How to manage the great summer-holiday juggle

The school summer holidays are here and, let’s face it, they weren’t designed with working parents in mind.

Assuming that a major overhaul of the school year won’t be happening any time soon, working parents and their teams will need support with this very challenging juggle.

Stress levels can run high for working parents during the long summer break. The usual school day, while still not easy to manage alongside work, is at least reliable. You know what the hours are, what your after-school care looks like and where everybody needs to be at any given time.

Summer-holiday childcare is a different story. Summer camps often run for a morning or an afternoon only and can be very expensive.

Parents may well end up with a mind-boggling childcare timetable to manage, comprising half-day camps, days spent with friends or family members if they’re available or, if none of these is a possibility, a child in the house, needing attention.

Not ideal — but that’s the reality and it’s one that can have a negative impact on employees’ mental wellness.

A compassionate approach

Together with your teams, there are ways to create support throughout the holidays. As a leader, if you turn up the dial on a compassionate approach, you’ll also role-model this behaviour, encouraging team members to be understanding of each other as routines and workloads change.

First up, let people know that team members can come to you with any problems and it’s helpful for them to do so as much as possible. That will help their mental wellness and yours, enabling you to manage the situation and proactively get ahead of any issues.

Familiarise yourself with the different leave options available at your organisation and share these with your colleagues.

At Nabs, alongside regular annual leave, we offer a set number of dependent’s leave days and the ability to use these days creatively. For example, splitting up a day’s leave into halves may help someone stay on top of their workload while also taking time off for childcare.

Bespoke solutions

Keep a flexible and open approach. Everybody’s situation is different, but what all working parents have in common is the need to stay plugged in to work while caring for their children. Take time to understand your people’s childcare challenges and pave the way for bespoke solutions that work for both your team and the individual.

If you’re a parent yourself, talk about which leave options you’re using. Role-modelling is a helpful way of showing working parents that they are seen, understood and empowered to use leave in the best way for them.

On a similar note, encourage your fellow team leaders to share how they’re managing childcare. As well as helping to normalise the culture around summer-holiday childcare, this can help people gain ideas from each other.

Tobi Asare of OMD UK and author of The Blend has some brilliant and creative tips for childcare in this edition of the Nabs Podcast — do listen and share it with your teams.

Checking in

Keep the conversation going and keep checking in on your staff (and yourself, too, if you’re a working parent). Are they feeling extra stressed, overwhelmed or tired? The question we often ask on the Nabs Advice Line is: What do you most need right now?

In this context, the answer could range from anything from a deadline extension to earlier start and finish times or some encouragement to get out every day, even if briefly, for a much-needed breather.

Meanwhile, the Nabs Advice Line itself is a great resource to share. People can call us for more support as they manage the juggle. With quite a few working parents on our team, we’ve got deep empathy for those with caring responsibilities.

Support for non-parents

Support the non-parents in your team too. They may be asked to cover certain workloads over the summer and may have to work around people not being available when they otherwise would be. This can cause frustration.

Make sure non-parents get the help they need — for example, with their work/life balance and creating an open dialogue for everyone to discuss their challenges over the summer in a shared forum.

What can help is to make sure everybody updates their status, working hours and working locations in Outlook and Teams (and other relevant platforms). This will at least take the guesswork out of trying to find people and helps to smooth collaboration.

When the summer’s done for another year, take time to reflect with your teams. What worked and what didn’t? Share these ideas to set as helpful ways of working for the future.

Finally, Nabs’ inclusive leader training helps team leaders have supportive conversations with their teams. For more information, visit here.