Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Family-Friendly Corporation

A family-friendly corporation is a workplace that recognizes the family responsibilities of its employees and implements policies that allow them to sustain a work and family life balance. It can also be called a family-friendly company or family-friendly employer.

There are several reasons why organizations decide to become family friendly. Some of them adopt familyfriendly programs in an effort to create a committed workforce. Other reasons are improving retention and productivity and providing an environment that allows employees to simultaneously accomplish work and family responsibilities.

Family-friendly corporations were initiated partly by the demographic changes in Western countries: Women entered the labor market in a massive way during the Industrial Revolution, the divorce rate increased, the number of single-parent families rose, and the birth rate decreased. The trend continues as Europe, for example, is currently experiencing a “demographic winter” (diminished birth rate in industrialized countries).

However, not all organizations consider these changes when they manage and organize their staff. The traditional work structure is still basically designed for male employees with timetables that are not compatible with other needs such as caring for dependents (children, the elderly, or persons with special needs) and being at home.

As a consequence of these sociodemographic changes, many people experience a big conflict among different life scenarios, especially between work and family. This is a reality not only for working mothers who are taking care of the family but also for working fathers, who are now more involved in family tasks.

Different Views about Family-Friendly Corporations

Reasons to become a family-friendly corporation may vary from one organization to another. Some companies implement family-friendly programs as a response for meeting the minimum requirements of the legislation and also as a response to the pressure and demands coming from their workforce. These organizations care about their image and use their family-friendly initiatives as a marketing strategy to attract more candidates and customers. Companies named “best employers” receive many more job applications per position compared with other firms.

Other organizations are on an alert status and do not want to risk losing valuable and efficient employees. They implement family-friendly programs to attract and retain people by creating favorable working conditions. Research suggests that giving employees flexibility, information, and financial assistance can improve the whole organization's performance and raise employees' satisfaction.

It is important to clarify to employees that not all family-friendly initiatives can apply to all of them at all times. One of the reasons is that not all employees have to take care of dependent persons. As a consequence, some employees may feel left out when compared with others and may have a negative attitude toward the organization. Therefore, it is advisable when implementing family-friendly programs to determine objective criteria and be consistent in the application process. Some organizations prefer to adopt a “work-life” program instead of a “work-family” one to include all employees, with or without family obligations.

All organizations should plan and evaluate the cultural change for implementation of family-friendly programs. There is no unique solution to achieving a family-friendly environment in a corporation. Nevertheless, changes are possible, and the specific design of a program would depend on the company's business model, size, geographic location, industry type, and the workforce needs. Experts recommend employers to calculate the inputs and projected outcomes of work-family arrangements in the short and long terms. In terms of inputs, the organization may have to spend money to set up home offices, part-time contracts, train supervisors in management by objectives, etc. These inputs should be weighed against the reduced cost of absenteeism and turnovers, workforce improvement, etc.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution