Monday, January 9, 2012

12 Ways to Support Your Working Parents in 2012 - Practical Tips and Ideas!

1.      ‘Career After Kids’ Seminar – 2.5hr seminar to help your parents return to work and manage work life balance.

With reputable career coaches your presenters, this seminar is designed exclusively for mums and dads needing assistance to:

·         Plan and prepare to re-enter the workplace
·         Review their career and explore flexible work options
·         Create work life happiness and manage their career as a working parent

Going back to work after full time parenting can be daunting, even when you have a job you love! Support the parents in your organisation to return to work and balance career and family with ‘Career After Kids’.


2.      Start a Stay-in-Touch Program – let mums@work develop and run it for you with our Stay-in-Touch Program.

To ensure your employees experience a smooth transition to and from parental leave, it’s vital to offer a ‘stay-in-touch’ service which allows you to continually communicate with employees at home. mums@work is making it easier for you to stay connected to your parents on leave and retain talent with our ‘stay-in-touch’ program. We can help your business create a parental leave program and better still manage the program for you, making it easier for managers and employees to transition to and from parental leave.


3.      Offer maternity leave and return to work coaching support –see our Coaching Gift Certificates!

It’s no longer enough to offer paid maternity leave if you want to be successful in retaining quality talent. Make the transition of having a family and going back to work a successful one for both your organisation and your employees. Make return to work coaching a part of your organisation’s family friendly initiatives. Provide your parents with access to a working parent career coach to assist them in:

·         Preparing for parental leave
·         Explore and implement a viable flexible work arrangement
·         Discuss and navigate the return to work process and transition from parenthood back to work
·         Consider future career path options within the organisation post parenthood
·         Improve work and family balance


4.      Create a Working Parents Toolkit.

The mums@work Working Parents Toolkit provides companies with all the information and resources you need to successfully manage your working parents. It is designed to specifically support:

·         Expectant parents
·         Employees on parental leave
·         Working parents

The Toolkit makes the transition to parenthood and return to work that much easier with valuable insight, legal requirements and advice from experts in the fields of career management, human resources and childcare, as well as real-world working parents.
 

5.    Implement a ‘Manage Your Own Career’ workshop for parents balancing work and family.

Help your working parents take control of their own career and empower them to take initiative in all stages of their career through having a baby, returning to work and managing work life balance. Offer advice for surviving and thriving as a working parent, how to keep your career on track and creating work life happiness.
 

6.      Audit your family friendly and flexible work practices –survey and find out what your working parents need!

Hold discussion groups to give your employees a forum to provide feedback.


7.      Offer a ‘Preparing for Parental Leave Package’ to expectant mums and dads that include a Coaching Session and copy of ‘Towards Parenthood’ Guide.

About the ‘Towards Parenthood publication’ – This guidebook aims to assist parents manage the complex demands of parenting; strengthen the couple relationship and the relationship between parents and infants. Skills in coping, problem-solving, enhancing self-esteem, assertive communication, bonding with your baby and understanding your baby’s cues are presented. 

Upon completion of this service, your parents will be prepared for parental leave; have a plan for how they will stay in touch whilst on leave and, feel supported as they begin their transition into parenthood!



The Flexible Work Proposal Toolkit is a simple and convenient business case tool that enables employees and managers to research, negotiate and implement a flexible work arrangement.

This Toolkit is a must for organisations who want to retain valued, skilled and experienced employee (not just parents). You can brand this toolkit as your own and your existing flexibility content can be integrated to suit your organisation’s needs.


9.      Create a Job Design Guide for Managers and Employeesask about our Job Design Toolkit. Empower your employees and managers on effective job design to create more efficient and flexible ways of working.



Job sharing can help employees achieve a balance between work and other activities, including family responsibilities, availability of a wider range of skills and experience within the job, peak period coverage – it may be possible for both partners to work during very busy times, continuity of coverage, staff retention, reduced staff turnover, attracting new staff, improved staff morale, lower absenteeism, and increased productivity. Registers can be a useful tool where interested employees can indicate their preferred hours. Organisations can then match job-share partners who have complementary hours, skills and other relevant factors.  


11.  Create a recruitment strategy to design flexible roles and attract and retain key talenttalk to our recruitment manager for more info.

mums@work offers a simple recruitment service to introduce and connect mums and dads to jobs with family friendly, flexible employers across a range of industries and professions. Best of all there is NO costly agency placement fee involved. It’s simple, flexible and affordable.


12.  Launch a ‘working parents’ group in your workplace – let mums@work develop and run it for you.

Being a working parent has its challenges but working mums and dads can thrive with support. Coming together with people in a similar situation and discussing highlights, challenges and strategies can be of enormous benefit and offer your working parents the encouragement and support that will help them be successful at work and at home.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great tips Emma! I wish that this was available to me when I went on maternity leave.