27 Sep 2024

Supporting working parents: 5 essential benefits for engagement and retention

Zest looks into the best benefits available to working parents.

Whether an employee is expecting a baby, has already had children or is planning to adopt, it’s important they know what means of support is available to them.

Here, Zest offers its top five benefits for working parents.

1. Holiday buy and sell

Whether employees want to take the kids away during the school holidays, or simply want a few days to relax and reset while the kids are at school, trading holidays is the perfect benefit.

Typically, employees can opt to purchase up to five extra days of annual leave on top of their contracted allowance.

What’s better, they can even make tax and National Insurance savings on the trade, meaning a few extra pennies for that round of ice creams.

Some organisations also allow employees to sell unwanted annual leave, although there is a limit to the amount of days employees can sell.

This is of course subject to tax and National Insurance.

Either way, employees can either choose to spend more time with the family or put some money aside for a weekend trip.

2. Health cash plan

There are a number of methods employees can take to fend off burnout and energise their life.

Every working parent needs to look after their health. A health cash plan enables employees to recoup the cost of regular medical expenses such as optical, dental, therapy treatments and consultations.

There are different levels of cover to the benefit itself, but the good news is that children under a certain age are often covered by the policy for free.

3. Discounts and cashback

Arguably among the most underrated benefits on the market are discounts and cashbacks for those that love to shop.

Whether it’s the weekly grocery order, that all-important family holiday or treating the kids to the latest gadget, employees can secure discounts and even claim back a percentage of their spend into a pot for use on future purchases.

What’s more, employees can even receive cashback on bigger household decisions, like switching broadband or tv providers.

Through Zest Marketplace, our customers have access to a number of discount and cashback providers, including:

Paylow: Within a swift two-minute onboarding journey, users enter their email and select the bank account they wish to securely link to Paylow. They are immediately introduced to their personal subscription dashboard.

WPP: World Privilege Plus are the go to discount club, negotiating a great collection of premium and essential discounts designed to bring unparalleled savings to users. WPP focuses on instant exclusive discounts that redefine the way members shop, explore, save and indulge, with up to 85% savings and discounts available.

4. Hybrid flexible working

Juggling a full-time job with the kids at home during the summer break is tough. Mix together the need for attention, trips to and from activities and the occasional snack and you’ve got what looks like a recipe for disaster.

And if that’s not a cause for concern, then recent stats from HR News will certainly raise red flags:

45% of parents have experienced burnout trying to do it all.
53% have admitted they can’t properly concentrate on their job.
40% have had to miss important meetings due to holiday childcare issues.

With hybrid and flexible working, employers can better support working parents. That could mean allowing employees to start the day later and finish later to take the kids to school, or enabling home working a few times a week to save on childcare.

5. Childcare support

If employees are not able to work from home, then childcare support is a great alternative.

Here’s some providers that can help with emergency childcare or workplace nurseries:

Gogeta: helps you to enrich the physical, mental and financial health of your employees via cycle to work and workplace nursery schemes.

Yurtle: helps companies to combat caregiver burnout and the associated productivity and employee turnover losses in the workplace. Its insurance cover and caregiver support app place care breakdown prevention at the core of our solution, spanning child, elder and specialised care.

Financial wellbeing

Some financial wellbeing providers offered through Zest Marketplace include:

Money Guided: AI-powered, digital financial assistant that helps your staff better understand and take control of their finances.

Maji: financial wellbeing and money management platform that offers personalised support to reduce stress, mental health challenges and absenteeism associated with money worries.

Hastee: helps when unexpected costs occur or if you have money left over at the end of the month. Offers a range of tools, including earned wage access, a benefits calculator as well as financial education partnership with Nudge among others.

Keen to find out how we can improve your employee wellbeing proposition for working parents? Book a demo today and see how our technology can maximise your benefit offering.