P&G employee & parent
Shell employee & parent
Healthcare Company employee & parent
Shell employee
Investment bank employee
Keeping it in the family
Providing additional family and childcare support for employees that are relocating seems to be all the rage at the moment
Why is that and what should you do? Well, there are various factors at play, all linked and all important in their own right.
Technology and flexible working
People can and do work increasingly flexible across every industry and at every level. One of the chief consequences of flexible working is the ability for both partners in a typical family to pursue careers and maintain a mixture of work and life. (We no longer talk about balance - that's never really existed - but the dual income, flexible working professional family is increasingly the norm).
Of course, the direct result of that is for more families to arrive in the UK with a spouse who also retains their own career and professional ambitions. It will create plenty of stress if you presume your assignee can happily leave all the childcare arrangements to them.
Demographics
People have children later. The average age of mothers in the UK has gone from 28 to 32 over the last 20 years. It means senior mobile professionals are more likely than ever to have young children in tow. And the other result of our changing demographics and more flexible work patterns is the breakdown of the friends and family networks that used to make "childcare" a much easier, community type challenge than it is now.
Diversity
Or more particularly, the gender agenda also has an impact. We're still a long way from genuine parity between the sexes when it comes to career and pay prospects but every year the diversity champions push the boundaries of possibility. When both parents in a relocating family have genuine career aspirations, making sure the childcare piece is sorted becomes more of a priority.
In summary
If you are in the business of helping employees move around the world the number who will want, need, and value specific relocation support around the family will only increase.
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