Starting an in-house working parents network? Read this first!
“How do I start an in-house working parents network in my organisation?”
This is a question I get asked a lot. I’ve been running a (free!) public working parents network since October 2021, which I love. I started it for a couple of reasons.
First, my work is all about leading for a better future of work and working parents almost always hold the clues about what we need next. When you look back at the history of work and how it changes, working parents have been the trailblazers, changing structures and systems that no longer fit.
My grandmother always worked, unlike the ubiquitous myth of the housewife. During the second world war, she made soldiers’ uniforms. She didn’t go to a factory like people had done in the earlier days, during the industrial revolution. She was able to work from home doing piece-work - getting paid for what she produced. With the men at war, the women needed to be able to work while also caring for their children, so piece-work was a better solution for her and for so many others. She got really good at it, so the faster and more skilled she became, the more money she could earn. It was a win-win.
The more modern version of working parents trailblazing for a better future is flexible work as we know it now. It started out in many countries as something reserved only for those with caring responsibilities. This disproportionately put the focus on women - a way for new mums to get back into work. Flexible work is now increasingly available for everyone, not just those with caring responsibilities. Since the pandemic, it’s exploded and we’ve seen 30+ years of change in just three short years (when it comes to working from home trends, at least). But, it’s still working parents that were the trailblazers, paving the way for others to have new, different and better ways of working.
If the first reason to start the network was to follow working parents needs as clues for a better future of work, why else did I want to start the network? I also wanted to build a community of people who all share an interest in creating something better. Making the juggle of being a working parent that little bit easier and doing something practical in the here and now. Not simply the theory, but the practical changes that can really make a difference.
There are now almost 200 members in the community I started and many of those people see the value in it and want to create something similar inside their own organisations. In the spirit of making this juggle easier for everyone I thought I’d share my insights and top tips about how to do it well and avoid some of the common pitfalls. You don’t want your community to be another good idea on the scrapheap of failed initiatives. We’ve all been there!
There are four ingredients to running a successful working parents network:
Purpose
Reliability
Community
Support
Purpose
Be really clear on the core purpose of your network. If you don’t get this right, your network can try to be all things to all people. This ultimately confuses your audience and they’ll select themselves out, especially if they think it’ll end up being more work for them, rather than something they really value. A few examples of the purpose could be:
To improve the workplace (or employee experience) for working parents
To connect working parents to each other for peer support only
To share local holiday programme and after-school activity ideas
Whatever you decide, make sure it fits the needs of the parents in your workplace and it’s something you can actually deliver on.
Reliability
Set up a cadence and structure that you can stick to for your network. For me, I haven’t monetised the working parents network, so I have to make sure I ringfence how much time and attention I put into it. If you over-promise and under-deliver, the network will fail, as you won’t be able to meet people’s expectations. The network will need an owner to drive the delivery of whatever you decide, whether it’s regular events, a newsletter or a chat feed. Make sure whoever that owner is has ringfenced the time they’ll need to drive the network and don’t feel spread too thin!
Community
Keep the community connected when you’re delivering and communicating with them. Prioritising time and space for them to share their experiences with each other will keep them coming back for more, because when else do they get to do that at work?! Invite people in the community to shape how the network evolves, either ad hoc, or on a regular basis. The community will thrive over time if the network is reliable and sticks to its core purpose.
Support
Bring in outside support to deliver events and value to your community. There are a lot of people who work in the area of developing family-friendly workplaces, so invite them in to share their insights. You don’t have to do everything in-house, especially when you’ve probably got a busy day job to think about as well.