JPMorgan Chase had backup childcare from Bright Horizons, helping their working parents have a better work-life balance in the middle of the pandemic.
While most companies had positive results while working from home last year, some employees faced many challenges. As lockdowns didn’t allow children to go to school, working parents had to support their kids with online school (among other things) while trying to work simultaneously.
JPMorgan Supports Working Parents
JPMorgan has shown support to working parents for a long time now. The bank, before the pandemic, had already established programs that supported working parents. For instance, they have a gender-neutral Parental Leave Policy that provides parents with 16 weeks of paid leave.
They also have a parental mentoring program that, with the help of an online platform, matches new parents with experienced parents in the firm to help them through the process and share their experiences.
Currently, with the pandemic, work from home parents couldn’t take their children to school or daycare. However, JPMorgan supported parents by working hand in hand with Bright Horizons, the largest provider of employer-sponsored childcare. JPMC employees have exclusive access to on-site full-service childcare in backup centers through 2021.
Having this backup care helped to minimize disruptions in the workplace. Employees could entirely focus on their tasks and deliver deadlines without constantly keeping an eye on their children.
According to a Back Horizons report, without backup care during the pandemic, 50% of employees would not be able to work their entire shift, and 33% would’ve missed deadlines at work.
Remote Work & Parents
One of the reasons why remote work was more challenging last year was because people were at home 24/7. Now that thousands of people are getting vaccines, the world is slowly returning to its regular pace. Businesses have announced going remote, hybrid, or turning back to their old working model.
In the case of JPMorgan supporting working parents, it’s always on their agenda. However, remote work isn’t in their long-term plans. JPMorgan CEO announced that despite being successful last year managing work in a virtual environment, most employees are expected to return to the office in 2021.
