The kids are back to school…. How are you feeling parents?
Relief… This seems to be the overwhelming response from the parents I’ve spoken to whose children have recently returned to school. After finding themselves having to juggle working from home with home schooling since March, parents have finally got some respite.
When you dig a little deeper, however, most parents seem to be dealing with some anxieties about this new arrangement. Asking themselves questions like: How safe are they going to be at school? What happens if there’s a case of COVID in their bubble? Will the kids be back at home without any notice? How much more accommodating and flexible will my employer be if I need to work from home and home school again?
Now this may be back to the ‘new normal’ of a couple of months ago for some that are still working from home. But what if your employer is starting to encourage you to return to the office? Maybe things have picked up, not everyone is back from furlough yet and your workload is actually pretty high right now. What happens then? Will I get paid if I have to stay at home with my child and can’t work from home? There may be risk of redundancy at your organisation. Will the fact that you have dependents put you in the firing line?
It’s understandable that levels of anxiety are generally high right now but is this cause of anxiety for parents necessary? Business leaders can’t escape the fact that anxious employees are not productive employees. Gone unchecked, this anxiety can develop into a full-blown anxiety disorder and be disastrous for the individual and cost the business money in absence, presenteeism, support costs and possibly staff turnover costs.
So, what can we do? Individually, parents can ensure they keep up to date with the ever-changing rules and make sure we are familiar with the school’s and our employer’s policies. Once you know this, working through ‘what if’ scenarios can help you to anticipate what contingency plans you might need to put in place and what support you might need from family, friends, colleagues or your employer.
So, what about businesses? How can they help? Business leaders often talk highly of their generous benefits, flexible hours and parent friendly policies but how many of them cover this kind of situation?
You can simply start by asking employees who are parents what challenges they are facing – a simple but important question.
– Simply avoiding meetings at certain times of the day can make a world of difference to some. (find out when all team members prefer to do meetings, it makes a dramatic difference!)
– Clear communication as to the urgency of communications, mark them at different levels so that people are clear as to when a response is needed (again, this is a good one for everybody!)
– Lead from the top, whether you have children or not, encouraging a balanced approach to working hours (check out the BE:DO approach to balance that we believe in) and having boundaries in place will give the confidence to the team that it’s OK to speak up about in-balances. (you got it, good for everyone!)
– Support Buddies across the team can help individuals feel less alone and can offer them someone to speak with regarding their specific concerns. By sharing learnings from Depending on the size of the team, matches can be made very closely in terms of circumstance. (well clearly you can match buddies, parents or not!)
– If you don’t have them already, you may want to consider the benefits of training some of your team to be Mental Health First Aiders, taking the Buddies to the next step and encourage parents to talk to them if they are experiencing anxieties. (What do you think…?! Very good for everyone…)
If the pandemic has taught businesses anything, it’s that they actually have the ability to be a lot more flexible with their employees than they ever thought possible, and this has helped businesses become more agile. If a business is agile and people-centered they will be supportive of the whole team, whatever their circumstance.
Parents shouldn’t need to feel like they need special treatment.
