A Better Future for

Working Parents
A playbook for
leaders and
organizations
 This playbook was born out of a collaboration
between our two organizations—organizations
that are invested in reshaping work for working
parents. We’re building a better future for
caregivers in two different ways: Vivvi works with
leading employers to provide flexible, affordable,
and high quality child care; and Charter works with
organizations to shape priorities around the future
of work and catalyze workplace transformation.

For this guide, we interviewed thought leaders,

working parents, and change agents; we analyzed
the available data; and we researched existing
case studies and best practices. The result is
a comprehensive document that uncovers the
state of working parents today, and that outlines
strategies for organizations and leaders committed
to better supporting caregivers.

We truly hope this helps you transform the way

you work.

Written by Michelle Peng

and Erin Grau

Edited by Kevin J. Delaney

Designed by Ari Curtis

and Breanna Young

A Better Future for Working Parents 2

Special thanks to the
thought leaders we
interviewed for this report:

Emily Oster Reshma Saujani

Economics professor Activist and founder of the
at Brown University Marshall Plan for Moms and
and author of Girls Who Code
Expecting Better,
Cribsheet, and The Lauren Smith Brody
Family Firm Author and founder of
The Fifth Trimester
Allison Whalen
Co-founder and CEO of Pamela Stone
Parentaly Professor of Sociology at
Hunter College and author
Dr. Christin Drake of Opting Out? Why Women
Psychiatrist, women’s Really Quit Careers and
mental health expert, Head Home
and Clinical Assistant
Professor at NYU Charles Bonello
Langone Health Co-founder and CEO of Vivvi

A Better Future for Working Parents 3

Contents
05 Introduction

07 Key takeaways

08 The current state of

working parents

17 Strategies for change

19 Flexibility

25 Benefits

34 Culture

43 Designing workplaces for

working parents: Questions for
leaders and organizations

45 Conclusion

A Better Future for Working Parents 4

Introduction

With students returning to classrooms and

employees returning to the offices they left
17 months ago, one might assume that things
are going back to normal. But as the Delta
variant continues to spread, and the number of
unvaccinated Americans remains high, it has
become clear that we’ll be living with Covid for the
foreseeable future. For working parents, this reality
means grappling with continued uncertainty in care
schedules, with the threat of school shutdowns and
child-care closures, all without the extra support of
pandemic-era subsidies and paid-leave policies.
This unpredictability will only compound the
struggles caregivers faced in the workplace before
the pandemic—a lack of flexibility, inadequate
parental leave policies, a high cost of child care,
and work cultures hostile to the responsibilities
of caregiving.

A Better Future for Working Parents 5

Covid brought to the forefront these issues that
have long affected caregivers in the workplace.
Now is the time to make fundamental shifts in
the way we work. This playbook is for leaders and
organizations who want to be at the forefront of
those changes and who understand that the vast
majority of workplaces have never accommodated
the realities of working parents—especially working
mothers. In it, you’ll find an overview of the current
state of working parents, advice from experts and
organizational leaders, and actionable strategies to
address flexibility, benefits, and culture.

A Better Future for Working Parents 6

Key takeaways

Working parents need flexibility. The pressures

of the pandemic have only increased the need
for policies such as remote and hybrid work,
flexible schedules, part-time positions, and job
shares and returnships. For these policies to
be successful, it’s essential to build formalized,
robust structures to give employees clarity and
ensure equitable implementation.

For most caregivers, existing employer benefits

don’t do enough. To support parents and other
caregivers, companies must provide adequate
paid family leave, child-care benefits, and mental
health and coaching support. At organizations that
already provide these benefits, managers must
provide the education and support that employees
need to take full advantage of them.

Employers must create work cultures that

value caregiving at every step of the employee
life cycle. This means rethinking practices such
as role design, manager training, and performance
evaluation to support and celebrate caregiving.
It also means rejecting outmoded styles of leadership
that focus on output and long hours in favor of
management practices that leave workers with time
for themselves, their families, and their communities.

A Better Future for Working Parents 7

The current state of
working parents

Even before March 2020, working parents

struggled to balance the demands of caregiving
and their careers. “Child care has long been a
drastic, unmet need for working families—driven
by fundamental supply/demand imbalances,
skyrocketing costs and lack of quality, flexible
options aligned with how families live their lives
today,” said Charles Bonello, co-founder and CEO
of Vivvi. “That pain point is not and never was a
cosmetic one—it represents one of the biggest
hurdles to workforce participation, generational
economic mobility and broad economic growth.”

With no federal provisions for paid family leave,

and only 19% of employees with access to any
paid family leave, many new parents face difficult
choices between losing income and taking care of
their children. Those who return to work then face
mounting costs of child care—the single biggest

A Better Future for Working Parents 8

line-item expense for the average family, more than
housing, healthcare, and food. Nationwide, parents
pay 60% of these costs out of pocket, with very
little help from employers, who cover an estimated
1 to 4% of the cost.

