Breaking barriers for working parents and carers: the new standard for employers and employees
By Helena Wacko, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Researcher
The landscape of work is changing and, increasingly, employers are recognising that the traditional model of work no longer fits the lives of most people – in fact, let’s face it, it rarely has. In March 2025 Working Families UK launched a new Family Friendly Workplaces certification offering organisations a clear, evidence-based framework to benchmark and improve their family support practices. As argued by Jane van Zyl, CEO of Working Families, this certification gives employers the tools to create workplaces where parents and carers can thrive, benefiting both people and business.[i] The initiative is a timely shift and one that reflects a growing awareness that workplaces must evolve to support the real lives of their people.
This move goes beyond flexible hours or parental leave. At its heart, it challenges deep-rooted assumptions about who the “ideal worker” is: typically imagined as someone always available, unburdened by care, and unencumbered by family responsibilities. It recognises that families do not all look the same and have long been underserved by workplace policies built around narrow norms. It values unpaid work not as an obstacle to productivity, but as a crucial contribution to society.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a turning point: as homes became offices and care work came out from the shadows, more employers began to question how we define commitment, productivity, and success. Now, there is a growing imperative to create workplaces where all families are supported, recognised, and respected.
In this blog, we explore what it means to be truly family-friendly in today’s world of work. We look at the policies, cultural shifts, and bold actions – such as the Family Friendly Workplaces certification – reshaping the future of work.
Confronting the ‘ideal worker myth’
‘The ideal worker myth’ – “the belief that the ‘ideal’ worker puts work above all else and keeps life out of work” – is a key driver of gender inequality in the workplace.[ii] It is, fundamentally, a myth because no such worker truly exists. Initially, American sociologist Joan Acker, introduced the term “ideal worker” to explain why senior leadership roles remain dominated by men. While all workers have lives and commitments beyond the workplace, some of these are especially overlooked and undervalued. In other words, the ideal worker model benefits no one, not even the male workers who are often assumed to fit it. Annual surveys from Working Families consistently show that fathers, too, want greater access to flexible working, so they can be more involved in caring for their children.[iii] Also, a 2020 survey for the Women’s Budget Group found that nearly four in five people believe caring for children should be shared more equally between heterosexual couples.[iv]
Crucially, the reason some can approximate the ideal worker is precisely because someone else is disproportionately taking on the additional labour outside of work, most often unpaid and overwhelmingly undertaken by women. Unpaid care in the UK was recently valued at £184.3 billion a year, comparable to the cost of running the NHS.[v] This highlights just how much workplaces and the wider economy relies on the invisible labour of parents and carers to function. So, in other words, while the ideal worker myth places pressure on all employees – particularly those with caregiving or other responsibilities – women are often presumed to be furthest from the so-called ideal. For example, among the UK’s 1.3 million “sandwich carers” who care for both children and elderly relatives, women make up 61 per cent of this group, deepening existing inequalities at work and home. Research from 2024 also highlights the lasting mental and physical toll this dual burden places on carers. [vi] The implications of the gendered divide of unpaid labour are also reflected in our recent research into European corporations, revealing that 39 per cent of women experience barriers as a result of having most of the caregiving responsibility. [vii]
Moreover, when viewed through an intersectional feminist lens, we also see the layered ways in which this myth impacts different groups of women, making the ideal “even less plausible for women who are marginalised beyond their gender”.[viii] These disparities – and how they are felt vis-a-vis paid work – do not only manifest along gendered lines, but for example also along racial ones. Among Black mothers in the US, more than 80 per cent are breadwinners compared to 50 per cent of white mothers, in turn shaping the weight of unpaid work.[ix]
However, the solution is not to enable women or otherwise marginalised workers to approximate the ideal, but to dismantle it altogether through inclusive and family-friendly workplaces. It must also be recognised that the ideal worker myth often goes hand in hand with a bottom-line and business case mentality, when in fact ‘non-ideal’ workers can be just as productive as ideal workers – precisely when given the right structures to succeed.
Redefining ‘Working Families’: Supporting Diverse Family Realities
There are several assumptions underpinning the notion of an ‘ideal worker’ – not just about who’s meant to do paid work versus unpaid work, but also about what a family should look like. These expectations often reflect narrow, binary and heteronormative views that do not account for the full diversity of modern families. If we are serious about challenging the ideal worker myth and making workplaces truly inclusive for working families, we need to rethink what we mean by ‘family’ in the first place. That means recognising and supporting working families in all their forms; from queer families, single parents to adoptive and foster families.
For LGBTQ+ parents, outdated policies can create added barriers, from limited leave options to healthcare that does not reflect their needs. Best practice now includes equal parental leave regardless of gender, inclusive healthcare benefits and building a culture where all families are welcomed and respected. This includes things like EDI training, visible stories from LGBTQ+ parents, and a zero-tolerance stance on homophobia or transphobia related to family status.
Single parents, too, face unique pressures; often managing work and caregiving alone without the support structures that dual-parent households might have. For single parents, inclusive policies like flexible working, emergency leave, and accessible childcare are not just ‘nice-to-haves’, but essential tools for achieving balance and staying in the workforce.
