that in mind, employers benefit by having satisfied employees with increased knowledge who are more engaged and stay at jobs longer, and those employees and their families benefit from increased earnings, greater job security, and higher satisfaction.
Caregiving Responsibilities
Access to quality child care, or onsite child care, increases a parent/caregiver’s likelihood of completing postsecondary education, raises labor force participation rates, increases productivity, and helps businesses attract and retain talent. Elder care is an important benefit for those who have aging parents that require a caretaker. Pet care is great for those who see dogs as great emotional support partners.
Community Involvement
Employers are encouraged to support community initiatives and organizations. Offering employees paid volunteer hours to help others gain hands-on experience and demonstrate social responsibility can be very beneficial to your organization and increase overall employee satisfaction.
A family-friendly workplace supports individuals in all stages of life to thrive at work, home, and in the community.
Research shows family-friendly workplace practices result in increased productivity, improved loyalty and commitment, and happier and healthier employees.
Family-friendly policies help:
- Reduce infant mortality
- Reduce low-income mothers’ stress
- Promote equity
- Strengthen bonds and decrease stress among families with newborns for better long-term health benefits
- Improve rates and duration of breastfeeding, enhancing health for both mother and child
- Reduce rates of turnover and absenteeism
- Increase a company’s Value on Investment (VOI) and Return on Investment (ROI)
When families are strong, children are strong, and when children are strong, families are strong!
Losing an employee can cost tens of thousands of dollars to nearly two-thirds the employee’s annual salary.
23% of parents rejected job offers or pursued other options based on access to on-site child care.
Data shows 64% of employees would stay longer at companies if employers invested in learning and development.
86% of U.S. millennials say they are less likely to leave an employer that offers paid
parental leave.
Providing opportunities for career development through employer-paid
trainings and/or tuition reimbursement helps
reduce turnover rate.
Retention, Recruitment, Absenteeism, and Productivity in family-friendly work environments and flexible work schedules
- 10% lower inclination to change jobs
- 5.9% decrease in intention to quit
- 9.3% decrease when child care services are available
- Availability of flextime could influence job choices by 33%
- Offering telecommuting could influence job choice by 26%
- 20% reduction of unexcused absences or two days per employee-year
- Increase in operating profit margin by 12.3%
- 10% increase in productivity due to flexible work schedules
- 52% of workers feel they perform better at their jobs if allowed a flexible work schedule
Onsite Childcare at Patagonia Headquarters Calculable Cost Benefits
California’s paid family leave and telework imitative
- Over 90% of employers reported no negative effect on profitability, turnover, or morale
- Increased hours worked and earnings among mothers with 1-3 year-old children by up to 10%
Across the nation
- During heavy snow, telecommuting capabilities saved over $30 million for every day the Federal Government was closed, $150 million total