The pandemic only heightened the challenges for

caregivers. With schools and child-care centers
closed for remote schooling, many parents found
themselves juggling the demands of caregiving,
homeschooling, and remote working. Pandemic
response measures provided some support for
parents, giving many workers temporary access to
paid leave to care for children affected by school
or child-care center closures. In spite of these
policies, gaps in coverage forced many caregivers
to take unpaid time to care for children. A Kaiser
Family Foundation survey found that among
workers who had to take time off because of school
or child-care closures, 33% of full-time workers
and 74% of part-time workers took unpaid leave.

This pressure has had profound consequences for

workers’ mental health, according to a Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention study.
It found that unpaid caregivers have suffered
worse mental health throughout the pandemic

A Better Future for Working Parents 9

 compared to non-caregivers, with 70% reporting
symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and
other adverse mental-health effects. Among
sandwich-generation caregivers—those that
care for both children and aging parents—85%

Focus on The lack of institutional support for caregivers has been

Working Moms difficult for all parents, but working mothers in particular
have suffered from the increased burden of caregiving
during the pandemic. New data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics found that during the pandemic, mothers spent an
average of 8 hours a day on child care—the equivalent of a
full-time job—while dads spent an average of five hours.

With increased responsibilities at home and inadequate

support from employers, women have exited the workforce
en masse, with the highest dropout rates among Black and
Latina women. In what Vice President Kamala Harris has
called a “national emergency,” almost 2.5 million women
have left the labor force during the pandemic, setting
women back decades. In January 2021, the labor-force
participation among women was the lowest since 1988,
and even as the economy recovers, mothers remain out of
the workforce at higher rates than other groups since the
pandemic started.

A Better Future for Working Parents 10

“We all know as parents, the worst thing
is when your kid is sick in the morning.
And the quarantine is like an expanded
version of the stomach flu.”
EMILY OSTER
Economist and author

reported adverse mental-health symptoms, and

50% reported serious suicide ideation in the
past month. These mental-health outcomes are
not entirely new, however. Dr. Christin Drake, a
psychiatrist, women’s mental-health expert, and
clinical assistant professor at NYU Langone Health
told us that the study “fits with many of the social
challenges we’ve seen exacerbated by Covid, but
there’s long been a mental-health crisis among
parents and caregivers.”

This imbalance has affected parents’ careers

as well. Nearly half of working parents said they
had faced discrimination at work as a result of
family responsibilities during the pandemic.
Managers reported even higher rates, with 54% of
them experiencing such discrimination, according
to a recent survey conducted for Protocol.

A Better Future for Working Parents 11

 Discrimination takes many forms, such as criticism
or being passed over for projects or promotions.

Vivvi’s State of Working Parents Survey,

conducted by Wakefield Research, found that
78% of working parents have missed
work over the past 6 months to care for 68% of working parents said that they’ve had to
their children, averaging 5 times take on fewer responsibilities at work because of
child-care issues; and yet 66% of moms believed
that speaking up about child-care struggles makes
them seem like a “problem employee.”

Looking ahead, parents face an uncertain future.

School reopenings continue to vary by state and
In the past month, 54% of working district, and ambiguity remains for the 2021-2022
parents worked outside normal hours
to make up time missed caring for their school year. With the spread of the Delta variant,
children, for an average of 7 times Covid outbreaks may lead to temporary closures
of schools and day-care centers. Economist and
author Emily Oster compares these disruptions to
the stress of figuring out child-care arrangements
when a child is out sick from school: “We all know
as parents, the worst thing is when your kid is
sick in the morning. And the quarantine is like an
expanded version of the stomach flu.” With the
66% of working parents are feeling
burnt out at work threat of these disruptions looming, robust support
structures for parents of school-aged children
SOURCE
Vivvi State of Working Parents Survey become even more important.

A Better Future for Working Parents 12

 For families with children under five, child-
care availability is often the greatest source of
uncertainty. Throughout the pandemic, surveys
of child-care providers have reported staffing
shortages and budgetary shortfalls, which have led
many centers to close or reduce staff. One-third
of child-care centers remain closed, affecting a
Three out of four parents who have greater number of Black, Latino, and Asian families
reported having some kind of child-
care benefits said they don’t meet than White families. As parents return to the
their current needs workplace, they face reduced capacity and longer
waitlists for child care as providers struggle to
regain their financial footing and recruit and
retain staff members.

With many pandemic response policies expiring

this fall, including employer tax breaks for paid
family leave, lawmakers are currently debating
more long-term provisions to support parents.
Several ambitious legislative proposals have been
82% of working parents say the
pandemic has made employer- introduced in Congress that could make child care
provided child-care benefits more
important to them more affordable, increase quality of care, invest
in the child-care workforce, and expand access to
paid family and medical leave, including fertility
benefits and leave for miscarriage.

“I’m seeing an exacerbation of the previous

SOURCE
Vivvi State of Working Parents Survey situation in which this whole system of parents

A Better Future for Working Parents 13

“The example set by the government is
that supporting families is not a priority.
I think that message comes across loud
and clear.”
DR. CHRISTIN DRAKE
Psychiatrist and NYU Langone Health Clinical Assistant Professor

working, mothers working has been held together

by duct tape and favors. There’s been so little
support for working mothers historically, and so
much of it has had to come from resources that
families can put together for themselves. Employers
aren’t providing it, the government isn’t providing it.
This is where we see the compounding effect of
structural inequity,” Dr. Drake told us. “The example
set by the government is that supporting families
is not a priority. I think that message comes across
loud and clear.”

