What can employers do? Creating an inclusive workplace that fosters work-family wellbeing

In this chapter, we offer a helicopter perspective on how employers can foster work-family wellbeing. We argue that organisational work-family practices are effective when they contribute to parents’ feelings of inclusion, which in turn is key to improving work-family wellbeing. An important take-away from our chapter is that merely offering a range of family-friendly policies and practices does not necessarily enhance work-family wellbeing. If such practices are merely accommodating parents without creating an inclusive organizational climate in which parents’ added value is acknowledged and potential repercussions for using such practices are taken away, parents will not feel at liberty to make use of them. In considering what it takes for practices to foster feelings of inclusion, employers can learn how to design and implement practices that have more chances of enhancing and maintaining the wellbeing of new parents.