Running an online business is hard work, and you probably need help. So having a few good, dedicated employees on your team is a bonus.
The pandemic has made it much harder for businesses to operate. In addition, many of us are working from home, and that can pose challenges. Employees working from home is one thing, but what if they have kids? How to help employees work from home with kids? Your employees need to work for you, and they also need to look after their kids.
The trick to being a good employer is allowing your employees to balance their work and home life. You have good employees, and they have kids, but you don't want to lose them because they do great work, so what do you do? This article discusses some of the best tips for how to help employees work from home with kids.
1. Focus on the Results
While it is true that you may want your employees to maintain a schedule, you have to take into account that kids often bring a lot of surprises to the table. For example, sometimes your employees might have to help their kids with homeschooling, feed them, or anything in between. Moreover, kids get sick, and there are always emergencies.
A parent cannot really work a nine-to-five schedule, especially if their kids are at home. Keep in mind that due to the current pandemic, there are further interruptions. As an employer, you must be flexible.
In terms of the daily schedule, when your employees do the work is not as important as that as they do it, and of course that they do it well. You should focus on the results, not the process.
If your employees are producing quality work, taking care of clients, and getting the job done, there is no reason why they cannot do so at any hour of the day, whether two in the afternoon or two in the morning.
Simply put, if they're getting the job done, then that's all that really matters. School-age children require care and attention, something that all employees must keep in mind, especially now during these very trying times.
2. Allow for Flexible Scheduling
While we just said that as an employer with employees with kids, you should be focusing on the results and not on anything else, you still may need your employees to work at certain times. After all, being a team means employees and employers must sometimes be able to communicate at the same time.
You might need to share projects or brainstorm on strategies. Therefore, you may need your employees to be available at certain times. Instead of a nine-to-five job that forces employees to work at specific times, you could allow your employees to set their own schedules, at least to a certain extent.
For instance, you could tell your employees that they can work at any time from five in the morning to ten at night. As long as they get seven or eight hours in, does it matter when those eight hours occur?
Moreover, your employees may require some days off during the week. The regular practice is to take days off on the weekend, but sometimes when you have kids, that's just not possible. Therefore, to help your employees, you could allow them to take one or two days they choose during the week.
3. Respect Their Family Time
If your employees working from home have kids, they have families, and families need family time. They need time to bond, communicate, and just to be families. When this family time is, as far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t really matter. However, with that being said, you and your employees should work together to create a flexible schedule that incorporates adequate family time.
After all, people work better when they're relaxed and happy, and spending time with family is usually relaxing. So, if your employees have some family time scheduled, you should not bother them during that time. If your employees are otherwise doing a great job, you should do whatever you can to leave their family time for them.
Of course, there may be extenuating circumstances, such as dire emergencies, but other than that, your employee’s family time should be left for them. It comes down to the fact that there needs to be a separation between work and home. This can be hard to do when someone works from home with their kids, but this is something that you, as an employer, need to keep in mind.
4. Flexible Communication
One of the most essential parts of running any business is being able to efficiently communicate. If you're working a regular job with employees in an office, communication will be more or less instant. Even when employees work from home, many employers expect an employee to respond more or less immediately to their communications.
Now, if your employees have kids that need breaks, you need to account for this. Account for the fact that your employees aren't always going to respond immediately.
As an employer, you need to set some guidelines on communication. For example, maybe you could tell your employees that it's OK to not respond immediately if they are busy, but they have to respond within a certain period. Communication is essential, so you have to reinforce the point that your employees must maintain contact with you. But that said, it might not always be instant.
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5. Encourage Discussion, Communication, and Empathy
Employers often have a tendency to dictate. To a certain extent, this is natural because employers are in charge of making decisions after all. However, these are trying times that require employers to take employees’ needs into account; in this case, it is all about their kids.
If you want to be a good employer, ask your employees what they want and need. It's all about being a good listener. Remember what they say, ‘If you’re talking, you’re not learning.’ So if you want to learn how to make your employees’ lives easier, so they are productive, you need to listen to them and what their needs are.
A bit of empathy and flexibility will go a long way. Moreover, if you ask your employees what they need, they will feel appreciated, and employees who feel appreciated will be more willing to work harder. Happy employees are productive employees, and a big part of this is allowing all parties to engage in effective communication and time management.
FAQ
How Can You Help Employees Work From Home?
One of the best things you can do is create a virtual office space for employees with the right collaborative tools. Communication is essential, and virtual office space will help on this front.
How Many Hours Per Day do You Homeschool?
The official recommendation is that high school kids get about four hours of homeschooling per day. However, as an employer, you must know just how much schooling your employees’ kids need, as this will reflect on your schedule.
How Can Companies Support Remote Employees With Kids?
- Provide employees with flexible schedules
- Provide them with the tools they need
- Create a virtual workplace that has a kid-friendly zone
- Be sure to have good childcare policies in place.
Conclusion
As an online business owner with many factors to keep that business afloat, there are some things you can do to help your employees stay on top of things. With the five tips we provided, your employees should have no problems taking care of their kids and their work duties.
