Family-Friendly Workplaces Promote Work-Life Balance

Companies that are regularly ranked family-friendly workplaces offer some common benefits: health insurance, flex-time or part-time employment opportunities, paid maternity and paternity leave, and wellness or healthy lifestyle programs. The following statistics come from a study of the top 50 family-friendly companies in North Carolina, compiled by Jessica Gaylord of Carolina Parent Magazine.

Common benefits include:

-Work-at-home options 96%
-Employee assistance 92%
-Compressed work week 88%

-Time off or adoption 86%
-Dedicated lactation facilities 84%
-Pre-tax dependent care accounts 86%

-Paid time off for volunteer work 76%
-Childcare resources 72%
-Phase-back time for new moms 70%

Some less common, but still key benefits include:

-Job-sharing opportunities 58%
-Parenting and family support groups 58%
-Work-life balance training for managers and supervisors 54%

-Family work-life issues committee 50%
-Adoption expense reimbursement 50%
-Back-up childcare 40%
-On-site or nearby childcare 34%

With forward-thinking, family-friendly companies like these, career professionals who are employed by them have good opportunities to experience work-life balance. Added to the personal measures that one can adopt such as meditation, yoga, visualization, and other stress-reducing techniques, it is entirely possible that such fortunate employees could be the leading representatives of a new era of work-life balance in our otherwise hectic society.

In summary: These family-friendly companies find it advantageous to offer such benefits and features because it leads to long-term sustenance of their workforce. A rested, balanced, happy workforce is a more productive workforce. The dollars and cents add up: When you support your employees’ ability to experience work-life balance, everybody wins.