Being Honest

Another important characteristic of a family friendly work environment is transparency. When I say transparency, I mean that employees and managers are honest and truthful with each other about everything. From business plans to personal concerns, being transparent means being truthful about what is going on.

Transparency is family friendly because it provides less stress and more stability at work. If management is honest with you, then you know where you stand with the company. You know if your job is stable and you know what you have to do to succeed.

Further, transparency means that you don’t have to hide the fact that you have a family. You will be less stressed if you know you don’t have to make up a lie to get out of work early to pick up a sick kid.

The head of talent at Deloitte promotes what she calls being “compulsively transparent.” After admitting that she missed an important meeting to attend a sale at Nordstrom’s (see article here), she challenged others to start being truthful at work as well. She suggests that we all make trade-offs between our personal life and work. Even those who don’t have children have things going on outside of work that could conflict with work responsibilities. Shouldn’t the workplace acknowledge that?

Therefore, when you are looking for family friendly work, you should check out how open communication is at a potential company. What are time-off policies? How does management communicate with employees? Finding out if a company promotes transparency will help you determine if it is truly family friendly.