How to Support Your Working Parents to Work from Home

Supporting working parents to work from home isn’t possible for every role, but when it can be offered, it can deliver enormous benefits to both the business and to working parents.

As a manager, it’s important to remember that you alone aren’t responsible for finding a solution to support your working parents. In fact, taking the time to consult with your employee and understanding their remote or hybrid work needs is an important step in the process, as is working together to find a mutual agreeable solution that works within the needs of your business. Leading with empathy and flexibility can help foster greater productivity, loyalty, and wellbeing across your teams.

The first thing to consider is that the decision to work from home is an individual one, so it’s good to begin any discussion with your employee by being open about what’s available to them, while not making assumptions about what they may choose to do. For example, some parents may prefer to come into the office every day, while for others working from home 1-2 days a week is all they need to be able to meet their home and work commitments more easily. We recommend asking your employee if working from home is something they’d like to do.

The Impacts of Work-Life Conflict

A recent policy brief from La Trobe University highlights that one in three Australian parents experience high conflict and stress juggling work and family roles, with the drivers of these conflicts differing by gender and available resources. Overall the evidence indicates that rewarding and supportive jobs (i.e., flexible work, job security, autonomy, contained work hours) help to protect both mothers and fathers from work-family conflict.

The brief continues by acknowledging that work–family conflict can have negative consequences for parents’ mental health, family wellbeing and relationships, as well as children’s wellbeing.

For employers, work-life conflict can also impact worker productivity, and be linked to such risks as low job satisfaction, intention to leave and staff turnover.

How Working from Home can Reduce Work-Family Conflict

Working from home can play a significant role in reducing work–family conflict for many parents. According to La Trobe University’s policy brief, hybrid and remote work arrangements have been shown to help working families achieve better work–family balance, improve wellbeing, and reduce stress.

The research found that when parents have greater control over their work schedules and location, they experience lower levels of work–family conflict. This flexibility allows parents to better manage caregiving responsibilities alongside work demands, leading to improved productivity and family relationships.

How You Can Support Working from Home

You’ve heard the benefits, you have considered whether working from home might be possible for your employee based on operational needs, now it’s time to consider how you as a leader can encourage this to be done well in your business.

Managers can support this by:

• Starting with a conversation – remember to ‘ask, not assume’ what your employee’s needs are. Ask open-ended questions to allow your employee to share in more detail what would be helpful to them. Remember to lead with empathy, flexibility and trust.
  It can be helpful to prepare for this conversation by thinking about what flexible work can look like in your business, i.e. what needs to be done in office, and what can be done remotely. Are you flexible on hours, location or both?  
• Making sure your systems of work support flexible working. That means reviewing your systems and technology to ensure they’re inclusive of hybrid workers, providing adequate equipment and ergonomic checks for people working from home, and being clear on the output expectations for people working from home.
• Role modelling – remember, you can’t be what you can’t see. Help normalise flexible working by role modelling your own flexible work practices
• Thinking about the team context – consider how your team can work together when some team members work from home. You might want to think about day huddles/team check-ins, anchor days, defining group expectations and being clear about when days in the physical workplace might be expected.
• Continually checking in with parents (regardless of gender), and adjusting arrangements as family needs change – i.e. when children start the school year, navigating illness, the birth of a subsequent child etc. This is not a set and forget exercise – you’ll want to revisit it regularly.

Your Support Means Better Outcomes

High work–family conflict is closely related to mental health distress. By taking steps to reduce the impacts you’re not only providing better outcomes for your business, but you’re also helping reduce the risk of mental health distress in your workers.

It’s important to continually check in with your working parents, ask them, ‘what’s working for you’, and ‘what’s not working for you’? Normalise conversations about wellbeing, and – where needed – share any relevant resources for mental health support.

By leading with empathy, flexibility, and trust, you can create an environment where parents and their teams truly thrive.

This resource was developed in consultation with Research Fellow Dr Stacey Hokke, La Trobe University