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Many working moms and dads alike reveal that the combination of work and family responsibilities is causing anxiety and depression and is keeping them from doing their best at work. The good news is parents and managers agree on one important thing: the solution to this problem rests in the workplace.
Key findings in this new survey show:
- Working parents aren’t speaking up in the workplace and they’re leaving their managers in the dark.
- Sixty-two percent of working parents feel their employer simply doesn’t care about them.
- Fifty-six percent of working parents aren’t happy at their current job.
- Ninety-eight percent of working parents say they’ve experienced burnout.
- Sixty-four percent don’t feel their employer is attentive to the needs of working parents.
- Forty-eight percent of working parents are stressed about managing their health today, an increase from 41% in 2014.
- Seventy-seven percent of working parents say burnout has caused them to become depressed, anxious, or get sick more often.
- Seventy-nine percent of working parents and 77% of managers agree a change needs to be made at the office—not at home—to curb burnout.
The study, the second annual Modern Family Index commissioned by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, explored the challenges working parents have in managing their work and family responsibilities and the impact these challenges have on employers.
Learn how to keep your employees happy and working with the second HR Playbook from BLR®. Check out Employee Retention and Satisfaction: How to Attract, Retain, and Engage the Best Talent at Your Organization.
Working Parents are Suffering in Silence
The study found that working mothers and fathers feel it’s extremely important to work for a company that supports the needs of working parents (62%) and has a culture that addresses their family responsibilities (53%).
However, there is a growing disconnect between managers and employees about how working parents are feeling. This may be attributed to the fact that even in 2015, moms and dads are reluctant to share their concerns with their employers.
- Seventy-five percent of working parents say they are unlikely to speak up about their employer being insensitive to their needs as caregivers.
- Seventy-seven percent would avoid airing a grievance about a lack of work/life balance.
- Sixty-one percent don’t feel supported by their employer when it comes to attending a child’s event, like a performance or game.
As a result of this silent suffering, managers just don’t see the magnitude of the problem. When asked if they were concerned about working parents:
- Barely one-third (34%) of managers have concerns that working parents struggle to balance work and life.
- Less than one-third of managers (30%) worry about whether the working parents they supervise feel their company doesn’t care about them.
Once you have top talent, be sure to retain them! It’s all in BLR®’s HR Playbook, Employee Retention and Satisfaction: How to Attract, Retain, and Engage the Best Talent at Your Organization. Learn more now.
Dads Increasingly Feeling the Work/life Struggle
This year’s study continues to show the increasing value dads place on family time, and that being there for their children and family more often supersedes their responsibilities to financially support them.
Yet results show that managers seem stuck with the outdated notion of gender roles and fail to understand that work/family balance is no longer just an issue for moms:
- More than one-half (52%) of dads are stressed about maintaining work/life balance today. This stress is more common than stress around saving for a child’s college education (48%) or trying to advance in their job (37%).
- Managers, however, assume dads are mainly hung up on professional and financial stresses, with 72% believing that the cost of sending their kids to college is stressful and 60% saying professional advancement is stressful for working dads.
- Among working dads, lack of family time (46%) was a more likely cause for burnout than not advancing in their job (40%), dealing with a difficult project or client (27%), or traveling too much for work (20%); though only just over one-third (34%) of managers think lack of family time would be cause for working-dad burnout.
- Dads would also be just as likely to quit their job as a result of a lack of work/life balance (16%) as not getting promoted (16%) and having a change in career goals (15%).
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll discuss what can be done to keep these valuable employees working in top form, plus an introduction to BLR’s Playbook #2, Employee Retention and Satisfaction: How to Attract, Retain, and Engage the Best Talent at Your Organization.