Businesses that are friendly to their working families have an opportunity to claim a ranking as a national Best Place for Working Parents® thanks to the organization’s partnership with the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth (TCCY).
Through the 3-minute online self-assessment, businesses are ranked based on some of the following: company-paid healthcare, PTO (paid time off), parental leave, breastfeeding support, flexible hours, remote work, child care assistance and onsite or backup child care.
According to The State of the Child 2022 report released earlier this month by the TCCY, one in five workers in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama have access to paid family leave. In Tennessee, 88 percent of young adults report having some sort of health insurance. The State of the Child 2022 also noted the time fathers spend caring for children has tripled since 1965 in the United States.
The Best Place for Working Parents® is available to businesses of all sizes through a three-minute, online self-assessment that compares businesses of like size and industry. Originating in Fort Worth in 2020, the confidential online business self-assessment allows businesses to tout innovative practices that are helping today’s working parents provide for their families, and adapt and thrive at work during extraordinary times. The Best Place for Working Parents® assessment highlights only the top 10 research-backed policies proven to benefit working parents and businesses’ bottom line.
The TCCY announced the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is the first business in the state to receive the designation.
While family-friendly policies have a direct impact on working parents, local and national research proves that there is also a serious business case to being family-friendly:
- 83 percent of millennials would leave one job for another with stronger family-friendly supports.
- Replacing an employee costs an employer six to nine months of that employee’s salary.
- Over 60 percent of working parents said child care issues have caused them to miss work.
- Employers lose $13 billion annually due to child care challenges faced by their workforce.
Each of the top 10 policies include research on their business ROI and case studies that tell the story of how local businesses’ practices have impacted their productivity, retention, job satisfaction and attraction. The 3-minute self-assessment, real-time dashboard results, and the Best Place for Working Parents® designation for qualifying businesses can be accessed at business.bestplace4workingparents.com.
Information on TCCY is available at www.tn.gov/tccy.
