During the pandemic, there have been renewed calls for a more compassionate style of leadership that takes into account the whole life of employees.  With many of us working remotely over the last 18 months, while also juggling homeschooling, caring for relatives, grieving the loss of loved ones, redundancies or other financial worries, and numerous other personal challenges, it has been not only right that managers should support us in these areas but also logical given the impact they have on our performance, engagement, and emotional wellbeing.

New research from Baylor University takes this compassion in an interesting new direction.  The researchers suggest that when employees are looking to adopt a child, not only do the employees and their adopted child benefit when their employer supports them in that process, but the organization benefits too.

“This research provides empirical evidence of specific outcomes for something that organizations have been doing with increasing frequency in recent years,” the researchers explain. “Such support has primarily come via financial reimbursement or leave policies. Our research provides evidence of specific ways that employees and their families benefit from such support.”

Adoptive support

The researchers surveyed nearly 600 married couples who had each adopted a child during the last two years.  The results clearly illustrate the gains for all concerned when their organization is supportive.

These include a boost to their commitment to the organization, which then spills over into their personal life, with employees showing increased family functioning and reduced tension in their personal relationships.  What’s more, the adopted child also benefits, as they gain a stronger attachment to their adopted parents.

“A child’s attachment to the adoptive parent(s) is obviously a key metric in the adoption community,” the researchers explain, “and we found this to be positively impacted as a result of organizational support for adoption.”

Adoption assistance

The paper reveals that America accounts for around half of adoptions globally each year, with typically over 100,000 children adopted in the United States each year.

“With each adoption, there is presumably one working parent, and in many cases, there are two working parents who must navigate balancing work demands alongside an extremely complex, new and unique family-life demand – the adoption of a child,” the researchers explain. “Organizations have identified that they can play a role in supporting employees who are adopting a child and they have increasingly responded.”

Support for adoption assistance has been growing among organizations, with data suggesting it has leapt from 7% in 2015 to 10% in 2019.  Indeed, the policy is sufficiently popular that The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption produces an annual list of the 100 most adoption-friendly workplaces.  The list was headed last year by tech firm NVIDIA, with American Express, Snap Inc., Bloomberg, and Capital One rounding out the top 5.

These employers provide a range of support for adopting parents, including paid or unpaid leave, financial reimbursement for any adoption-related expenses, flexible work arrangements, and general managerial support for employees as they go through the adoption process.

Intentional effort

These kinds of policies are clear and intentional support from the organization, whether through financial or procedural means to help employees who are adopting a child.

This support creates a strong sense of reciprocation on behalf of the employees who have been helped, as well as from their spouses.  This often results in a stronger commitment to the organization, including a binding emotional attachment and sense of belonging that can even extend to wanting to spend the rest of one’s career with that company.

Investment into these areas appears to be beneficial for companies due to the boost they provide to productivity, engagement, and loyalty.

“Support for employees who are adopting a child can be strengthened when everyone within the organization is supportive,” the researchers say. “More specifically, direct supervisors and coworkers of those employees who are adopting a child can stand to contribute a great deal to the level of support an employee feels when going through an adoption process.”

The researchers hope that their findings will encourage other organizations to follow the likes of those identified by The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and introduce more adoption support for their own workforce.

“Organizational support for adoption can be an alternative form of corporate social responsibility as its offering could have indirect effects on the communities in which they operate and around the world by helping reduce the number of children needing to be adopted,” they conclude.