Houston has joined the national Best Place for Working Parents® partnership, offering real-time designations to businesses of all sizes whose family-friendly policies qualify through a first-of-its-kind, 3-minute online self-assessment. The Greater Houston Partnership is launching Best Place for Working Parents® Houston to offer local business leaders the opportunity to instantly determine whether their organization qualifies to earn a Best Place for Working Parents® designation, positioning them among the leading family-friendly businesses in the U.S.

Originating in Fort Worth in 2020, the confidential online business self-assessment allows businesses of all sizes tout innovative practices that are helping today’s working parents provide for their families, and adapt and thrive at work during extraordinary times. The assessment highlights only the top 10 research-backed policies proven to benefit working parents and businesses’ bottom line. 

While family-friendly policies have a direct impact on working parents, research shows that there is also a serious business case to being family-friendly:

• 83% of millennials would leave one job for another with stronger family-friendly supports.
• Replacing an employee costs an employer six to nine months of that employee’s salary.
• Over 60% of working parents said child care issues have caused them to miss work.
• Employers lose $13 billion annually due to child care challenges faced by their workforce.  

The Best Place online self-assessment provides a real-time dashboard of how a business fares against other businesses of like size and industry across each of the top 10 family-friendly practices in their region. Each of the top 10 policies include research on their business ROI and case studies that tell the story of how local businesses’ practices have impacted their productivity, retention, job satisfaction and attraction. 

The Partnership encourages businesses in metro Houston to participate in the assessment and learn more about the effectiveness of their policies. The self-assessment, real-time dashboard results, and the Best Place for Working Parents® designation for qualifying businesses can be accessed at business.bestplace4workingparents.com.

View these additional resources to learn more about the assessment and why it's important. 

• Case Studies
• The Family-Friendly Initiative
• Participating Workplaces
• “Getting Back to Work” Research Report
• 2022 National Summit