Even now employers in Latvia have difficulties with finding employees for their companies. The competition for the best employees is expected only to intensify in the future and that is why strategies to recruit new talent are becoming essential. It is important to understand that money is not the only motivation for the employees when deciding whether to work for a particular company or not. There are other factors at play, such as possibility to balance employee’s work in a particular position with his/her family life.
In 2015, TNS noted that in Latvia, 48% of employees could balance their work and home (ask for a day off, bring their children to work or work from home), but 43% had no such opportunity. Being unable to balance work and home for a long time, employees can start thinking of finding another job. In 2016, TNS reported that 17% of the employees kept optimum balance between work and home duties. Supporting the employees means that each employee will have a better chance to balance their work and family life improving their loyalty to the company and subsequently helping reduce employee turnover and recruitment and induction costs.
Surveys show that those employees that have support to achieve balance between their work and home life, perform better. Happy employees are 31 to 37% more productive.
Supporting balance between home and work reduces employees’ stress levels related to childcare issues or looking after other family members. As a result, employees are more satisfied with their quality of life.
Employers have a number of tools to provide family-friendly support to their employees, such as:
- Work from home
- Flexible hours
- Daycare facilities
- Childcare service support outside normal working hours
- Switching an employee to part-time work while he/she deals with his/her family matters, etc.
Family-friendly support also depends on working hours. There are numerous jobs requiring people to work outside normal working hours (nights, weekends, public holidays) and most of those jobs do not come with childcare options.