Whether you have one child or five, it can sometimes feel as though household scheduling is a constant juggling act and the proverbial balls could get dropped at any moment.
This is particularly prevalent during vacation periods when schools are closed and kids have to be ferried between camps and daycare so parents can still work at full tilt.
And when you’re a single parent, even if you’ve worked out an amicable co-parenting agreement, scheduling constraints shift up a gear, making it even more delicate to strike the right balance between work and home life.
3 jobs to apply for
- Director, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Policy Office, Association for Computing Machinery, Washington
- Congressional Affairs Manager (Senior Project Manager), International Association of Chiefs of Police, Alexandria
- Business Growth Manager, Citadel Federal Credit Union, Exton
In fact, a new survey has established that for 44 percent of U.S. single parents looking for a new job, scheduling conflicts have left them unable to attend job interviews because a potential employer was inflexible about changing the time or date of the interview.
Additionally, only 34 percent were offered an alternative date.
This correlates with the findings that 68 percent of parents cite availability of childcare as the biggest barrier to attending interviews, followed by school pickups and after school activities (16 percent).
Similarly, 48 percent of single parents admitted that they felt the need to hide their status during the interview process.
Flexibility foes
Workplace flexibility has been a constant topic of conversation since the global pandemic four years ago sparked widespread remote work and showed employers that their employees could get the job done working from home instead of the office.
And the benefits remote and hybrid work have afforded employees have been manifold.
Reducing the stress and impact of hours spent commuting in and out of an office space––usually located in a city––to getting more work done away from the distraction of co-workers are both attractive to workers.
A 2022 report from Future Forum backs this up, finding that workers with flexibility were 29 percent more productive, and had 53 percent more focus. Having the option to work from home for all or part of the week and also work flexible hours around school pick ups is a game-changer for all working parents.
However, despite all the evidence, many employers are dialing back on remote working options and enforcing strict RTO (return to office) mandates, sparking mass attrition, particularly among high-performers, women and millennials.
That’s according to a Gartner study which identified that intent to stay working for a current employer was 8 percent lower for the average employee when strict RTOs were issued. This rose to 16 percent among high-performers.
“Mandated on-site requirements can carry very steep costs for talent attraction and retention. This is especially true for high-performers, women and millennials – three employee segments who greatly value flexibility,” said Caitlin Duffy, Director in the Gartner HR practice. “Often these costs far outweigh the moderate benefits to employee engagement and effort.”
Add to this the new phenomenon around not promoting remote workers. In March, IT giant Dell told its staff that if they chose to work fully remotely, they would not be eligible for promotion, a policy that half of employees have subsequently opted for.
Similarly, fully remote workers witnessed a 31 percent dip in promotions compared to their in-person counterparts in 2023 according to Live Data Technologies’ analysis of two million white-collar workers in the U.S.
3 jobs hiring across the U.S.
- Policy Advisor, Arnold & Porter, Washington
- Business Development Senior Manager, WuXi AppTec, United States
- Social Worker, Genie Healthcare, Washington ($1,842 a week)
Pushback on provisions
Although the technology, healthcare, and education sectors are typically more accommodating around offering the kind of flexibility that aligns with single-parents’ needs, there is still a long way to go around putting provisions in place for working parents.
With regards to job hunting, virtual interviews can bridge that gap along with offering daycare facilities on site, something Citi and Goldman Sachs have introduced in New York, and Johnson & Johnson has implemented in New Jersey.
However, with flexibility at a legislative level still a long way off (if ever), it’s ultimately up to employees to do their own due diligence. Weeding out inflexibility at the interview stage is probably the best way to ensure your employer shares similar values when it comes to balancing caring responsibilities with work.
Looking for a job with more flexibility? Browse thousands of open roles via The Hill Jobs Board