Working Parents & Carers
Responsibilities for employees who have caring obligations rarely sit neatly outside of work. Too often, they run alongside the nine-to-five and shape how focused or energetic people are at work.
‘Around 33% of mothers and 23-24% of fathers have agreed special working arrangements, such as part-time or flexible hours.‘
Parenting and caregiving are themselves full-time jobs, but they are so often seen as something temporary, or at the very least a role which can be paused during the workday. For those individuals, intangible compensation happens privately, adjusting their schedules and absorbing work pressures on top of their private lives without raising concerns with leaders.
When organisations overlook the pressures of parents and carers, capability at work isn’t lost suddenly but gradually through exhaustion and disengagement.
Supporting working people with additional roles isn’t about lowering the standards expected in an organisation, but designing work in a way that people can realistically sustain.
The workplace contribution by people who are parents or carers becomes consistent when their obligations are taken into consideration in their working life.
‘69% of carers in employment feel they haven’t focused on their career as much as they would like, and 21% have taken lower-paid or more junior roles to manage care.‘
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Caring responsibilities don’t pause work demands
The demands of work remain constant even if people’s caring responsibilities increase. Deadlines and meetings aren’t rescheduled or moved because life outside work gets hectic, leaving people to deal with the pressure to meet both sets of demands without relieving strain.
This internal battle, combined with a lack of support from organisations, can lead to people narrowing their contribution to what feels manageable in the moment rather than what they are capable of, which is often far more.
Without proper visibility, organisations may wrongly interpret this narrowing as a drop in ambition or engagement instead of what it actually is, a signal of an unsustainable workload.
Fixing this starts by addressing the fact that parents and carers’ capacity to fully invest in work fluctuates over time. That is something which isn’t the fault of the individual, but the system in which they operate.
With a framework in place, people will feel more able to contribute fully without burning out.
The cost of private responsibilities
Working parents and carers often manage pressure by compensating for other things privately. They may be forced to work late regularly, which will have a knock-on effect on their mental and physical health.
For many on the outside, this additional effort is often invisible and creates false perceptions of capacity. And while this private compensation may become unsustainable, individuals may never raise these concerns, believing that flexibility to work around parenting or caring comes at the cost of appearing credible.
This toxic dynamic can often lead to sudden exits of top talent who simply can’t handle both work and life pressures at the same time.
Making capacity visible and discussable, between individuals and leaders now comfortable having these conversations and thanks to sessions by Talking Talent this removes the need for people to silently endure and accept support rather than hide it.
Leadership confidence in holding flexibility and fairness
Managers often feel uncertain about how to support working parents and carers without creating outside perceptions of unfairness or being seen to patronise individuals already going through a lot.
Without giving leaders sufficient guidance, they don’t have a playbook from which to act. This leads them to offer inconsistent advice or flexibility in an ad hoc way. Even worse, they might avoid the topic entirely for fear of getting it wrong.
This achieves very little. All it causes is frustration within teams who don’t feel prioritised, and discomfort for the individuals receiving support. During our programme, our coaches help leaders develop confidence in holding flexibility while still keeping people accountable.
They also have confidence in having open, respectful conversations about people’s personal situations and what they need from the organisation they work for to operate fully at work.
When flexibility is handled with full transparency, parents and carers trust their leaders more and feel more comfortable asking for support. For wider teams, there is appropriate visibility on the situation, which ensures they don’t feel there are double standards.
Sustaining contribution over time
Supporting working parents and carers is about creating long-term solutions rather than trying to accommodate situations in the short term.
Without codified plans, organisations risk losing experienced talent who feel they have to choose between caring and credibility at work.
The pathways we offer at Talking Talent help organisations design roles, workloads, and expectations which can evolve with life’s changing circumstances.
With this in place, contribution during the workday suddenly becomes far more sustainable because there is greater visibility of people’s personal circumstances, and they are not constantly operating at the edge of their capacity.
This sustainability strengthens talent retention and reduces the need to recruit replacements.
‘Carers are more likely to report anxiety and higher levels
of loneliness compared to non-carers.’
FMCG
Our Partnership with KellanovaWe have a great relationship with Talking Talent, what I was most impressed with is their ability to flex and customize the program to fit our needs.
Technology
Our Partnership with SiemensWe have a great relationship with Talking Talent, what I was most impressed with is their ability to flex and customize the program to fit our needs.
Retail
Our Partnership with M&SWe have a great relationship with Talking Talent, what I was most impressed with is their ability to flex and customize the program to fit our needs.
Making work sustainable alongside care
Caring responsibilities form part of working life and must be acknowledged by organisations so that those with additional roles can stay at work and contribute fully without burning out.
Get in touch with our team to discuss how we can help you design your system so that people don’t have to privately sacrifice.