Recommendations
In short, family-friendly needs are multifaceted, it encompasses childcare and eldercare, mental health, gender norms, and more. To truly support all workers, we must urgently challenge the myth of the ‘ideal worker.’ Whether we are unknowingly reinforcing a family hostile workplace or bearing the brunt of it, we all lose in a workplace that “idealises an impossible prototype.”[x] To begin reshaping our workplaces into truly family-friendly environments, we offer a set of ten practical recommendations:
- Challenge the ‘ideal worker’ myth: Set the expectation that employees can have family commitments and still progress, rather than needing to be constantly available. Encourage leaders to publicly express the value of work-life balance, highlighting examples of employees who succeed while prioritising family commitments. Set clear expectations that success is about results, not just the number of hours worked. Introduce policies like formal flexible hours or results-based performance reviews, where employees are judged by the outcomes they produce rather than time spent at the desk.
- Recognise unpaid care work and value caregiving experience: Acknowledge that childcare or eldercare responsibilities are real work, too, and provide flexibility during intense caregiving periods. Treat raising children or supporting relatives as building valuable skills and insight, and reflect that in recruitment and promotion. Implement “return to work” programmes that allow caregivers to re-enter the workforce after a caregiving break, providing tailored mentorship or training. Encourage hiring managers to value caregiving history during the evaluation process, ensuring that candidates are not penalised for gaps in their CVs due to care responsibilities.
- Prioritise mental health: Create a ‘mental health –first’ workplace by offering resources like free, confidential counselling, access to mental health apps, and stress management workshops. Implement specific mental health days or “caregiver leave” days for employees balancing work and family commitments. Regularly check in on employees’ well-being through surveys or one-on-one sessions with HR. Offer mental health training for managers to help them identify stress or burnout in employees and to provide support in a way that is non-judgmental and empathetic. Ensure that these resources are easily accessible and widely promoted.
- Ensure flexible and hybrid work is available and equitable: Allow new starters to work flexibly from the outset, showing trust and a genuine commitment to work-life balance. Ensure that flexible work is integrated into the culture, not just an ad-hoc response to individual needs. Make sure hybrid employees are included in all meetings, have access to the same networking opportunities, and receive the same communication. Invest in technology and infrastructure to ensure seamless remote work access and collaboration. Have clear guidelines on expectations for both in-office and remote work to maintain fairness.
- Use inclusive policy language: Avoid gendered terms, instead use “parents”, “carers”, or “primary caregiver” to reflect all family structures. Train HR personnel and managers to use inclusive language when discussing benefits and family-related support.
- Support all family types: As well as using inclusive language, above, you can ensure parental leave and benefits apply equally to LGBTQ+ parents, single parents, adoptive and foster families. Offer equal benefits to employees regardless of gender, including leave and flexible working arrangements, and ensure that leave policies are designed to be inclusive and supportive of all family dynamics.
- Include eldercare in policy: Provide leave and flexibility for those caring for ageing relatives, not just parents of young children. Ensure that employees with eldercare responsibilities can easily request time off, adjust working hours, or access paid leave without stigma. Implement a clear, accessible process for requesting eldercare support that employees can feel comfortable using.
- Support the return to work: Implement phased returns for employees coming back from parental or caregiving leave. This could mean a gradual increase in hours, part-time options, or a temporary reduction in workload to ease the transition. Offer mentoring or refresher training to help returning employees catch up on changes during their absence. Create a return-to-work programme with check-ins from HR to assess needs and provide support. Encourage managers to be empathetic, offering flexibility where necessary and focusing on smooth reintegration into the team.
- Audit for bias in practice: Regularly review data to ensure carers and part-time staff are not being overlooked for promotion, pay rises or key projects. Implement a system of regular audits, including feedback from employees about their experiences, and ensure that decisions on career progression are made based on performance, rather than assumptions about work availability. Provide training to all managers to help them identify and counter implicit biases that may affect their decisions.
- Model work-life balance from the top: Encourage senior leaders and managers to take family leave, work flexibly, and openly discuss their own work-life balance challenges. Seeing leaders openly take time for their families without penalty demonstrates to employees that they are supported in doing the same. Ensure that senior leaders are visible in championing policies that support work-life balance. Leaders can also act as role models by openly managing their time, setting boundaries around after-hours work, and encouraging their teams to do the same. Creating visible role models at the top fosters an organisational culture that values personal well-being alongside work responsibilities.
Shape Talent is an award-winning gender equity consultancy who partner with complex multinational organisations who are serious about gender equality. We help you make the sustainable change that leads to diverse and inclusive cultures where people and business can thrive. To learn more, get in touch today.
Helena Wacko is an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Researcher at Shape Talent, the equity, diversity and inclusion experts for complex multinational organisations who are serious about gender equality – and what it can achieve for their business.
References
[i] https://www.londondaily.news/working-families-launch-new-family-friendly-certification/
[ii] https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2024.2354832
[iii] https://workingfamilies.org.uk/
[iv] https://www.wbg.org.uk/article/end-of-the-ideal-worker/
[vi] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/jan/sandwich-carers-experience-decline-mental-and-physical-health
[vii] https://shapetalent.com/the-reality-gap-three-barriers-to-womens-advancement-in-european-corporates/
[viii] https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2024.2354832
[ix] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/black-womenomics-f/black-womenomics-report.pdf
[x] https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2024.2354832