Family-friendly corporate culture consists of internal procedures and customs helping employees to engage in their family life as well as their work life. Most often, it includes flexible working hours and working locations, space for child or elderly parents care, possibility of career breaks and a variety of benefits from health to training services. However, for family-friendly culture to function well and ensure the expected performance and loyalty of employees, the following errors should be avoided:
-
Unclearly formulated vision
-
Vaguely outlined boundaries
-
Offering family-friendly options only for the best performing employees
-
Inability to evaluate the impact of family-friendly options on individuals and teams
-
Inadequate training of managers
How, then, to offer employees a better work-life balance while getting the best performance from them?
-
Before implementing any procedure and starting to measure the impact of your family-friednly culture, define the boundaries of what you offer. Introduce only those procedures that correspond to the model of your organization.
-
Clearly set out the parameters for every action so that employees know how to behave in particular situations.
-
Consider flexible working hours and locations in a wider context. Will it help not only your employees but also your customers? And how will it be reflected in your costs?
-
Make sure your family-friendly culture policy is equally advantageous to both parties.
-
Involve all employees, not just a select group. Just because someone does not have children, it does not mean that he/she would not embrace flexible working arrangements.
-kk-