Many companies speak the language of a family-friendly workplace and offer benefits to help working parents be able to more seamlessly blend their work and life outside the office. But whether or not an organization truly supports working parents comes down to corporate culture.
As a manager, do you “walk the talk” and create a supportive workplace culture for parents rather than just giving lip service to the concept? If you’re not sure, you’ll want to figure it out immediately.
Answer these three questions to find out if you’re actually “walking the talk” when it comes to having a family-friendly workplace:
1. Do you:
A. Actively encourage employees to take advantage of any flexible policies that your company offers?
or
B. Send subtle (or overt) signals that being out of the office is frowned upon in your group? For example: “Well, I know we do have a policy that allows work from home at this company, but we’re really under the gun with tight deadlines in our department, so it really helps if the whole team works regular hours together here in the office.”
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2. Do you:
A. Promote a flexible culture that’s family-friendly through your own actions (such as by leaving early or arriving late on occasion to handle family or personal matters)?
or
B. Rigidly stick to a 9-to-5 schedule, avoiding flex scheduling during the standard workday?
3. Do you:
A. Verbalize that you support your employees who are parents and those who have other family caregiving responsibilities so that they feel safe scheduling flex time?
or
B. Express displeasure when team members use flexibility to take care of family matters? (For example: “Wow, it was really busy when you were out yesterday—Wednesday afternoons are always our craziest time here.”)
If you answered “A” to these questions, you’re doing a great job at helping to create a family-friendly workplace culture. If your answers trended toward the “B” responses, there’s some room for improvement.
Here are three tips for getting better at walking the talk:
Be sure your communication tone around flexibility matches policies.
If your employees sense that you don’t want them to use flex time or that there will be performance consequences if they take time off for family matters, then they may opt out of using their legitimate benefit.
Model flexibility so that your team sees you support it.
Employees look to their manager for cultural cues about what’s okay to do in their group. If they see you freely using flexible policies and taking time for family matters in line with company benefits, they’ll feel more comfortable doing the same.
Let employees know that you value family flexibility.
Pair words with your actions. Make sure your team knows that you support their use of flexibility for family caregiving even when it’s busy. Have a plan in place for specific employees to back each other up in their duties when someone is out.
Your company may support working parents on paper, but what you do as a manager to create a family-friendly work environment makes a huge difference in how your employees experience corporate flexibility policies.
Be sure that your management style and actions reflect what your organization’s policy intends: to help all employees manage work and life in a way that supports both the business and their families.
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