Family-work balance
How Family Friendly Policies help parents
- русский
- English
A girl ran up to Alyona in fear and wrapped her legs tightly. Alyona, not being a mother, responded like a mother. She took a 3-year-old baby, who was afraid of Santa Claus, into her arms and began to calm her down. Alyona had promised herself not to cry when she had been driving with her colleagues to an orphanage for a children’s matinee. And she didn't cry really. However, she made a new promise to herself: “It doesn't matter if I have a child of my own or not, I will definitely help another one.”
Today, Alyona has two children: 4-year-old Masha and 3-year-old Anya. Alyona and her husband adopted Anya. Alyona admits that her employer also helped her decide that: comfortable flexible working hours, part-time work, and support for mothers on maternity leave. Alyona realized that she would have enough time and energy for her second child.
When her first daughter was born, Alyona worked as an English teacher at Streamline Language School. Currently, Alyona heads the Streamline HR Department and, together with her colleagues, she actively promotes Family Friendly Policies so that all parents can successfully combine paid work and family chores to be effective employees and still do the most important job: to be parents.
Background info
Family Friendly Policies are conditions for supporting families and parenthood created by companies. Investing in Policies helps companies not only create a healthy and educated generation and support sustainable development. In addition, it also increases the employer's ability to attract and retain employees and gain their loyalty. However, the main thing is that all measures and conditions ultimately have a positive impact on children's well-being.
Social policy is well developed in Belarus: the state does a lot to support parents and their children. This includes a long maternity leave, benefits, extra days off for parents with many children. However, companies can be more ambitious and do more. For example, they can propose teleworking options, give a day off on the child's birthday, reimburse healthcare costs for children, and much more.
As in many other countries, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) promotes Family Friendly Policies in Belarus.
In 2023, UNICEF established a special award category — Attention and Care — for the HR Brand Awards. With this nomination, UNICEF draws the attention of employers to the idea of Family Friendly Policies so that the employees can spend quality time with their children and apply the Responsible Parenthood principles. Streamline won the nomination this year.
Alyona's story
— It has always been my great love: to work with children who are of elementary school age. It's just “mine”. I am a psychologist and English teacher. I've been working at Streamline since 2014. My experience is an example of how a mother can be connected to her workplace when on maternity leave and have more than just the status of a “parent”.
I spent 6 months on my first maternity leave. After that, I talked to managers and got the opportunity to work with two study groups. It was a comfortable schedule for me, and I could work in a branch office located in the yard of my house. My loved ones know my active nature, so they were only happy that I would focus my energy on something else.
Then, we had a second daughter in our family, whom we adopted. I was on my maternity leave for six months again, and then I returned to my small workload. However, my workload was organized differently. I was offered to advise teachers as part of our internal projects. After that, I grew up to be a methodologist. Later, I became the head of teachers and then the head of the HR Department.
I knew that such practices — Child and Family Friendly Policies — existed. I was sure that if I came and said that I had two children but wanted to work part-time, I would not be turned down.
This is absolutely standard practice today. We always hear our teachers when they want to limit the number of their groups when they come out of their maternity leaves. We can rearrange the schedule a little bit to bring or pick up children from a kindergarten or school. This applies not only to teachers, but to other office staff, too.
My example makes me perfectly understand why such Policies are important. When I became a mom, I realized that my energy was enough for more than just parenting. I realized that I need another domain where I would be my old self. The opportunity to meet students and teach them was a battery recharge for me. I ran to class and then enjoyed coming back home. I realized even more how much I loved my children and how much I missed them during the 1.5 to 3 hours when I was away.
Family Friendly Policies in other companies
The team of the Prosthetic and Orthopedic Rehabilitation Center provides its employees with all guarantees in accordance with the Labor Code and more: for example, additional financial support for large families and parents of children with disabilities, flexible working hours, internships for employees' children, etc.
“We follow this formula,” Armtek Company says. “Happy children + Satisfied parents = Loyal and efficient employees. The trend to promote events aimed at families and children has developed for a long time, but it has become a definite trend over the last 2 years. Annually, ARMTECH hosts 3 key events that allow you to spend quality, useful and fun time with your family. On June 1, we hold an open day for employees' children. At the end of summer we hold a Family Day, and we host the ARMTEK New Year at the end of the year.”
For more than a decade, the SOSEDI Retail Chain has been organizing a competition for employees' children, where the most talented children receive Talent Development Scholarships. This is how the company invests not only in their employees’ loyalty and in the development of future generations, but also creates a brand of a socially responsible company.
UNICEF in Belarus conducted a survey on the prevalence of Family Friendly Policies in Belarusian companies in 2022. It turned out that one of the most challenging dimensions was the imbalance between work and family chores (working extra hours and working on weekends). The survey has found that the introduction of approaches that support parenting employees can become an additional incentive for employees. But only if the company implements individual practices not associated with children and families. For example, health insurance coverage, cell phone payments, financial support provided in critical situations, and so on.
The survey respondents noted the lack of practices focused on supporting breastfeeding, women getting back to work after a childcare leave, and young fathers.
Promising practices that can be implemented (according to the UNICEF survey results)
- Support tools for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers
- Employment adaptation procedures for women getting back to work after their maternity leaves
- Paternity leaves allowing fathers to take a parental leave or to share it with the child’s mother
- Paid childcare days off
- Additional paid days off for large families to resolve cases related to the upbringing and care of children
- Paid 3-5 day sick leaves without medical certificates while maintaining an average salary (in case an employee or his/her child is ill)
- A children's room for employees' children
- Reimbursement of psychological counselling costs if the employees’ children have such appointments
- Paid babysitting
UNICEF in Belarus conducted a survey on the prevalence of Family Friendly Policies in Belarusian companies in 2022. It turned out that one of the most challenging dimensions was the imbalance between work and family chores (working extra hours and working on weekends). The survey has found that the introduction of approaches that support parenting employees can become an additional incentive for employees. But only if the company implements individual practices not associated with children and families. For example, health insurance coverage, cell phone payments, financial support provided in critical situations, and so on.
During the survey, respondents noted the lack of practices focused on supporting breastfeeding, women getting back to work after a childcare leave, and young fathers.