For now, in the absence of political solutions and

public investment for caregivers, many parents
are looking to employers for the solution—more
flexibility, more child-care support, and more
empathy and understanding. And they have been
clear in voicing this desire. One survey conducted

A Better Future for Working Parents 14

by the Marshall Plan for Moms found that over a
third of working moms “felt little to no support
from their employers.” “The narrative is still, people
don’t want to come to work because they don’t
want to work. And that is just simply not true,”
Reshma Saujani, activist and founder of the Marshall
Plan for Moms and Girls Who Code, told us. “We
have to change that narrative and we have to offer
flexibility, and we have to design it in a way that
creates equality, and doesn’t exacerbate inequality.”
Making these investments for caregivers can change
the equation for working parents and their families,
but it also makes business sense—companies that
have caregiving benefits and flexible work policies
see returns on their investment through recruiting,
retention, and productivity.

A Better Future for Working Parents 15

Economic recovery and the
caregiver industry

We asked Lauren Smith Brody, the author of The Fifth

Trimester and founder of The Fifth Trimester consulting,
about the economic recovery for parents. Here’s what she
told us:

“A recent report from economist Jessica Brown of the

University of South Carolina demonstrates how much
longer it’s going to take the child-care industry to recover
than every other industry. Ninety percent of caregivers
are mothers themselves; 60% of child care businesses
are minority-owned, and of course we know that
BIPOC families were disproportionately impacted by the
pandemic; the industry was already a mess, with half of
America living in a child care desert.

“Therefore, if we go back to ‘business as usual,’ without

an appropriate ramp-up for caregivers, parents will be left
behind. And anyone with less-urgent caregiving needs will
move ahead, creating a K-shaped, totally inequitable, recovery.
With 60% of dual income families relying on center-based
child care, the gender wage gap would increase by 5%.”

A Better Future for Working Parents 16

Strategies for
change

As organizations return to the office, leaders

have an opportunity to redefine what it means
to be a caregiver in the workplace. The pandemic
has helped us break unnecessarily rigid patterns of
the past; the work now is to ensure that flexibility
is here to stay. Parents—and their families—are
counting on an overhaul of workplace policies to
thrive at the office and at home. In this section,
you’ll find actionable strategies organized under
three categories:

Flexibility: policies that will give caregivers greater

control over when and where they work

Benefits: services and support companies can offer

directly to employees

Culture: ways managers and leaders can build

an environment that celebrates and supports
caregivers in the long term

A Better Future for Working Parents 17

 In particular, we focus on how individual managers
can support broader changes. Managers who have
a narrow scope of influence over organizational
policy still have major influence over caregivers’
experience at work. Managers often have the
power to negotiate flexible schedules, dictate
project assignments, educate caregivers on
company benefits, and set the tone around
caregiving and company culture. To build a new
kind of workplace where caregivers—and workers
of all kinds—can thrive, managers must learn to
excel at a new style of leadership that prioritizes
empathy, humility, and compassion.

Broaden your While this guide is focused on working parents, many of the
definition of who recommendations apply to all caregivers. It’s important for
“counts” as a organizations to expand the definition of caregiver to include
caregiver all caregivers: people caring for older children with learning
disabilities, aging relatives, relatives with physical or mental
health needs. “When orgs realize how universal caregiving is
and adjust their policies accordingly, they remove the stigma
and the risk of discrimination,” Brody explains. “We all need
flexibility. We all need a living wage. We all need to feel valued
as whole people.”

A Better Future for Working Parents 18

 Flexibility

Caregivers have been asking for greater flexibility

for years. A 2018 Harvard Business Review survey
found that a third of respondents thought the
structure of their workday made it difficult “to be
the type of parent they want to be.” During the
pandemic, parents had an even greater need for
flexibility, with one BCG study finding that the
average parent spent 27 more hours on care per
week than before the pandemic.

At the same time, workers and managers have

PARENT shown that strategies like remote and hybrid
PERSPECTIVE work, asynchronous work, and flexible schedules
“It’s a lose-lose almost all are not only effective, but essential for caregivers
of the time. You’re either attempting to meet the demands of home and work.
sacrificing career growth
As we move forward, workplace leaders should
to be with your kids more
often or you’re sacrificing preserve this flexibility and combine it with other
time at home and tabling policies such as part-time schedules and job shares.
bigger ambitions at work.
And regardless of your
It’s important to remember that flexibility only
choice to be at home or
work more often I am works if it’s deliberate. People—and especially
always left with guilt that working parents—thrive when they have clear
I’m not doing either as well expectations within their flexibility, so be explicit
as I should or could if I had
about expectations.
more time or more help.”

