Who Doesn't Want Family Friendly?

Even companies with good intentions can have challenges supporting their employees. Many enlightened companies do now offer policies and programs that provide support to working parents. These family friendly companies seem to be on the right track to attracting and retaining satisfied and productive employees.

That is, unless you are not a parent. As a recent brief New York Times article points out, kid-free workers aren’t always impressed with a company’s dedication to becoming family friendly. And their lack of support is not without reason. In many work environments, those without children do not receive the same consideration as those with children.

When exceptions in a work schedule or other obligations are requested, managers often make value judgments when making their decision. A manager will often grant a request if it involves an obligation for a child, but deny a request made for other personal reasons. A student of mine was just telling me the other day that in a previous job she was often asked to stay late when others were not. She did not have children and was even told a few times that it didn’t matter if she worked late, since she didn’t have anything else to do.

So what is a company to do? Can a company support working parents without stepping over those that don’t have children? I think they can. In fact, those policies and programs targeted at working parents can often benefit all employees. If a company designs flexible work options, generous time-off policies and other benefits for working parents, they should make sure that all employees are eligible to take advantage of these as well. Doing so will likely give the company the same return of increased productivity and loyalty by employees, parents or not.

Managers should also avoid making value judgments when it comes to granting employees time-off or other exceptions. If an employee needs to leave work early for a personal emergency, a manager should not judge if the reason for taking the time-off is important or not. The manager should focus on the business impact of the decision. Is this a responsible employee who will make-up the work if needed? Is there an important deadline or other work-related reason that makes the accommodation impossible? The manager should base his or her decision on a business need, not a personal judgment about what is a personal emergency. An employee without children very well might have a personal emergency that is just as important as one that involves a child.

I’ve heard some say that benefits should be called “life friendly” instead of “family friendly.” That might just be a good idea.