Innovative Companies for the Working Parent - Part 2 of 3
Continuing our look at companies that recognize the duties and responsibilities of people in the work force who are also raising families, we have found a couple more companies that offer some terrific services to the working Mom and Dad.
Hallmark Cards has its headquarters in Kansas City, MO. They are of course a household name to most of us, providing greeting cards, ornaments, TV programming as well as many other products. Hallmark has been in business for 98 years and currently employs 31,412 employees, with 25,951 being women.
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Hallmark has been providing flexible work schedules for more than a decade. Their flex-work program includes telecommuting, job-sharing, and compressed workweeks.
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Full-time care for children has been made very affordable through a ten-percent employee discount at two national child-care chains. They also have access to a resource and referral service to help locate other options.
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In 2007, Hallmark sponsored an executive panel discussion on worklife balance and a women’s leadership conference. They believe this initiative is have a real effect, especially since last year more than 80% of the new managers were women.
Allstate Insurance is headquartered in Northbrook, IL, they provide insurance and financial products. They have a total of 36,495 employees, 21,590 of which are women. A couple of their programs include:
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All State has a headquartered-based daycare program with an additional three nearby child care facilities that provides up to 30% off the cost of a day care center for the working parent. Yet it doesn’t stop there, if the employees are working for Allstate in another location, they also get access to discounted child care through four other national providers.
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A very important aspect of the Allstate work force programs is their flex scheduling. Since women represent such a high number of employees, the work/life balance is encouraged. In 2007, 75% of employees flexed their schedules, included in that 75% were 28% who telecommuted and 10% who worked compressed schedules.
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They also provide a number of services that cut down back on the number of things a person has to fit into their already over packed off hours. Included in the stress buster service program are such things as dry cleaning, catering, movie rentals and minor auto repairs. There is of course available as well on-site insurance and financial agency services.
General Mills has its base in Minneapolis, MN. Of course they are well-known for all the packaged food products they produce. They have 16,809 employees and 6,795 of those are women. Take a look at some of their programs.
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Time off to volunteer – but here’s the nice part – its paid time off! GM will give up to ten hours of paid time off a year to work as a volunteer in the community.
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New parents can receive as much as 26 weeks off, without risking their jobs. Three weeks are fully paid, and three are partially paid for the moms. For the dads, or adoptive parents, it is two fully paid weeks off.
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They also run flex scheduling with 42% of the employees regularly changing their hours and in the summer, most employees work a 45-minute longer day so that Friday quitting time is at lunch.
Tags: work life balance, working parent