REBECCA GROSS Create systems for remote and hybrid work, and
Head of Partner Management at
Outbrain and mother of three encourage working asynchronously to maintain

A Better Future for Working Parents 19

 flexible schedules. Caregiving responsibilities
don’t conform to the 9-5 workday, and rigid
schedules that tie parents to the office only make
juggling those responsibilities harder. Giving
parents greater flexibility to determine their
schedules or work remotely will help parents
94% of working parents say they would
benefit from flexible work arrangements make the 3pm pick up or enjoy family dinner—
whether that’s hybrid working, restructuring the
workday, or restructuring the workweek. Each
of these options requires employees to work
asynchronously, rather than replicating the office
remotely. While that change may have a learning
curve, it will benefit caregivers and improve
retention. When they had remote-work options,
66% of parents agreed that they would women with child-care responsibilities were 32%
benefit from an alternative schedule (no
one type of schedule rose to the top) less likely to report an intention to leave their jobs,
39% of parents would like the according to a Catalyst survey of workers globally.
ability to work any time

20% are interested in alternate Advice for managers

weekly schedules outside of the
Monday-Friday 9-5
Encourage asynchronous work by setting
26% would benefit from
starting or ending their workdays limited core coordination hours—windows
at different times where all employees are expected to be online for
meetings and other synchronous work.

Move away from meetings in favor of written

SOURCE
Vivvi State of Working Parents Survey communication and digital collaboration tools.

A Better Future for Working Parents 20

 Twitter is one example of an asynchronous-first
company that has promoted these strategies, with
the use of Slack and document sharing taking the
place of in-person or Zoom meetings. This shift
maintains lines of communication while allowing
working parents to make time for both focused
work and caregiving responsibilities.

“The pandemic kind of Too often flexible schedules lead to employees

forced us to figure out some
being on calls around the clock. But managers can
things about how we can
make remote work possible. help employees guard their time through daily or
I would hope ideally that weekly rituals that signal the end of the workday or
coming out of that we would workweek. For Christy Johnson, co-founder of all-
have an opportunity to say,
remote consulting firm Artemis Connection, this
‘Hey, I’ve shown you that I
can work from home. So ritual takes the form of a Friday afternoon meeting
like, maybe it’s okay if I go that serves as a “bookend to the week.”
home at 5pm. And then I
work at home from 8pm to
Offer part-time schedules, and support
10pm because I’ve been at
home for the whole last year caregivers in maintaining their careers even
and it’s been fine.’ There’s with reduced hours. “Many working parents
an opportunity to make are feeling burned out and starting to consider
that work and to make that
moving into contractor roles or other part-time
work better, particularly for
working women.” work opportunities. Companies that formalize
a part-time option that is still meaningful and
EMILY OSTER
Economics professor at Brown intellectually challenging will likely retain more
University and author of
parent employees,” advises Allison Whalen,
Expecting Better, Cribsheet,
and The Family Firm co-founder and CEO of Parentaly. Shifting to

A Better Future for Working Parents 21

“The pandemic kind of forced us to
figure out some things about how we
can make remote work possible.”
EMILY OSTER
Economics professor at Brown University and author of
Expecting Better, Cribsheet, and The Family Firm

part-time work can help working parents juggle

the responsibilities of caregiving and their jobs,
but parents—especially mothers—who work part
time often face unexpected challenges, from being
put on the “mommy track” and experiencing
schedule creep to losing benefits.

Advice for managers

When caregivers shift to part time,

continue to give them the same kinds of projects
they received when they were working full time.
Their work should remain just as engaging and
valuable as before.

Empower caregivers to express their priorities

and guard their time against schedule creep. Work
to create explicit priorities and expectations. How
many hours a week will they be online/in the office?

A Better Future for Working Parents 22

 Which days/hours? What is the expectation around
meetings and urgent tasks on days off?

Ensure that caregivers aren’t penalized for

taking part-time work with curtailed benefits.
Making the decision to reduce hours shouldn’t be a
choice between health insurance/maternity leave
and time for caregiving responsibilities.

Redesign roles as job shares or returnships to

accommodate the schedules and responsibilities
of caregivers. Restructuring existing roles as job
shares can open up high-intensity, full-time work
to caregivers who are qualified and passionate
about the work but can’t commit to the schedule.
PARENT Similarly, returnships can be a lifeline for workers
PERSPECTIVE who have taken a career break to become a full-
“Despite flexibility in my time caregiver. Designed as short-term positions to
current and previous help individuals on-ramp after a break from work,
positions, I still find it returnships help caregivers gain experience and
difficult to successfully
reskill for their reentry into the workforce.
navigate the intricacies of
building and maintaining
relationships, and excelling Create systems and structures to ensure
at the job.” equitable access to flex arrangements. Studies
SOOYUN HONG have shown that when flexibility is given on an ad-
Investment strategy analyst
hoc basis, women with caregiving responsibilities
at BMO Capital Markets and
mother of three tend to be denied requests more often than men.

A Better Future for Working Parents 23

Clear, consistent policies will empower employees
to take advantage of flexibility while cutting down
on biases. Additionally, developing robust data-
tracking systems can help leaders assess flexibility
policies for biased applications.

