Resentment builds in the workplace as parents get flex time and benefits — and those without kids fill in the gaps

Jeffrey Russell wanted to walk in the cereal and juice-stained shoes of the parents who work for his commercial services company.

And after considering the pressures COVID-19 has placed on those kid-encumbered employees, Russell, the president of Accenture in Canada, decided these parents needed a break.

“The pandemic, as we all appreciate, has created extraordinary circumstances for our parents — for all our employees for that matter — but particularly for our parents,” says Russell, whose company boasts some 5,000 workers across the country and more than 500,000 around the globe.

“We listened to our people, we found that dealing with the issues around home education, looking after your small ones ... and trying to keep up with their work lives, the two lives coming together inside the home, was a real challenge for them,” he says.

After consulting with some moms and dads at the company, Russell’s team came up with a program that reimburses parents for hiring a caregiver — such as a friend or family member — to come into their homes part-time to take care of the kids.

Launched in the spring, the program was recently extended and will pay for 240 hours of care between now and year’s end.

“It (was) really walking in the shoes of our employees and our parents in particular,” Russell says, that brought about the decision.

Few people would disagree that programs to help workers with children during the pandemic are good and positive moves for any company that implements them.

Few people, that is, besides workers who don’t have children.

“I think even pre-COVID this tension was beginning to emerge and it’s just taking (a bigger) place now,” says Michael Halinski, an expert in organizational behaviour at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

“It’s gotten pretty dramatic,” Halinski says.

He says many companies were beginning to offer benefits for employees with children or elders under their care before the pandemic hit.

“So individuals who didn’t have children or didn’t have to take care of an elderly parent (were) losing out on some of the benefits offered by the organization,” Halinski says.

“And as any organization has a limited amount of resources where they invest their money, it matters (that) employees who didn’t have children felt like they were missing out,” he says.

And seven months into COVID-19, those feelings of losing out have become much more acute, with parents being forced to choose caring for their kids over work — and employers having to accommodate that reality.

“Even ... if your kid is in school and gets a sniffle from one of their classmates, they have to go out to get tested and it takes four or five days,” Halinski says.

“So they are out for an entire week and now the parent has to come out of work and be with them for an entire week,” he says.

And, Halinski says, there are informal expectations that nonparent employees will have to do the work that those encumbered parents can’t.

“Managers and organizations, they’re not explicitly saying it, however you’re sitting around the table and everybody is talking about ‘your kids, oh, your kid’s off sick, your kid’s off this,’ ” he says.

“And then (the nonparent) is like, ‘OK, well, I guess I’ll chip in more’ just because you don’t have that demand at home.”

As well, Halinski says, many companies are instituting formal programs — such as on-site daycares — that explicitly benefit parents and claim resources not available to the childless.

These extra demands and forgone benefits are a natural cause of discontent and resentment says, University of Toronto Management expert David Zweig.

“Everyone, every employee goes through this equity calculation,” says Zweig, an associate professor of organizational behaviour and human resource management with the U of T’s Rotman School of Management.

“They’re looking at the ratio of what they put into the job and what they are getting out and then they compare it to someone else’s ratio,” he says.

Zweig says such calculations are fundamental elements of every workplace and that they’ve doubtlessly been churning out more dissatisfaction during the pandemic.

But this is simply because the perceived equity imbalance of the day is the COVID-19-caused increase in parental duties that may lessen workplace outputs.

“It’s just being reflected now because this is the issue that has become very salient, how parents are managing with kids at home,” says Zweig, himself the father of two young children he’s had to care for and school at home.

“It just happens that it’s about this issue, it could be about pay, it could be about any other outcome ... but given the situation, this is what people are focused on,” he says.

Zweig says that allowances companies make for child-care duties differ little from perks such as gym memberships and free dry cleaning they might offer during normal times — things all aimed at making employees more productive.

“And this is one of the things that employees ... with kids have been asking for, assistance with child care,” he says.

“So as hard as it is for someone who may not have children to understand ... that’s all it is.”

Richard Powers, an ethics, governance and employment law expert at Rotman says such workload dissatisfaction is widespread across sectors — even creeping onto the U of T campus, where many parents with young children are having to stay home.

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“Families have to come first (but) it’s a legitimate concern and I think you can understand the argument on both sides,” Powers says.

“They’re collecting the same pay for less work and you can appreciate those without children (might) feel angry or unappreciated.”

For those aggrieved, nonparent workers, employers could offer alternative benefits — maybe even a simple acknowledgment and shout out for stepping up being enough to placate some, Powers says.

“I think companies that recognize that this is going on have not just an obligation, but an opportunity to minimize the negativity (because) that can really pit employees against each other,” he says.

“And you know the biggest one and the most effective one (is) not more pay, it’s recognition.”

Companies — many too cash-strapped to offer extra pay now regardless — could dangle post-pandemic benefits such as added vacation time to those taking on extra work during COVID-19, Powers says.

“But I think companies that recognize those employees, accept the new reality and look for opportunities to recognize their contributions will fare a lot better when these issues come up,” he says.

Reshma Bhandary has been an associate manager with Accenture for three years and has been at home with her two young children since COVID-19 hit in March.

“It was absolutely critical, I don’t believe I could have survived without it,” Bhandary says of her company’s child-care assistance.

“We are first-generation immigrants so we don’t really have family around. Having someone reliable, consistent, coming through for us was vital for our operations at home, if I can put it that way,” she says.

Ivona Hideg, Ann Brown Chair in organization studies at York University’s Schulich School of Business says organizations have a responsibility to help employees with children or elderly parents at home.

And while this responsibility predates the pandemic, it’s been amplified during the virus’s reign, Hideg says.

“It’s definitely not new, it’s just being more pronounced by this crisis,” she says.

While accommodations for child care may cause hard feelings in some kidless workers, they also hurt parents, especially working mothers, in the long run, Hideg says.

Extensive research has shown that mothers who accept such accommodations lose out on many professional advancements.

“They’re less likely to be promoted, less likely to get salary increases and so forth,” Hideg says.

“And it’s women who are most likely to use these accommodations even today in this crisis.”

Still, Hideg says companies have a responsibility to assuage childless employees — most effectively by offering them mental breaks from the increased work pressures.

Indeed, she says the crisis is revealing fundamental flaws in a culture that values long work hours over family and leisure in the first place.

“Why do we need to work such long hours, what’s the necessity?” Hideg says.

“Organizations should start thinking about what are our priorities and what needs to and must be done for our survival and what doesn’t need to be done now.”

Joseph Hall is a Toronto-based contributor for the Star. A former Star reporter and feature writer, he is based in Toronto.