Why manager confidence matters more than another parenting policy

Imagine your organisation has a generous flexible working policy. You're encouraged to balance your professional and family responsibilities, and your employer regularly talks about the importance of wellbeing.

Then your child's nursery calls. They're unwell and need collecting.

You tell your manager, who hesitates. They want to help, but there's an important meeting that afternoon, the team is already stretched, and they're not entirely sure what they're allowed to approve.

They eventually say yes, but you leave feeling uncomfortable. You spend the journey worrying about the work you're missing and whether your manager thinks you're unreliable.

The policy worked. You were allowed to leave.

But did you feel supported?

This is the difference between having family-friendly policies and creating a genuinely family-friendly workplace. And it's something we've been exploring through our research at Treasure Time.

Managers want to support parents, but don't always know how

One of the most interesting findings from our research is the gap between managers' attitudes towards working parents and their confidence in supporting them.

93% of managers agreed that parental responsibilities should be protected, yet only 53% felt confident responding compassionately when caregiving responsibilities disrupted work.

That's a substantial difference.

It suggests that the challenge for employers isn't always convincing managers that working parents deserve support. Many already believe they do.

The difficulty comes when managers have to make decisions about competing priorities, often without clear guidance about what's expected of them.

Can someone leave early when the team is under pressure? How much flexibility is reasonable? What happens if another colleague feels they're picking up the extra work? Will senior leadership support the decision?

These are practical questions that managers face every day.

And even when a manager knows what they'd like to do, they may not feel confident explaining or defending their decision.

Why good policies don't always create good experiences

Policies establish what employees are entitled to and what support is available. They're essential for creating consistency and protecting people's rights.

But they can't anticipate every situation that comes up in family life.

Children get sick unexpectedly. School arrangements change. A child might be struggling emotionally and need more support from their parent for a period of time.

Managers are often the people responsible for helping employees navigate these situations alongside the needs of the business.

When managers lack confidence, decisions can become inconsistent. One employee might have a manager who readily accommodates family responsibilities, while another has to repeatedly explain and justify the same requests.

Over time, this can create uncertainty about how safe it really is to be a parent at work.

Employees might avoid asking for support, work late to compensate for time spent caring for their children or feel guilty about using flexibility they're already entitled to.

The organisation may have excellent policies, but the lived experience can still feel fragmented.

The existence of support and the experience of feeling supported are two different things.

Why this matters for retention

This gap between having support available and feeling supported has implications for whether employees want to stay.

According to Bright Horizons' Modern Families Index 2025, 73% of working parents consider an employer's support for family life before accepting or applying for a promotion or new job.

Yet perceptions of that support are declining. In 2023, 77% of working parents and carers described their employer as supportive of family life. By 2025, that had fallen to 68%.

More recent research from 2026 found that only 63% felt comfortable discussing family responsibilities at work, falling to 59% among those expecting a child.

These findings suggest that employers need to pay attention to the everyday experience of support, particularly the relationship between employees and their managers.

A parent might appreciate their organisation's family-friendly benefits, but if every request for flexibility feels uncomfortable, or they worry about being judged for prioritising their children, that experience can gradually affect how they feel about their employer.

And when someone begins considering their next career move, those experiences may matter just as much as the benefits listed in their contract.

The hidden pressure on managers

It's worth recognising that managers are often navigating these situations without much support themselves.

They may be responsible for delivering ambitious targets, managing workloads, supporting team wellbeing and ensuring that employees are treated fairly.

At the same time, they're expected to respond sensitively to personal circumstances that can be complicated and unpredictable.

That's a lot of responsibility, particularly for managers who are relatively new to leadership.

Our research found that while 87% of managers strongly valued and respected working parents, only 47% felt they understood the full emotional and logistical demands of caregiving.

This highlights two areas where employers can make a difference.

The first is helping managers better understand what working parents are experiencing.

The second is giving them the confidence and authority to respond appropriately.

Neither requires managers to become parenting experts or therapists. They need opportunities to learn, clear expectations about what's within their control and reassurance that the organisation will support reasonable decisions.

What confident management looks like

A confident manager doesn't necessarily have an immediate solution to every problem.

They can listen without jumping to conclusions, understand what an employee needs and have an honest conversation about what's possible.

They also know where the boundaries are.

For example, when a parent needs to adjust their working hours, a confident manager can explore how to accommodate that need while considering the impact on the wider team.

They understand which decisions they can make independently, when they need additional guidance and how to communicate arrangements fairly.

This is something we're particularly interested in at Treasure Time: how clear boundaries can create greater autonomy.

It might sound contradictory, but people often feel more confident making decisions when they understand the limits within which they can act.

Without those boundaries, managers can become hesitant or overly reliant on senior approval.

With them, they're better equipped to respond flexibly and consistently.

And employees benefit from knowing what they can reasonably expect.

The role of relationships in workplace wellbeing

As a Play Therapist, I've spent much of my career helping children and parents build stronger relationships.

One of the principles behind Treasure Time is that people need both connection and clear boundaries to feel secure.

For children, predictable and responsive relationships help them feel safe enough to explore, express themselves and develop independence.

The same principle offers an interesting perspective on workplace relationships, even though the relationship between a manager and employee is very different from that between a parent and child.

At work, we need to trust that our relationships can withstand difficult conversations, competing needs and the occasional mistake.

A parent needs to know they can tell their manager they're struggling without worrying that it will change how they're perceived.

A manager needs to know they can make a reasonable decision without fearing they'll be criticised for it.

And colleagues need to know that different arrangements are being handled fairly, rather than depending on who feels most comfortable asking for flexibility.

We've been exploring this through the idea of relational protection: creating the conditions in which people feel secure enough in their relationships to express their needs, set boundaries and exercise autonomy.

Manager confidence plays an important role in making that possible.

What employers can do differently

If an organisation already offers generous family-friendly policies, the next step may be to examine how those policies are experienced in practice.

That means looking at the support managers receive, as well as the support available to parents.

A few useful places to start:

• Ask managers what they find difficult. Where do they feel uncertain about decisions involving family responsibilities, flexibility and fairness?
• Give managers clear decision-making boundaries. Help them understand what they can approve, what needs escalating and how to balance individual and team needs.
• Create opportunities to understand caring responsibilities. Conversations between parents, non-parents and managers can help make the pressures people experience more visible.
• Make supportive leadership visible. When senior leaders openly acknowledge their own family responsibilities and demonstrate healthy boundaries, they help establish what's acceptable throughout the organisation.
• Measure confidence alongside policy uptake. Find out whether managers feel equipped to support employees and whether parents feel comfortable asking for the support available.

These are relatively practical changes, but they could make an important difference to how employees experience their workplace.

From family-friendly policies to a family-friendly culture

At Treasure Time, we work with employers to support working parents through stronger relationships at home, while exploring how workplace relationships influence parental wellbeing.

Our research is helping us understand that supporting working parents requires attention to both sides of their lives.

At home, parents benefit from practical skills and predictable opportunities to connect with their children.

At work, they benefit from managers who understand their responsibilities, feel confident making decisions and create an environment where asking for support feels safe.

Both are part of helping people feel more secure, capable and supported in their everyday lives.

For employers, this means the next improvement in working-parent wellbeing may not come from introducing another benefit.

It may come from making sure the people responsible for delivering existing support have the confidence, guidance and organisational backing to do it well.

Treasure Time helps working parents strengthen their relationships with their children through a therapist-informed, six-week programme. Our employer research explores the relationship between family wellbeing, manager confidence and supportive workplace cultures.

Explore Treasure Time for employers

‍