What Employers Can Do to Better Support Their Working Parents

Employers always are looking for ways to support their employees. This improves productivity, performance, and retention.

One key area of support is for working parents. Because most employees have families, they make up a significant part of the workforce.

Working parents often deal with issues that affect their professional performance. Examples include taking time off to care for a sick child and needing to finish work early to handle family responsibilities.

As a result, employers who provide accommodations for working parents are more attractive to employees and job seekers. Taking small steps can result in a substantial impact on your organization with little impact on the bottom line.

Choose among these methods to provide support for your working parents.

Talk About Working Parents’ Needs

Find out more about what your working parents want help with most. You may want to begin with a survey to understand their issues, concerns, and suggestions for help. Then, you can use this information to begin discussions between working parents and management about methods to increase support.

You may want to identify a specific issue that many working parents face. Then, you could encourage managers to speak with their employees for more details. The managers could meet with HR and leadership to share feedback and discuss implementation methods.

Create a Parents’ Network

Encourage working parents to share ideas, provide support, and organize family-friendly activities. This may include creating an email chain for parents to swap out gently used children’s clothing. Or, parents might provide tips to ease the stress of raising children while working full-time.

Having this network helps fill working parents’ wants and needs by connecting them with the right individuals at the right time. You may want to create a dedicated intranet page or Slack channel to encourage working parents to join the network.

Provide Flexibility

Offer employees a flexible schedule and options for how they work. Examples include working remotely, hybrid, flextime, part-time, or having a compressed workweek.

You may want to make accommodations for when working parents’ children start school or change their childcare routines. This reduces the stress of fitting in work around childcare. It also increases productivity and retention.

Looking for Additional Advice?

Working parents appreciate help supporting their personal and professional needs. Talking about and accommodating working parents’ needs, creating a working parents’ network, and providing flexibility are effective methods to provide this support. This increases employee engagement, productivity, and performance. It also increases employee attraction and retention.

For additional advice to better support your team’s working parents, reach out to the professionals at Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Contact us today.

 

How a Strong Company Culture Can Lead to Better Retention

Your company’s culture is one of its biggest assets. It shows what your organization stands for and serves as a guide for employee interactions.

Having a well-developed culture can encourage the best talent to work for you. Once these employees become part of your organization, they are likely to remain for an extended time.

The longer your employees remain, the higher your retention rates. This lowers the amount of time and money spent on hiring, which improves your bottom line.

Find out how you can develop a strong company culture to improve your employee retention rates.

Business Guidance  

Displaying a strong mission, vision, and values provides employees with a sense of guidance and security. It shows what you stand for as a company. This helps attract employees who align with your culture.

Employees with values in line with your company’s values tend to make better business decisions. This typically aligns with your company’s vision and business strategy.

Be sure to advertise your culture and exhibit it in everything your organization does. For instance, regularly talk about your company’s vision and strategy. Include what these topics mean for different teams. Helping your employees better understand the company can improve engagement, motivation, and retention.

Include your company values when evaluating employee performance. This can improve engagement.

Flexible Work Arrangements

Offering remote or hybrid work and a flexible schedule helps your employees manage work-life balance. Letting them handle their personal needs during the workday helps lower stress. This reduces the odds of experiencing burnout.

Your employees may desire additional paid time off (PTO), stipends for child care, or paid parental or personal leave. Providing these accommodations shows you care about your employees’ well-being.

Talk with your employees about individual accommodations they may need to fit their personal circumstances. Increased flexibility typically leads to increased retention.

Performance Recognition

Regularly thanking your employees for their efforts and results helps them feel appreciated. This tends to elevate engagement, productivity, and retention.

Performance recognition should take a variety of forms. This may include a hand-written thank-you note, verbal praise during an individual or team meeting, or a mention on the company intranet.

Regularly point out your employees’ contributions to benefit the organization. Include each employee’s specific actions, their results, and how they impacted the business. Provide bonuses, raises, or promotions when appropriate.

Looking for Accounting and Finance Professionals?

Employees want to work for companies that have a strong culture. You can promote your culture by using it to guide employees to make business decisions. You also can offer flexible work arrangements and provide performance recognition to increase the attractiveness of your workplace. All of these factors contribute to your retention rates.

If you need help adding accounting and finance professionals to your team, talk with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. Learn more today.

The Importance of Flexible Scheduling and How to Make It Work for Your Business

Companies that offer flexible schedules help accommodate their employees’ different lifestyles. This is becoming increasingly important as a method to attract quality accounting and finance candidates. Because more job seekers want control over their work-life integration, your team should be able to set their own work hours. Fortunately, implementation can be accomplished in a few steps.

Discover some benefits of offering a flexible schedule and how to implement it for your accounting and finance team.

Increased Work-Life Integration

Your team members appreciate being able to schedule their work around their personal lives. They can participate in their children’s school activities, run errands, and take care of household responsibilities while fitting in their work. This helps reduce stress and the potential for burnout.

Enhanced Engagement

Employees who work flexible hours remain engaged longer in their work. They feel highly respected and empowered by their manager. As a result, the staff tends to miss fewer days of work, stay focused longer, and accomplish more each day.

Greater Productivity

The ability to set their work hours lets your team members get more done each day. They can work during the times they are most focused and productive. Your employees’ energy levels and concentration levels should be high, allowing more tasks to get finished.

Stronger Employee Retention

Because employees prefer greater control over their time, they appreciate having a flexible schedule. This increases the likelihood of staying with their employer long-term. The longer you keep your staff, the lower your recruitment, onboarding, and training costs.

