Supporting Working Parents: A Key to Organisational Success

Understanding the Unique Challenges of Working Parents

Working parents face unique stressors that can significantly impact their wellbeing. Unlike other employee groups, they juggle high-demand home responsibilities, such as childcare logistics, emotional labour, and schooling needs, alongside their professional roles. Research by Simon Garrity highlights that parenting tasks can take up 72% of a parent’s weekly time, creating a significant psychological strain that standard wellbeing initiatives struggle to address.

The Limitations of Generic Wellbeing Programs

Generic wellness strategies designed for the general workforce often include common elements—like health screenings or stress workshops—but usually overlook caregiving-related issues. A Harvard Business School analysis found that accessibility rather than mere availability of support matters: programs must be tailored and perceived as relevant for parents to truly boost wellbeing and performance.

The Benefits of Tailored Support for Working Parents

Data consistently shows that organisations offering tailored parental support enjoy superior outcomes compared to those without:

• Boston Consulting Group’s survey with Moms First found family-support policies led to a 5.5% productivity increase among parent employees.

• Great Place to Work’s survey of over 440,000 working parents at Best Workplaces revealed that organisations with pro-parent policies reaped improvements in innovation, retention, productivity, and DE&I.

• Vivvi’s “Fifth Trimester” research demonstrated that employer-backed caregiving benefits deliver nearly $18 in returns for each $1 spent.

  
  

Increasing Engagement and Loyalty

A KPMG survey of 1,000 U.S. professional parents showed that demand for flexibility is widespread—parents actively seek employers who offer supportive measures. Further, companies offering on-site childcare saw employees report 4.1× higher social wellbeing and 8.9× stronger loyalty.

The Business Case for Specialisation in Parental Support

General wellbeing programs tend to show broad but shallow impact. A study in the Spanish banking sector demonstrated that only those employees actually using family-friendly policies reported improved job performance—access and engagement, not just existence, is key. This solidifies the case for specialist programs tailored to working parents.

Deepen, Don’t Replace: Enhancing Existing Wellbeing Initiatives

While your existing wellbeing initiatives provide essential support, they often miss parenting-specific pressures—like childcare breakdowns, remote schooling, or parental burnout. Our targeted webinar series was developed with working parents in mind, offering strategies and community tailored to those unique stressors. Companies with family-focused support see up to 5.5% higher productivity and enjoy measurable boosts in loyalty and retention—outcomes your general program may simply not deliver.

In Summary: The Path Forward for Organisations

• Working parents face distinct challenges that general programmes don’t fully address.

• Tailored support delivers higher engagement, better ROI, and improved employee outcomes.

• Organisations offering targeted parental support benefit from significant productivity gains, increased loyalty, and an enhanced employer brand.

  
  

By supplementing your existing wellbeing framework with programs crafted specifically for working parents, you're not duplicating efforts—you’re enhancing them—and unlocking measurable benefits that resonate across your organisation. Learn more about Win Win Parenting programs