Offer child care assistance, resources and programs

Stand out by offering child care programs that help the working parents at your company better meet their child care and work obligations. Here are some options to consider of various costs and levels of effort:

Access to backup child care services

With child care options fluctuating across the U.S., many parents are constantly having to reassess their childcare plans. To help parents find and pay for child care, consider paying for employee memberships to backup childcare services or referral systems. (You may even be eligible for a tax credit for offering this type of benefit.)

For example, more than 850 companies provide employees with backup care through Bright Horizons, a platform that places children in nearby daycare centers or brings in available in-home care at discounted rates. The program also gives employees $100 per day to pay a friend or relative to watch their kids as a last resort, up to a certain number of days. Similarly, Workday offers its employees a membership to backup care provider Care.com.

There are also other forms of emergency and backup child care you may want to chip in for, such as virtual babysitting and online tutoring.

Dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs)

A dependent care flexible spending account (FSA) is a program that employers can sponsor to help their employees save on child care bills. Up to $5,000 can get pulled out of your employees’ paychecks pre-tax to use for child care expenses each year. Employers can also choose to contribute to employees’ dependent care FSAs up to the yearly limit.

Check with your benefits provider for more information on sponsoring dependent care FSAs.

Programs for new parents

Navigating pregnancy and new parenthood can be challenging in the best of circumstances. Caring for a newborn can add a whole new level of stress, especially if friends and family are unable to visit and help out.

Consider offering a benefit specifically for new parents to help them adjust to life with a newborn, transition to new schedules and balance work and family life. Maven, for example, provides virtual maternity, postpartum and return-to-work support to employees and their partners (e.g., lactation consultants, mental health support, back to work coaches).

Stipends for child care expenses

Nearly two-thirds of parents (65%) surveyed by ParentsTogetherAction said they were struggling to make ends meet, with an additional 24% of parents reporting that their families sometimes faced financial struggles.

Consider reducing some of the financial strain many parents are facing by offering subsidies to cover childcare related expenses. These subsidies can help pay for meals, internet, books, toys, tablets and other supplies so children are supervised and learning.

Return to work programs

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that in 2022, the percentage of mothers and fathers in the workforce or looking for work increased. For many, this meant returning to work after a long break for reasons such as caregiving and parenting, among others. Return to work, or retraining programs, can help ease the transition with support including mentoring and upskilling.

For example, Boeing offers a holistic workforce re-entry program called Return Flight, which helps parents return to their careers with the support of a professional coach. Similarly, HubSpot’s Returner’s Program provides training and upskilling opportunities to help transition back to work. These paid programs aim to help employees gain confidence after extended leave of absences.

Encourage working parents to take time off

Make sure working parents are aware of the time off options available. When working parents take time off, it can improve their mood, motivation and productivity and help prevent them from leaving your company due to childcare obligations.

Try combining all forms of paid time off into a single plan. Instead of offering a specific amount of paid time off for categories like vacation, sick days and personal days, consider offering a total lump sum of PTO so employees can take time off as they need it, regardless of the reason.

Consider offering longer-term parental leave options. This can be a good temporary option to help employees with children take care of family responsibilities, especially for working parents in jobs that can’t be performed from home.

Consider rethinking the typical 9-to-5

For many working parents, work flexibility isn’t just a perk — it’s a necessity.

One employer said: “We grant a flexible work from home policy for everybody instead of teams coming back and forth. The office is open to our employees if they want to come in anytime/day they want, but it’s at a limited capacity. We have a lot of working parents too so we understand that they might not have daycares or schools to be able to leave their children while they’re at work.”

Here are some other things you can do to give employees the freedom they need to balance work and child care:

Ask employees what types of schedules would work best for them. Each parent’s situation is different. Some employees may need to start their workdays later than usual, while others may need to block off time in the middle of the day to take over from their partner’s morning child care shift or to help their third grader with homework.

Consider allowing make-your-own schedules. While this may not be a possibility for every business, giving employees the space to choose their own schedule can help them work around their children’s needs. 

However, if your workers can’t simply log into Slack or Zoom to do their jobs from home, there are still ways to offer them flexibility. Here are some ideas for flex schedules and alternate work arrangements — especially if WFH is not an option:

• Four-day work week
• Extra day off
• Part-time work options
• Shorter days
• Staggered starting/finishing times
• Split shifts
• Job sharing

Try offering unpaid/reduced pay flex options employees can opt-in to. For example, you might offer employees a reduced schedule for reduced pay (e.g., 80% schedule for 80% pay for a certain number of days) or a period of unpaid leave for 30, 60 or 90 days with the ability to return to the same or similar job.

Modify performance expectations

All of these extra responsibilities can impact productivity at work, causing many parents to worry about their performance reviews, bonuses and future promotions.

Consider temporarily relaxing deadlines, quotas and metrics to account for the new challenges parents are facing, making sure to factor caregiver status into performance reviews.

Build community among parents at your company

Here are some ideas to help the working parents at your company connect with others facing similar challenges:

• Provide digital spaces for parents to chat. Indeed has a Slack channel (#wfh-parents) where parents share educational resources, snapshots of their work from home life, ideas for kid’s activities that don’t interfere with work focus and offer support and advice for one another.
• Start a formal parent support group. Employee resource groups (ERGs) can help parents connect and learn from each other. For example, Freddie Mac has a Working Parents ERG that offers encouragement, guidance and support for those who are returning from parental leave, raising children or caring for family members or loved ones.
• Host kid-friendly virtual events. Create opportunities for parents to include their children in work-sponsored virtual events and activities. For example, at Lenovo, virtual events have included a funny hat week, a spirit week and pet parades. 

Take care of parent mental health

With working parents being pulled in so many different directions (and self-care and sleep often last on their to-do list), it’s no surprise that mental health is taking a big hit.

Here are some ideas to help support the mental health of working parents at your company:

• Offer a virtual therapy benefit or free access to a mindfulness app
• Promote your Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Send a survey to find out what kind of support working parents need
• Encourage leaders to open up about their own struggles and emotions
• Simply ask “Are you okay? How are your kids?”

As parents attempt to balance their careers with childcare responsibilities, employers are in a unique position to help ease the burden. Supporting the working parents at your company starts with understanding and compassion — from offering unprecedented flexibility and adjusting productivity goals, to saying “hi” to kids and pets that appear on video calls, and providing child care assistance, mental health resources and a way for moms and dads to connect.