“You cannot attract and retain top talent without supporting working parents and families. Over 90 percent of families have at least one parent in the workforce. So it’s time—it’s past time—to ensure we support working parents.”
That’s Puja Bhola Rios, Chief Revenue Officer at Frame.io, in a piece for Forbes highlighting the importance of businesses supporting parents, especially mothers. Rios offers several key recommendations for companies, including:
Providing paid parental leave for all parents.
Following the requirements of the “PUMP Act” of 2022, which “guarantees more women the right to breaks and a private space to pump breast milk in a baby’s first year—and the space cannot be a germ-filled bathroom, either!”
Offsetting the cost of becoming a parent by offering fertility and adoption benefits.
Helping parents secure the childcare they need to come to work by offering childcare benefits.
Take a look:
How Does Your Company Support Working Parents?
As a champion of women, I have seen how difficult it often is for working parents—and women in particular—to juggle their many roles. I’ve often wondered how my own mother and father juggled it all—both studied for advanced degrees, worked, and ensured my sister and I got to every afterschool activity we wanted to pursue. Recently, the COVID pandemic laid bare just how difficult issues of childcare and family life are for countless employees. When schools shuttered across the United States and the globe, parents had to scramble.
According to Pew Research, in March of 2020, about 38 percent of working parents said the childcare and parenting juggling act was difficult. By October of 2020 during the pandemic that number rose to 52 percent. Among teleworkers, mothers are twice as likely as fathers to say they have responsibility for “a lot” of childcare duties while they are working.
At a previous company where I worked, I took on the issue of antiquated and inadequate maternity leave. Recent SHRM research shows that while the percentage has risen, still only about 55 percent of companies offer paid maternity leave. Forty-five percent offer paid paternity leave.
Image via Forbes