TLC Parents @ Work

The professionals at The Loved Child (TLC Family Center) propose that professional organizations offer TLC Parent Employee Conversation Groups to bring working parents together to connect, to learn from one another, and to receive expert parenting education to ultimately decrease common work-family stresses and increase morale in the workplace. Highly experienced TLC experts in child behavior and family development provide the option of weekly, biweekly, or monthly groups facilitated in the workplace at the lunch hour.

Depending on the number of parent employees and stage of parenthood, TLC provides business organizations TLC Parent Employee Conversation Groups for:

1. Expecting Parents
2. New Parents with Babies
3. Parents with Toddlers and Young Children
4. Parents of Tweens & Teenagers

Each 1-hour conversation group is organized around common parenting topics and challenges. Listed by stage in parenthood, the following are sample topics for each TLC Parent Employee Conversation Group.

A recent study at Harvard University (January 2019) found that employers greatly underestimate the struggle working parents face when attempting to balance work and family responsibilities. The Harvard Business School researchers predicted that these caregiving stresses will only continue to worsen. The report found that 32% of U.S. employees with caregiving responsibilities have left the workplace during their career due to an inability to find work-family solutions. Moreover, more than 80% of employees with caregiving responsibilities admitted that their caregiving challenges have affected their work performance. Research from Care.com demonstrated 62% of employees would be willing to leave a job for improved benefits. Similarly, a Glassdoor survey found four out of five employees would take new benefits over a pay raise. As described by Daisy Wademan Dowling, a full-time business consultant (and mother) focused on working-parent issues, leaders in business organizations are now forced to address the “Working Parent Problem”: how can businesses enhance work satisfaction, improve employee retention rates, and increase work productivity for parents in the workplace?

In addition to solutions such as expanding parental leave, providing flexible work hours and offering resources for child care support, parent employees and employers alike would benefit greatly from supportive and educational parent programming within the workplace.