Flexibility key for working parents
AN event due to be staged in Jersey this week aims to start conversations about the challenges of raising a family alongside building a career.
It will link early years childhood development alongside the business case for family-friendly workplaces. It’s a conversation that’s very apposite for Guernsey too.
Local research has shown that employer flexibility is now a top priority for employees, and many workplaces are adapting in response. It’s a clear priority for all, including government, to make work as flexible and meaningful as possible for everyone to benefit.
Inclusion for all working parents, helping them to juggle the pressures of home and work life, is so important for the economy and for their wellbeing.
Guernsey faces the challenges of wanting working parents – and indeed pensioners – to continue to work and make an economic contribution.
Those parents tend to be tied to the workplace by the need to contribute to paying for their home, quite apart from still having aspirations to build a career.
The non-employed at the older end of the age bracket could still make a contribution too, but they are not so driven by need.
Guernsey needs to realise that many feel that they have paid their dues and reached a position in life where they no longer need, or want, to work. And exhortations to do so from politicians aren’t going to make a scrap of difference.