The health crisis has led to difficult situations for working parents who have had to juggle professional responsibilities, occasional class closures and periods of isolation for their child. As work-family balance specialists in Quebec, we are interested in the experience of Quebec parents, more than two years after the start of the health crisis, and in the implementation of large-scale telework.
Read also: The pandemic has made it easier to balance work and family … but less so for women
What concessions are Quebec parents willing to make to facilitate their work-family balance? This question is at the heart of our work, carried out in collaboration with the Network Conciliatives for a Quebec Family (RPQF) initiative.
At the request of the RPQF, the Léger company was commissioned to conduct surveys of Quebec workers in order to paint a picture of the work-family balance between parents and health workers. The data allow comparisons to be made between the situation of parents before the pandemic, in January 2018 and February 2020, and three times since the start of the crisis, i.e. in June 2020 and in May 2021 and 2022.
Better reconciliation, yes, but not at any price
Before the pandemic, in the winter of 2018, when about 10% of Quebecs had the opportunity to telework, a high percentage of parents – 37% – said they were ready to accept a pay cut to get better measures. of conciliation.
Subsequent investigations, conducted during the crisis, reveal a significant change in parental speech. The percentage of those who declare themselves willing to pay a cut in exchange for better reconciliation measures dropped to 31% in June 2020 and stopped at 27% in May 2021 and 2022.
Certain categories of workers – particularly respondents who have a university degree, who were not born in Canada or who are under 35 – say they are more willing to accept a pay cut to improve their conditions from 2020.
As for women, however, the trend is not clear. While a relatively high percentage of them said they were ready to reach such a compromise in 2018 and 2021, this was not the case in 2020 and 2022. Similarly, analyzing the data of respondents by sector of occupation does not allow to identify results that recur from one year to the next.
The trend continues
Teleworking, which is an advantage desired by most of those who have experienced it, facilitates the reconciliation of several parents. Moreover, the trend seems to continue that since the beginning of the health crisis the balance between work and family has been facilitated and the implementation of teleworking.
This discovery is both important and unexpected. Our research showed that a higher percentage of parents she claimed to have an “easy” balance between work and family during childbirth. The hypothesis was therefore advanced that this perception of easier reconciliation was the result of a reduction in temporal conflicts in the pivotal periods of the morning and late afternoon.
Following the reopening of schools and with the resumption of all extracurricular activities, it would seem that it is more teleworking and the attitude of employers compared to the absence of activities for children, which facilitates reconciliation. The data collected in 2021 and 2022 reveal this. Since most parents believe they have an “easy” balance, they are therefore perhaps less inclined to reduce their salaries for better conditions.
Teachers feel less supported by their employer
Most employees with care responsibilities say their employer has “kept” (53%) or increased (10%) the support available to them since the crisis began. The empathy shown by employers towards their employees therefore continued beyond the weeks of compulsory confinement.
In contrast, across all occupational sectors, respondents working in the education sector are more likely to perceive a decline in employer support. This is the reflection of a certain pandemic fatigue, to which teachers have been constantly invited change their teaching approachwhile managing the use of masks among students?
Difficult to say. In a context where nearly one in four teachers leave the profession within the first five yearsit will be necessary to reflect quickly on good practices in terms of human resource management in order to support and recognize the work of teachers and thus avoid accentuating the labor shortage.
The effects of labor shortages
The labor shortage facing Quebec could prove to be a double-edged sword for working conditions. On the one hand, organizations’ recruiting difficulties create a pressure on wage increases. According to some observers, job seekers can negotiate very advantageously terms of work.
On the other hand, data from 2022 show that half of respondents say that labor shortages affect access to work-life balance measures. Women (54%), teachers (65%) and health and social services workers (62%) were significantly more inclined to make this observation, no doubt due to the lack of manpower and the intensification of work in these environments.
At a time when employers are trying by all means to attract and retain workers, employers should certainly review their attitude towards reconciliation measures. Things like a pool table, an espresso machine, being able to take your dog to the office, offering free food (sweets, fruit), and concierge services can sometimes attract short-term staff.
But to foster the loyalty of this staff in the long term, it is necessary to rely instead on the flexibility of schedules and the different ways of working hours and spaces (teleworking).
The original version of this article was published on The conversationa non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas between academic experts and the general public.
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Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay has received funding from Teluq University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for her work-family balance research.
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