Additional Top Talent

Offering a flexible schedule encourages the best job seekers to want to work for you. Because many candidates find this perk even more attractive than salary and benefits, you may be able to save money in these areas. You also could attract more applicants than your competitors who do not offer flexible work hours.

Fill Your Team’s Needs

Ask your staff what their interest and needs are for working flexible hours. Find out whether they can effectively function as a team and what would have to happen to make it work. Make sure that your employees would be available when needed for meetings, client discussions, and other responsibilities.

Create a Policy

Develop written rules about flexible scheduling requirements. This may involve having to be at the office or available by phone during certain times. Include how communication with staff will occur when they are not in the office. Make sure the policy is detailed, clear, and non-discriminatory.

Need Top Accounting & Finance Talent?

Implementing a flexible schedule for your accounting and finance team provides many benefits. Productivity, engagement, and work-life integration should increase. This can attract the best candidates and lead to greater employee retention.

When you need to add the best talent to your team, reach out to Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We have the candidates you need to fulfill your business goals.

Bring Your Staff Together This Holiday Season! 5 Ways to Boost Employee Morale

Bringing together your accounting and finance team during the holidays is a great way to elevate morale. Setting up activities for your staff to participate in helps them interact and get to know each other better. This can increase engagement, collaboration, and productivity both now and in the future.

Choose among these ideas to unite your accounting and finance team and elevate morale this holiday season.

1. Play Holiday Music in the Office

Play your team members’ favorite holiday songs throughout the workday. Music has been shown to enhance productivity and spread positive feelings. Diversify the playlists, artists, and songs to include Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other religious holidays. Additionally, include lyric-free seasonal songs for a more neutral holiday environment.

2. Encourage Desk Decorations

Let your employees express their holiday cheer by decorating their workspaces. This has been shown to increase motivation, engagement, and productivity. It also elevates energy levels and makes staff happier. Suggest neutral decorations for the rest of the office. This may include dressing up the refrigerator in the office kitchen as a snowman or wrapping an office door like a present. You may want to hang stockings with small gifts for your employees as well.

3. Promote a Wellness Activity

Set up an activity in the office to increase relaxation and reduce stress. This is especially important if your team is working extended hours during the holiday season. For instance, hire an instructor to come in for an hour of meditation or a yoga session. Your staff should return to work refreshed, invigorated, and feeling appreciated. Or, bring in a lunchtime fitness instructor to provide walking tips while your team members walk outside and breathe in the fresh air. They can enjoy a bag lunch before returning to work.

4. Provide Monetary Gifts

Surprise your staff with additional vacation days, a year-end bonus, or another monetary gift. Your team will appreciate the extra time off to unwind with family and friends. They also would enjoy treating themselves to a holiday gift from the company.

5. Offer Additional Flexibility

Because employees tend to be busier than ever during the holidays, allow more flexibility in their work schedule. Your staff may need additional time for shopping, decorating, baking, attending school events, and visiting with family and friends. Loosening up their schedules encourages your employees to participate in the activities that mean the most to them. Letting them fit their work around their personal lives as much as possible shows you care about their happiness and well-being.

Happy Holidays from Casey Accounting & Finance Resources!

Bringing your accounting and finance team together during the holiday season is a great way to build morale. The excitement of celebrations with family and friends and the anticipation of beginning a new year make this the perfect time to build memories.

When you are in need of professionals to add to your team, reach out to us. We look forward to helping you attain your business goals in 2022.

Is the 9-5 Work Week Outdated?

The 9-5 workday was created by American labor unions in the 1800s. It was made popular in the 1920s by Henry Ford, who wanted to attract auto workers used to 12-hour shifts. Because today’s employees are accustomed to working 8-hour days, many still accept the setup. However, every aspect of working life has changed in the past century. With an increasing emphasis on organizing lives for greater work-life balance, it is time to replace a set workday with flexible hours.

Here are three reasons to modify your company’s work week with flexible hours.

Desire for Flexibility

Millennials, who make up the largest percentage of the workforce, want jobs that provide flexibility. Because work-life balance is a priority, they prefer the ability to set their own hours and work remotely more than have steady work or the highest possible pay. Allowing staff to take care of personal responsibilities while finishing their work tasks provides an increased sense of control over their lives. Employers who offer flextime typically have higher performance, increased job satisfaction, and lower turnover than employers who do not. This results in greater customer satisfaction and higher revenue.

Working at Peak Hours

Companies have automated most of the rote elements of work that used to comprise the 9- 5 workday. Because calculations, factory work, and typing jobs that were common in the 20th century have been automated, employees have more time for problem-solving activities. Although drowsy workers still could accurately put together parts on an assembly line, distracted workers in the creative sector cannot solve problems very well. They need to use their individual mental energy rhythms to find creative solutions. As a result, employees should be allowed to work when they are at peak performance. Whether early in the morning or late at night, staff should have wide parameters with minimal rules to complete their work in.

Greater Productivity

Research performed by businesses, industry associations, and academic institutions shows that average workers do not get more done in a 10-hour day than an 8-hour day. In fact, every hour worked beyond 40 per week reduces productivity and output both short- and long-term. As a result, productivity should be measured by the quality of output rather than hours put in.

Add Flexible Staff

Providing a flexible schedule for staff means changing your work culture. Allowing for increased work-life balance attracts and retains top-performing workers who remain engaged and productive throughout the day. Your company benefits from increased retention, customer service, and profits.

When your accounting & finance team needs to add members, get in touch with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. As a recipient of the Best of Staffing Client Satisfaction award every year from 2016 to 2020, our team can provide you with the highest caliber of professionals in the field. Learn more today.