How employers can ease the school holiday strain this Christmas period

For many working parents, school holiday time can bring a mix of emotions - excitement at the prospect of getting in some fun time with the kids, but anxiety at the thought of how to organise that much child care if, like most, you're unable to take time off work for every day of it.

In an article recently published by ABC, Parents At Work CEO Emma Walsh discusses the demands placed on parents during school holiday time and how employers can support them.

"For weeks at a time children are off and parents feel that pressure to work through how they are going to keep their work commitments going and look after their children as well," Emma says. "So that means families are trying to find vacation care that's affordable, that's quality, and that children actually want to go to."

However there are various policies that some companies are implementing to better support their parents during these periods where the juggle of work and family can become stress-inducing.

Purchased leave, school holiday programs that are run 'in-house', and flexible work options in general (working from home, or a condensed working week) are all solutions that are helping navigate the care employees need.

"Some progressive organisations are really raising the bar. We would encourage workplaces to think about, during school holiday time, how can they open up more flexible work arrangements to families ... this might mean allowing employees to work from home, work shorter days, or even bring their children to work."

- Emma Walsh

To read the full article on the ABC website, 'Why school holiday care makes the Christmas period a strain on working families', visit here.

Excerpts taken from 'Why school holiday care makes the Christmas period a strain on working families', Kate Midena, ABC, December 19 2019.