A Better Future for Working Parents 24

Benefits

The United States has reached an inflection

point for policies governing benefits for working
parents. For the first time in years, lawmakers
are seriously considering creating a national
mandate for paid family leave and universal child-
care benefits, including fertility benefits and leave
for miscarriage. To transform workplaces for all
working parents, business leaders should support
efforts for permanent, structural change. The post-
pandemic reset is an opportunity for employers to
lead the way by implementing progressive benefits
policies for their own employees. Doing so will set
the tone for the national conversation, and working
parents can’t wait.

Offer paid family leave for all caregivers, and

encourage all parents to take full advantage of
their leave, especially fathers. In 2019, just 19%
of American workers had benefits that included
paid family leave—provisions that allow workers
to take time off to care for a sick family member
or new child. Paid family leave helps caregivers
devote time to their families during key transitions
without having to worry about losing their income
or position. For these reasons, the benefit has
been shown to be critical for attracting and
retaining workers.

A Better Future for Working Parents 25

In particular, encourage fathers to take leave.
According to data from the Department of Labor,
of the 90% of fathers who take parental leave for
the birth of a child, 70% take fewer than 10 days
of leave. For Saujani, it’s companies that stigmatize
and penalize parental leave that should be held
responsible for this low rate of use. “I think
men want to take it.” she says. “They want to be
with their kids too. But we haven’t created that
corporate cultural environment.”

Advice for managers

Be intentional about handoffs. Clear

communication in advance of leave helps everyone
on the team establish expectations for shifting
responsibilities. It also helps managers and
employees set guidelines for communication during

A Better Future for Working Parents 26

 leave, if any, and helps employees feel empowered
to unplug during their leave.

Paid leave shouldn’t mean a pay cut.

Compensate employees fairly even while they
are on leave. Doing so is especially important for
supporting new fathers. Research has found that
men are only willing to take their full amount of
leave if it’s compensated at 70%-90% of their
“Most big companies have very previous income, due to financial concerns.
progressive parental leave
policies, but they have to make
Be intentional about the language
sure they’re giving permission
to dads to take leave, and surrounding paid family leave. It’s for more
promoting fathers taking full than just new birth mothers. It’s also a critical
leave. From what I understand, support for fathers, for parents of any gender
there is still a hesitation on
who adopt or foster, and for workers caring for
the part of men to take the full
parental leave. … Men are afraid a sick family member or themselves.
to take anywhere near the full
allotment of paid leave for fear Help working parents pay for child care.
of the repercussions. Women
While some companies are offsetting the high
feel the current repercussions,
but they take leave anyway cost of caregiving by providing child-care benefits,
because caregiving is still they are in the minority. Without legislative action,
largely their responsibility.” the pandemic-related labor shortages and center
PAMELA STONE closures may only cause increased costs—more
Professor of Sociology at Hunter
than many parents can bear. For employers,
College and author of Opting Out?
Why Women Really Quit Careers and there are a range of ways to support child care,
Head Home

A Better Future for Working Parents 27

from providing dependent care flexible spending
accounts and offering child-care reimbursements
to subsidizing child-care costs and opening on-site
child-care centers.

Because not every family’s caregiving needs are

the same, it’s important to involve parents in
designing policies. Two in five working women
surveyed by Vivvi reported that working parents
weren’t involved at all in determining company
benefits (21% of men say the same). Instead, work
with a caregiving employee resource group
(ERG), host a design session, or field a survey of
parents to help tailor child-care benefits based on
children’s ages, existing child-care situations, and
current gaps in care.

Providing or subsidizing backup child care is one

way employers can support working parents.
Meant as a supplement to existing child-
care arrangements, caregivers can rely on
these emergency child-care services when an
unexpected gap occurs. “When child care falls
through, it can be cost-prohibitive and logistically
challenging for working parents to find their own
backup child care,” Whalen tells us. “Providing
backup child care has immediate ROI on the

A Better Future for Working Parents 28

“Providing backup child care has
immediate ROI on the business as it
allows employees to continue to work,
and employees feel incredibly grateful
to have access to this benefit.”
ALLISON WHALEN
Co-founder and CEO of Parentaly

business as it allows employees to continue to

work, and employees feel incredibly grateful to
have access to this benefit.”

It’s also a benefit that is gaining traction. A fall 2020

Willis Towers Watson survey of 533 employers
found that while just a third of employers surveyed
already offered backup care, a comparable number
of employers considered adding or planned to add
the benefit. As more companies seek to attract and
retain employees during the economic recovery,
the trend has continued into 2021. It includes some
of the country’s biggest brands, like McDonald’s,
which has begun piloting backup child- and elder-
care programs at some franchises.

A Better Future for Working Parents 29

Providing flexible child-care credits or stipends
is another way to help families meet their unique
child-care needs. Vivvi is one organization that
works with companies to provide credits that can
be applied towards in-home care, after-school
tutoring, in-office care, or Vivvi’s campuses.
Dropbox offers stipends directly to its employees,
which can be used for a number of child-care
options. The remote-first company rolled out
an allowance of $7,000 per year for employee
wellbeing and caregiving needs. By giving families
multiple options for high-quality care, both
of these options give parents greater levels of
flexibility and control.

