Supporting parents in the workplace

A supportive workplace for parents isn't just a nice perk, but necessary to create a healthy, productive and inclusive environment. With the demands of modern parenting, it is often a struggle to balance one's professional fulltime career and the family commitments. By providing a strong support system for parents, employers can help alleviate some of the stress of parenthood.

Parents in the workplace

According to a news release by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, among married couples with children under 18 years old, 97.4% have at least one employed parent and 65% have two working parents.

That means a large demographic of the workforce for many businesses consist of parents and it's important to consider how parenthood may impact their work lives.

The American Psychological Association (APA) cites studies showing that working parents are reporting higher levels of mental distress and burnout than their non-working counterparts. Burnout results when a person experiences too much stress and has too few resources to effectively cope with it. Over time, this uncontrolled stress can result in significant physical, mental and emotional symptoms.

According to WebMD, parental burnout can result in a host of mental health symptoms, including:

• Overwhelming exhaustion
• Irritability and shorter temper
• Confusion
• Forgetfulness
• Depression
• Increased stress
• Poor sleep
• Obsessive-compulsive tendencies

These symptoms, in turn, can affect overall health. If allowed to continue unchecked, parental burnout can lead to:

• Hormonal imbalances
• Increased risk for heart disease and diabetes
• Strained relationships with children, spouse and others

What happens to your business when parents are stressed?

The challenges of parenting can bleed into the workplace and can lead to reduced productivity, increased medical costs, and absenteeism. These negative impacts of poor mental health costs U.S. employers an estimated $210.5 billion each year.

Stressed employees are also more likely to have poor morale, higher disengagement scores and increased turnover.

How Allstate Benefits can help

Allstate Benefits offers flexible, convenient and cost-effective solutions that can help your employees manage their work/life balance.

Flexible family care

Allstate Benefits includes Papa flexible family care with all Allstate Benefits self-funded and voluntary products. Members get 10 hours a year at no cost and can purchase additional hours directly through Papa as needed. Papa services are also included with our fully insured Secure Choice health.

Papa is the workforce behind your workforce, offering flexible family care to your employees:

• Backup care for children ages three and older, and assistance with homework, snacks, meals and playtime.
• Help with errands, light housework or pet care.
• Companionship, transportation, and more, for aging or ill loved ones, near and far.

Papa delivers real human help right to an employee's front door via its curated national network of Papa Pals - compassionate individuals who bring companionship and help with everyday tasks. Read more about Papa.

Wellness program

Taking care of oneself is just as important as taking care of others. Give them the tools to do just that with this unique program. With Vitality®, along with an Allstate Benefits health plan, employees can get healthier, while enhancing and protecting their lives.

Plan administrators have the option to add on a wellness program through Vitality® with most plan designs.

A recent study by Vitality shows that employers reduced claims costs by 4% and achieved ROI of 180% from claims savings on health and wellbeing program.

When plan members are healthy, they can not only improve their own lives, but they can also lower their health care expenses.

Learn more about caregiver benefits through Allstate.

Reach out to your Allstate Benefits Group Health sales executive today.

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