Supporting Working Parents: 4 Tips for School Year Success

Quick look: It’s time to sharpen those pencils and zip those backpacks—back-to-school season is officially here. For many working parents, balancing school commitments with career responsibilities can be tough. However, employers have an opportunity to help ease the burden. Here are four ways SMBs can support their employees as National Working Parents Day approaches on September 16.

The back-to-school season has arrived, bringing the return of yellow buses on the streets, store shelves stocked with supplies, and the familiar rush to prepare. Working parents may face new challenges as their children return to the classroom and households adapt to changing routines. Just in time for National Working Parents Day on September 16, here’s how small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can support working mothers, fathers, and caregivers, something that can encourage a healthier work-life balance and boost retention rates.

About National Working Parents Day

National Working Parents Day occurs annually on September 16, recognizing the challenges working parents face and showing appreciation for their efforts. While the holiday’s origin is unknown, it’s a worthwhile cause, considering 67% of families with children have two working parents.

A personal and professional balancing act

Children’s school and extracurricular calendars and their parents’ work schedules often don’t align. As the back-to-school season ramps up, many working parents must adjust to and balance their family’s new commitments with their professional responsibilities.

The reasons for this misalignment vary. Many schooldays end between 3 and 4 p.m., meaning working parents are on the hook to secure after-school care. Additionally, school holidays and breaks don’t always match up with a working parent’s available vacation days, and illnesses, doctor appointments, inclement weather, or other unexpected school closings also throw working parents for a loop. Parents of even younger children face similar difficulties, as more than one in four families with children under age 5 struggle to find consistent childcare.

All this juggling can take a toll. For instance, Ohio State University recently surveyed over 700 U.S. working parents and found that 57% feel burnout, driven largely by internal and external pressures related to parenting performance, perceived judgment from others, spousal dynamics, and household maintenance.

Please note that workplace flexibility and competitive employee benefits should be fair and equitable across all employees, and mental health issues like burnout can impact all workers. We do not wish to erase those experiences or realities by focusing just on working parents.

4 ways employers can support working parents during the school year

Working parents likely comprise a significant portion of your organization’s workforce. These four tips can help employers attract and retain this valuable segment of staff:

1. Offer flexibility

Caring for school-aged children can involve picking them up from the bus stop, shuttling them to extracurricular activities, taking them to doctor’s appointments, and more. A flexible schedule can make all these things a bit easier for working parents and benefit a company’s bottom line, too. Recent research from the University of Birmingham found that 73% of managers believe flexible working hours improve productivity.

Different flexibility options work best for different businesses. In addition to hybrid scheduling, which has greatly increased in popularity, some flexible options include:

• Flextime: This alternative schedule gives an employee greater freedom in choosing their working hours or the ability to change schedules weekly depending on personal needs.
• Compressed workweeks: Instead of working a standard five-day workweek, employees can contribute their 40 hours in fewer than five days per week (for example, working four 10-hour days).
• Part-time schedules: With less than 40 hours of work per week, part-time work can attract working parents who may otherwise have not wanted to or been able to work at all.
• Job sharing: This method entails two employees working a part-time schedule and completing the responsibilities of one full-time position together.

While these options can provide flexibility for working parents, they may not be feasible for all businesses or industries, depending on operational requirements and staffing needs. It’s also important to note that these flexible arrangements should extend to any employee who needs to take a parent, spouse, or themselves to the doctor, and those working in different time zones.

2. Provide family-friendly benefits

Parenting costs a lot of money and time. It’s estimated that the cost of raising a child to age 18 tops $300,000 (not including college expenses), and data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that on top of working, parents dedicate up to two-and-a-half hours each day caring for their children.

This is where crafting and providing the right family-friendly employee benefits package can make a huge difference. Relevant benefits for supporting working parents include:

• Comprehensive, affordable healthcare: Children require regular checkups and tend to get sick often, making the right healthcare options a must. Employers can also consider offering a flexible spending account (FSA), which employees may be able to use to pay for eligible before- and after-school care, summer camp expenses, and more.
• Progressive paid time off (PTO): It is essential to provide PTO for employees to relax, care for a child, and tend to their own needs. SMBs may also offer school activity time off, which allows employees to participate in parent-teacher conferences, holiday events, classroom activities, graduations, and more—without missing out on pay or using a vacation day.
• Mental health support: Offering mental health coverage and access to an employee assistance program (EAP) can bring a sense of relief to working parents.
• College financial planning: Employers can help workers establish a 529 college savings plan for their children, which allows for federal and state tax breaks, age-based plan options, prepaid tuition, and more.
• Paid parental leave: For working parents looking to expand their families, paid parental leave can benefit maternal and infant health and more. However, with only 13 U.S. states publicly funding the leave as of September 2024, many employees rely on their companies to provide it.

3. Encourage manager-level support

Sometimes, the most valuable assistance comes from the colleagues closest to us. SMB leaders can encourage their organization’s managers to show genuine interest in their employees’ personal lives as naturally and appropriately as possible. Something as simple as a manager asking how a worker’s child is doing can help an employee feel more comfortable.

This comfort matters—a lot. According to the Workforce Institute at UKG, managers impact staff’s mental health (69%) more than doctors (51%) or therapists (41%), and the same as a spouse or partner (69%).

Managers can also share tidbits about their personal lives if they are comfortable. A boss who keeps photos of their children at their desk and occasionally leaves the office early for sports games sends an important message of camaraderie.

On a granular level, managers can show they value their employees’ personal lives by labeling any emails sent after-hours or on weekends with their importance level (i.e., “not urgent,” “for Monday,” “FYI,” etc.). These designations can benefit working parents by helping them quickly distinguish between urgent requests and tasks that can wait until working hours.

4. Consider all stages of working parenthood

Back-to-school season focuses on school-aged children. However, employers should focus on supporting working parents during each stage of parenthood.

Business leaders should also remember that families come in all shapes and sizes, and working parents include both men and women, biological and adoptive parents, same-sex couples, and single parents.

While some new mothers returning to work may require a lactation room (which is required per the Affordable Care Act and can boost return-from-leave retention rates), other employees may be thinking about growing their families. In that instance, employers could offer family-building benefits that can include:

• Access to benefits experts, fertility clinicians, emotional counselors, lawyers, and a dedicated care manager
• Discounted rates at specific fertility clinics and adoption and surrogacy agencies
• Personalized care plans and resources for every stage of growing a family
• Prescription ordering and at-home delivery

Raising the bar for those raising kids

As children head back into the classroom, it’s a good idea to consider whether the support your organization offers working parents is up to par. Businesses that prioritize this can experience improved retention rates, a competitive recruiting advantage, and an enhanced company culture.

A professional employer organization (PEO), like ExtensisHR, can help you access the benefits and create the policies that foster this success. PEOs can open the door to an array of affordable, Fortune 500-level benefits designed to increase the work-life balance of your staff, like healthcare coverage, access to mental wellness tools, and more.

Plus, ExtensisHR’s dedicated HR managers can also assist you with Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) compliance and fair and equitable policy creation for maternity and paternity leave, PTO, and more.

Back-to-school season is in full swing, and it’s the perfect time to prioritize supporting working parents. Learn more about ExtensisHR’s PEO solution, or contact our experts today to get started.