Advice for managers

Educate employees on available child-

care benefits—workers can’t take full advantage
of benefits they don’t understand. A 2021 Voya
Financial survey found that one-third of workers
don’t understand the benefits they’re enrolled
in, and two-thirds of workers want more help
understanding their benefits.

Support caregivers’ wellbeing through mental

health benefits and access to coaching,

A Better Future for Working Parents 30

especially during critical transition periods.
It’s essential to support caregivers in caring for
themselves—as well as their families—if they are
to thrive in the workplace. Because of the toll the
pandemic has taken on working parents, mental
health benefits are more important than ever,
and many companies have started answering
this call. In spring 2021, a care.com survey of
500 organizational leaders found that almost half
of companies planned to expand mental health
benefits. Similarly, providing professional coaching
can support caregivers in their professional lives,
especially during key transition moments, like a
return from parental leave, a move to part time, or a
change in job role.

A Better Future for Working Parents 31

Spotlight on Patagonia

Patagonia has long been held up as Tessa Byars told us. She works in
an example of a company making brand and internal communications at
work/life balance possible. It retains Patagonia, and is also a mother of two
about 95% of working mothers thanks children enrolled in the program.
to subsidized on-site child care, and a This allows parents to eat lunch with their
culture that supports (and celebrates!) children, make it for milestones, like first
working parents. Integrating children steps, and supports nursing moms to feed
into the workday positively impacts the their children throughout the day.
culture, says Dean Carter, Patagonia’s
chief human resources officer. Another 3. Increased minimum wage.
positive effect: more women ascend into Last fall, Patagonia increased its
leadership positions. minimum wage to $15/hour or the MIT
Living Wage, whichever is higher, and
How Patagonia supports increased the salaries of hourly workers,
working parents which included the teachers at its child-
care centers.
1. On-site child care. Subsidized
on-site child care on three Patagonia 4. Additional child-care stipend.
campuses, serving children from infancy Patagonia offered additional child-
to kindergarten. During the pandemic, care stipends to parents who qualify
they shifted to pods with family financially, but aren’t in a place where
members and expanded age groups, but there is an on-site child-care center.
pre-pandemic their classrooms were It also provides “precautionary pay”
for infants to two-year olds, two to three for employees who can’t work because
and-a-half years old, and three-and-a- they’re suffering from Covid, exposed
half to kindergarten. to Covid, or if their child-care center or
school is closed.
2. Culture of support for working
parents. The child-care center and play “It’s not just that I’m dedicated to staying
yard is “at the center of our community,” here because this is my child care,” says

A Better Future for Working Parents 32

Byars. “You have a deep appreciation for a Public Policy
company that meets your needs beyond just
a desk and a computer. I was able to nurse In addition to supporting its employees
both of my children on site, and travel (for internally, Patagonia advocates for
work) with assistance through the program.” policies at the federal level, including paid
family leave. Both company leadership
Costs and Patagonia parents have spoken
to numerous government agencies.
Patagonia has been transparent about “We think this is something that should
how it pays for the program. First the be incentivized and supported by the
costs: 80% labor, 14% real estate, 4% government, and also businesses should
equipment, 2% insurance. Patagonia pays offer (it),” Byars says. “We have a use
for it with tuition (40%), tax abatement case of almost 40 years to prove that it is
(21%), and increased retention and beneficial, helps with retention, employee
engagement of employees. satisfaction, productivity, and wellbeing.”

A Better Future for Working Parents 33

Culture

Even with robust policies for flexibility and

benefits, caregivers can’t succeed unless
employers build a culture that values caregiving
and considers caregiving across the employee
life cycle. Culture is enduring, and creating an
environment that celebrates caregiving while
allowing employees to have time and space for their

A Better Future for Working Parents 34

 families, friends, and communities will ensure that
companies can weather any crisis with empathy
and compassion for caregivers.

In thinking about shaping culture at every stage,

it’s key to make the implicit explicit. Workers,
especially working parents, need transparent,
consistent policies to have the clarity they need to
succeed. There should be no guesswork involved
in understanding workplace policies and benefits,
whether they relate to family leave and child-
“There’s an uncertainty tax
for mothers where you don’t care benefits or pay, promotion, and bonuses.
know exactly what you’re In this section, we focus on three key phases of
entitled to, how much you the employee life cycle: recruitment, environment,
may earn in the years when
and advancement, and how employers can rethink
you are having children,
what it will set you back in them to provide caregivers clarity and support.
terms of career, or what the
expectations will be when you RECRUITMENT
return. That’s another area
that’s compounded, multiplied Consider caregiving obligations when designing
for people who belong to roles. When recruiting, design roles to have
marginalized groups, so
the flexibility caregivers need. Doing so could
mothers of color deal with this
more than others do.” have a huge impact on gender parity within an
organization. When Zurich Insurance added six
DR. CHRISTIN DRAKE
Psychiatrist, women’s mental words to its job postings in 2020, applications
health expert, and clinical
by women for management roles jumped 20%.
assistant professor at NYU
Langone Health The words were “part-time, job share, or flexible

A Better Future for Working Parents 35

working,” as the company highlighted the
possibility of flexible work arrangements.

