Inclusivity for all – how to support both parents and non-parents in your EDI approach

Published: 28 January 2025 | by Caroline Green

Motherhood is at the heart of a lot of policies in the contemporary workplace, where the narrative often focuses around an ideal that everyone is or wants to be a mother. This can be incredibly excluding for non-mothers. It’s great to provide policies and benefits that support parents, says Caroline Green, but how can you supplement your support for everyone else?

A yoga teacher once told my class that we are “human beings, not human doings”. Managing your workforce of human beings who have a life beyond work, balanced with an understanding that not everyone wants to “get personal” at work, can be complex.

Parents juggling everything from a two-year-old’s temper tantrums to losing confidence when returning to work after maternity leave may not want to share these challenges for fear of being judged. Likewise, non-parents may be afraid to say “I have a lot on my plate”, as society tends to say that that can’t possibly be true unless you have children. It can.

So how do you ensure you provide the space and culture for an inclusive workplace, whatever your employees’ parental status?

First, ask yourself: How many “parent” groups do we have in our organisation?

You may be tempted to say two: parents and non-parents. But the reality is far more:

• Parents of biological children.
• Parents of foster or adopted children.
• CFBC (Child Free By Choice).
• CNBC (Childless Not By Choice) and still trying to get pregnant or those who have stopped trying.
• Grieving parents.
• Women suffering miscarriages.
• Men supporting partners who have had miscarriages.
• Almost-parents who have had an adoptive process fall through.
• Menopausal women.
• Solo parents.
• Step-parents through divorce or bereavement.
• Those who are as yet undecided.

It is important to consider them all when creating an inclusive workplace.

Many of these groups are larger in number than you might realise. Non-parents are an integral part of the workforce, and increasingly there are more of them. In the UK, one in five women remains a non-parent permanently and Noon’s research found that almost a third of professional women aged 45-60 have no children (60% childless/40% child-free).

You likely won’t know the exact mix in your organisation, and that doesn’t matter. The point here is to evaluate how you ensure inclusivity and fairness whatever your employees’ parental status might be. Small changes can make huge differences to this EDI issue, and are a great way to attract and retain a wide range of talent.

Is your organisation less inclusive than you think?

The promotion of motherhood (pronatalism) is common in the workplace. Well-intentioned “women’s groups” can become focused on motherhood issues, International Women’s Day often emphasises supporting mothers to manage “the juggle” and inclusivity pages may focus on supporting parents, offering nothing for non-parents, all of which only increases this exclusion. Likewise, policies and benefits packages tend to assume that all employees will be parents who need support. But how can you ensure that you supplement your support for everyone else too?

Ideas include:

• Build a golden thread throughout your policies and procedures so that they apply to everyone, regardless of parental status. For example, does your bereavement policy cover miscarriage or can it link to other policies and approaches?
• If you have a policy that supports those having fertility treatments, put in what happens if that treatment doesn’t work, including by offering mental health support.
• Support doesn’t just have to be financial. Flexible working, even if it is not the norm, could help the woman who wants to do an IVF injection at home or the partner who wants to assist her, or the menopausal woman who is battling hot flushes, fatigue and the meaning of this fertility transition. Flexible working is just as important to these groups as the mother or father who wants to be there for the school run or the foster parents who need to drop everything for an emergency.
• Policies are there to protect the business and individual employees. A study conducted by ResumeLab about parents and non-parents in the workplace highlighted that 74% of respondents thought parents received better treatment than non-parents, and 87% believed that working parents had more benefits. Reasons for this included childless workers being denied leave, being asked to do more overtime or being given greater workloads, with parents taking precedence in the application of flexible working provisions and the booking of leave and with child-related reasons for absence being seen as more valid. While this data is from the US, the picture in the UK is similar, with non-mum group discussions awash with stories of those without children being discriminated against. Parents being allowed to work flexibly is a huge opening up of talent pools for organisations but this flexibility shouldn’t be to the detriment of anyone else if you want an inclusive workplace. Non-parents should also be allowed to take time off in the school holidays if they wish – there are many reasons why they might want to. Likewise they shouldn’t be forced to work all the unsociable shifts just to allow flexibility for parents to be home to accommodate the needs of their children.

Employee voices and benefits packages

Is your benefits package being fully utilised, and if not, have you asked yourself why? Whether it’s a communications problem or an issue with what you’re offering, asking employees is crucial. For EDI issues, organisations often focus on various protected characteristics such as race and disability, but it’s also important to get a range of parent and non-parent voices too.

If your benefits contain family-focused healthcare support for dependants to family-friendly vouchers and they’re not being utilised as much as you expected, perhaps you have more of the non-parent groups than you’d realised. A shift in the range of benefits you offer could have a huge impact, without huge additional costs to the organisation.

Listening to employees can also alert you to things you’re offering which may be displaying unconscious bias. Hosting family fun days on site during the school holidays sounds great. But ask yourself: If you were trying desperately for a child, or had just been through a miscarriage, would you want to take part in a family day at your place of work? Probably not. This doesn’t mean you have to cancel it, just treat it with sensitivity.

Advance warning and a “no questions asked” policy of working from home that day could help: not everyone wants to share their personal pain and some people simply don’t want the irritation of having children around while they’re trying to work (even parents themselves). Remember it is a topic that could be triggering, so also think how you communicate about it: for example don’t announce a family fun day at the start of a meeting where those who find it triggering can’t take time out to process.

As well as what not to do, think about how you could promote non-parents in the workplace as well, such as celebrating International Childfree Day or recognising World Childless Week, with due sensitivity. Other measures such as setting up non-parent groups or asking employees what support they would find helpful for non-parents would also send out a positive message.

How line managers and HR can help

Drafting an organisational policy is one thing, seeing it through into practice is another. HR and line managers need to create safe environments, where teams feel they will be heard and not ridiculed. Creating this psychological safety often comes down to treating situations with sensitivity, good communication and considering the impact of language use.

Often those without children will be asked, at times incessantly, why they don’t have children. Nobody has to justify or explain their life choices and not everyone has the same interests or life goals. Instead, it helps if you can create a space for people to communicate openly and understand each other. Sometimes a kindly ear is all it takes to feel a sense of safety and belonging.

Data tells us this sense of belonging is what makes teams strong, high-performing and well-oiled machines, where individuals feel a connection. Further enhance this by ensuring you take a fair approach so that one group doesn’t feel it is being pitted against another.

Everyone has the legal right to request flexible working, for example, and as their line manager you should not base your approval for that on childcare reasons alone. You need to serve your whole team and be mindful that non-parents could have legitimate reasons for asking, from other caring responsibilities to working better in a home environment.

If a request is rejected out of hand, you will not create a safe space and sense of belonging within your team. (You may also be failing in your legal responsibilities.) And if team requirements mean you can’t flex on a permanent basis, might you be able to at specific times, such as during fertility treatments or a failed adoption programme. Think about how you can take organisational policy and make it work effectively for your team, so you don’t seem to favour one staff member over another.

Sensitivity also goes a long way, so if you have someone in your team who wants to show off their newborn baby, that’s lovely. Just let teams know in advance and also advise they can reach out if they need further support.

Reaching out is also important in other regards, including development and career aspirations. Don’t make assumptions about these based on people’s life choices outside of work. A non-parent isn’t necessarily ruthlessly career-driven and ambitious, as much as a parent may have huge career ambitions.

As with most things in the workplace, a coordinated approach between HR, line managers and employees, with strong communication and due care and understanding of everyone’s views, will see dividends for the individual, the team and the whole organisation.