What fathers want

Career and child. Working men also need support within the company. What you can do as a manager. 

When it comes to fatherhood, male employees are often forgotten. As a rule, not even HR knows which man is expecting a child in the near future. The situation is very different for female employees. As soon as someone is pregnant, the future workload is also discussed. 

 «Although the salary increases with fatherhood - the gender pay gap often starts with the first child - when it comes to a flexible workload or paternity leave, men are clearly at a disadvantage,» says Cornelia Peltenburg, Co-Managing Director at profawo.  

Get fatherhood out of the taboo zone

Fathers have the same worries as mothers. Many work 80 per cent and struggle with the expectation that they have to continue working their old 100 per cent job. Simply with less time. So, just like part-time mums, they usually work more. This leads to stress, frustration and a poor working atmosphere. 

Managers can counteract this in a simple way. ‘It helps if they talk honestly about their own situation and take the subject out of the taboo zone. Sleepless nights, sick children or childcare bottlenecks: when managers talk about their own experiences, they show that they are taking responsibility in the company and at home,’ says Cornelia Peltenburg.  

The most important tips to support expectant fathers:

• Make fatherhood a topic of discussion 
• Talk about your own role as a father 
• Actively collect workload requests 
• Extend paternity leave - this helps the family enormously when starting the new adventure 
• Talk to the team about meeting time slots and offer hybrid team meetings 
• Clarify expectations of part-time employees 
• Determine deputisations 
• Create shared email accounts for certain topics to enable collaboration 
• Sensitise managers
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Important questions in dialogue with employees: 

• How do you manage your work-life balance?
• Does your workload match your private demands or do you need to make adjustments?
• For fathers-to-be: How long do you want to take leave and at what workload would you like to return?

Good working conditions for families keep fathers and mothers and their families healthy in the long term. They bind employees to the company and promote motivation and commitment. Companies can only be genuinely family-friendly if fathers and their needs are also taken into account and actively addressed. As long as the focus is on mothers, they are under enormous pressure, their career opportunities are massively restricted and the gender gap widens. A father-friendly working environment creates a good working atmosphere overall!