Recruiting materials should also include detailed

information about essential benefits that affect
caregivers, like child care, paid family leave, and
flexibility policies. Company overviews should go
beyond listing the policies, and provide statistics on
how they’re used. For example, if the organization
provides paid family leave, how long does the leave
cover? Is it available to caregivers of aging parents
or adopted children, or just new birth parents?
What percent of the full leave do employees use?
Do fathers use it at the same rate as mothers?
Providing answers to questions like these helps
potential employees set accurate expectations and
promote transparency.

ENVIRONMENT

Ensure that caregiving is visible and supported.

Encourage transparency around parenting and
employee schedules. Doing so will help start
conversations about caregiving and reduce the
stigma on caregivers in the workplace. Employees
may be reluctant to talk about their caregiving
obligations unless managers lead the way.

A Better Future for Working Parents 36

 Advice for managers

Model key behaviors by using a “caregiving”

status update and being transparent about your
own caregiving obligations. Future Forum’s
Helen Kupp suggests setting norms by making
“caregiving” a standard profile status in Slack (or
your company’s communication tool).

Show empathy and flexibility if parents

lose child care. “Managers should have open and
productive conversations with their direct reports
about changing timelines, deadlines, and work
hours if a working parent loses child care,” says
Whalen, adding that “recent research shows that
employees value ‘autonomous respect’ above any
PARENT other benefit a company could provide.”
PERSPECTIVE

“Our current parents ERG Create a network of caregivers. To retain working

is a lifeline. But parenting parents, it’s essential to build systems to support
during the pandemic has
them through different stages of parenting.
been hard with school
closings and I worry about Employee resource groups (ERGs) are officially
being able to get all of my chartered networks of employees who share a
work done.” common identity—like gender, ethnicity, sexual
EMILY GOLIGOSKI orientation, caregiver—and come together around a
Senior director audience
unifying mission. Caregiver ERGs or women’s ERGs
research at The Atlantic
and mother of two focused on caregiving can increase retention by

A Better Future for Working Parents 37

driving employee engagement, educating others,
supporting diverse talent pipelines, and helping
to shape policies and benefits. The most effective
ERGs create tight feedback loops among members
for internal practices and compensate their
leaders, a practice currently in place at Twitter and
LinkedIn. For more of Charter’s best practices on
setting up ERGs, read the Charter briefing.

Advice for managers

Reward individual contributions to retention-

driving work like ERGs, mentorship, and education.
Help employees identify the skills and equip them to
talk about this work and its impact (does it support
retention? improve employee sentiment?) in their
performance reviews and self-assessments.

Support transitions. It’s also critical to support

parents as they return to work from parental
leave. Help new parents readjust to the rhythms
of work through services like career coaching and
a gradual on-ramping. For parents who spent a
longer time out of the workforce, more support
may be needed, such as dedicated orientation, skill-
building trainings, and a dedicated mentor.

A Better Future for Working Parents 38

Advice for managers

Help employees returning from family leave

on-ramp by having explicit conversations about
timelines and expectations. Check in often about
parents’ workloads and adjust accordingly.

Make sure caregivers—and employees of all

kinds—have breaks. The pandemic exacerbated
already long hours among knowledge workers,
putting increased pressure on caregivers juggling
responsibilities at home and at work. To make sure
that working parents are able to meet both sets
of expectations, it’s essential to give them more
time away from work through shorter workweeks
and access to paid time off. Multiple studies have

A Better Future for Working Parents 39

shown that reducing the hours worked leads to
improved worker wellbeing without impacting
productivity or performance. Time off of work
is similarly essential to maintaining workers’
performance and wellbeing. Like athletes, peak
performance demands cycles of rest and recovery,
and breaks enable individuals to come back to work
refreshed, more productive, more creative, often
with big ideas and renewed energy.

Advice for managers

Empower direct reports to guard their time

by being clear and consistent about scheduling
and communication. Talk through expectations
about when individuals are online, and when
they’re expected to respond.

Celebrate taking breaks as a mark of

intelligence and high performance, not
laziness, and work to build “rest ethic” among
direct reports.

When employees take time off, be

intentional about handoffs. Encourage workers to
set their own boundaries about communication,
whether that means completely unplugging or
limited messages. Facilitate the delegation of

A Better Future for Working Parents 40

“We had never built workforces that
worked for moms. And I think Covid
showed us that the structure of
motherhood is breaking, if not broken,
and we have to re-imagine motherhood
once and for all, because America
doesn’t work without its moms.”
RESHMA SAUJANI
Activist and founder of the Marshall Plan for Moms and Girls Who Code

responsibilities, and frame their absence as an

opportunity for cross-training teams.

