These days, whether they are one or two parent homes, nearly every family has working parents or caregivers. More than ever, it is difficult to call on other family members for assistance. As a result, employees with families face increasingly greater demands on their time and energy. There is a lot of pressure on them to juggle a wide variety and number of roles. Often they are not only raising children, but also managing the care of their elderly parents. Some have dubbed people in this position as members of the "sandwich generation''.

Family life continues to be one of the major priorities for many people, and that is not likely to change. In order to ensure the health and growth of your business, it is essential to pay attention to the health and growth of your employees. When you are supportive of your employees, everyone involved can reap the benefits. Some advantages for the employer include better productivity, increased loyalty to the company/organisation, a better "team spirit'' and more satisfied employees. Some advantages for the employees are greater job satisfaction, a feeling of increased balance between work and family and better fulfilment of different roles. An attempt to accommodate employees with families just makes good business sense.

So how can you support your staff more? Here, we will review three basic ways to get started.

Improve, or maximise the potential of, the work environment. One way to do this is to invest in the addition of wellness programme to your human resource department's services. You can also try sponsoring different workshops, that will aid your employees' personal development, or contracting helping agencies to provide services to your employees. Remember to consult your employees about their needs from the organisation for maximum efficiency.

Work towards further accommodating the lifestyle of parents and families.

This allows parents greater flexibility in the management of their professional and domestic roles. One popular technique that many businesses use is "flex-time.'' Flextime allows for employees to put in the same amount of hours, but structure the day as necessary. Paternal leave would provide greater options to families with new children. After-school and day care is another big help to parents who are inconvenienced by traveling out of their way for quality and affordable childcare. The option of working from home is also helpful, because it cuts down on the amount of commuting, and allows parents to more effectively organise their time around working and being available to their children. More lenient sick leave would allow parents to attend to their kids when they are ill without jeopardising sick leave time may be needed later. In addition, shorter work days and the re-organisation of the distribution of labour internally may be helpful.

Provide greater access to specific helping resources.

Start by investigating helping organisations, and disseminating basic information about them. Be supportive of employees' efforts to improve or repair their family life. For example, try greater leniency when employees need time to attend therapy sessions or school meetings.

Of course, some of these suggestions may not fit the needs of your organisation. The point that we would like to leave you with is that there are many ways to accommodate employees with families while continuing to meet professional objectives. You need to select the strategies that make the most sense for your organisation.

Now what? Try to focus on making one change at a time, so that the changes and short-term cost are not overwhelming. Rest assured, your business will reap the benefits of these efforts.