ADVANCEMENT

Recognize caregiving obligations in performance

reviews. When it’s time for performance
evaluations, factor in caregiving obligations and
non-core work within the organization. Covid was
a burden on parents who were already stretched
thin, with major implications for both performance
and the talent pipeline. Close to half of working
parents feel their performance has decreased.
At the same time, it’s not uncommon for employees
from underrepresented backgrounds—such as

A Better Future for Working Parents 41

working mothers—to do additional labor outside
of their core job function, like lending their
perspectives, recruiting diverse candidates, and
mentoring others. To accurately evaluate the
contributions of caregivers, analyze performance
ratings to check for racial, gender, workplace
preference and caregiver bias, and include inclusion
and retention-driving work to the performance
review process and rubrics. Finally, make decisions
about promotions based on long-term performance
trends and the future potential of employees.

Advice for managers

When evaluating employees, be conscious of

your own biases and address bias when you witness
it in others.

Check for proximity bias and bias against

caregivers, and educate yourself and others on the
effects of these biases.

Educate yourself on “maternal wall bias,”

the discrimination that occurs when mothers are
viewed as less competent or committed to
their jobs. Don’t overlook mothers for promotions
or top assignments because you assume they don’t
have the time or interest.

A Better Future for Working Parents 42

Designing workplaces
for working parents:
Questions for leaders and
organizations

FLEXIBILITY have the same access to promotions

and bonuses?
Give individual employees greater
control over their schedules and — Do you currently offer job shares or
careers. returnships? If not, are there roles that
can be restructured for that purpose?
— How does your organization give
working parents flexibility to set their — Are your policies around flexibility and
schedules (remote and hybrid options, part-time work clear and consistent?
non-traditional hours, flex days)? How do they affect workers differently
along axes of race, gender, disability, and
— What policies and practices do other identities?
you have in place to encourage
asynchronous work? BENEFITS

— Which roles on your team can be Create benefits packages that meet the
done part time? What kinds of projects needs of caregivers and their families.
and teams do individuals in these roles
work on? — What does your benefits package
look like for workers at every level of
— How many hours a week do part-time your organization? Do they include paid
workers work, and how do managers at family leave, child-care benefits, mental
your organization help part-time workers health benefits, and/or coaching?
protect their time?
— Which groups of caregivers have
— What does the career track for access to paid family leave, and how
part-time workers look like? Do they much leave do they typically take?

A Better Future for Working Parents 43

Pay particular attention to fathers, — Is caregiving visible at your
adoptive parents, and workers caring for organization? Are individuals open
parents or adult dependents. about their caregiving responsibilities?
Are leaders in the organization open
— How does taking parental leave or family about their caregiving responsibilities?
leave affect workers’ careers or incomes?
— What training do managers receive
— How much are parents at your to understand and embrace caregiving
organization paying for child care? responsibilities while combating
caregiving bias?
— What are parents’ existing child-care
arrangements, and what are the gaps in — How do performance evaluations
their needs? account for caregiving responsibilities?
How do they evaluate non-core work that
— What happens when child-care drives inclusivity and retention?
arrangements fall through? How do
managers and leaders respond? — How do pay, promotion, and
bonus structures affect caregivers
— How are you educating employees on differently from non-caregivers?
the benefits available to them? Do they Are there caregivers at high levels of
understand what they are and how to your organization?
use them?
— How do you support employees
CULTURE returning to work from family leave?
How do you support parents returning to
Build an environment that supports work from more extended time off?
and celebrates caregivers throughout
their career. —Do you have ERGs at your
organization? If so, are leaders
— As you recruit, how do open roles compensated? Do they have
accommodate caregiver needs as governance structures and internal
designed? policies?

— Do you have detailed information —How many hours a week are your
and statistics about benefits and employees typically online? How often
flexibility policies available for recruits? do they take time off?

A Better Future for Working Parents 44

Conclusion

The effects of the pandemic showed many

employers what most working parents already
knew: the way we work doesn’t work for
caregivers. As organizations look forward to
returning to the workplace, avoid returning to the
old ways of work. Instead, we urge leaders to build a
new kind of workplace—one where working parents
have the power to dictate flexible schedules and
take part-time roles; can count on high quality,
affordable child care and paid family leave; and
work in an environment that supports, respects,
and celebrates caregivers. It’s up to organizational
leaders and individual managers to start building
that future.

A Better Future for Working Parents 45

About Charter

Charter is a media and services company designed

to transform every workplace. We do this by
equipping individuals and teams with research-
backed tools and information for creating more
dynamic and equitable organizations. The world of
business is at an inflection point. Charter serves as
a guide and vital partner to the people who want to
take best advantage of this opportunity to catalyze
change. Our offerings include an email newsletter,
website, training program, events, workshops,
and community. We are just getting started.
charterworks.com

About Vivvi

Vivvi provides child care and early learning for

today’s families. We work with employers of all
sizes to make exceptional care and learning more
accessible and affordable. With trained, passionate
teachers, flexible offerings and global coverage
across beautiful campuses, in-home, in-office, and
virtual tutoring offerings, we provide parents with
peace of mind while offering employers a powerful
tool for recruitment, retention and productivity.
vivvi.com

Published August 25, 2021

A Better Future for Working Parents 46