How employers can support working parents over the summer

For many companies, summer is a quiet season. For their employees with children, it is the opposite. When school closes for weeks, a gap opens between the school calendar and the working day, and that gap turns into divided attention, shifting plans and logistical stress that lands directly on performance.

This is not a footnote. It is a measurable, recurring pattern that is now well documented. And because it is predictable, it can be designed for. The question is not whether employers should respond, but with what, because some measures move the needle and others only look good.

What the data shows

The annual Modern Family Index from Bright Horizons, conducted by The Harris Poll among more than 2,000 US adults, paints a clear picture. For working parents, summer is not a break, it is a second shift.

More figures from the same research back this up. More than two-thirds of parents of children aged 0 to 12 (68 percent) find it extremely difficult to find short-term care over the summer. And because reliable options are scarce, 60 percent of parents draw on up to two weeks of their own annual leave to cover closures, which means a large part of the workforce comes back from summer less rested, not more.

A note on reading this: these particular surveys are US-based, and holiday lengths and childcare systems differ by country. The pattern, though, that the gap lands on dual-career households and that focus at work depends on reliable care, holds across borders, and the German-language data makes it just as concrete.

In the DACH region: the same gap, in hard numbers

In Germany the mismatch is structural and well measured. A representative Civey survey for the Sozialverband Deutschland (SoVD) in 2025 found that parents have around six weeks of annual leave against roughly thirteen weeks of school holidays a year, more than double. As a result, nearly half of working parents use more than half of their annual leave just to cover childcare in the holidays, and more than a third use over three quarters of it. More than 70 percent rate the available holiday care as too small.

The load is also unevenly distributed, which is why family support is a workforce question and not only a wellbeing one. According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis, Mikrozensus 2024), 68 percent of mothers with children under 18 work part-time, against 8 percent of fathers, so the summer gap tends to fall on the parent already carrying the most care. In Austria, the Chamber of Labour school-cost study (2023/24) found six in ten parents describe organising the summer as a major challenge.

What works

Across the research and the practitioner reports, the measures that make a real difference stand out. They share one thing. They give parents back reliable time or reliable care, rather than only signalling sympathy.

• Flexibility with predictability. Not just permission to move hours, but stable core hours so parents can plan drop-off and pickup with confidence. In the research on retaining mothers, schedule flexibility is the single strongest predictor.
• Remote or hybrid options over the holiday weeks, so the gap between the school day and the working day does not become a daily crisis.
• Concrete care help. Camp subsidies, back-up care or a care stipend land harder than general wellness perks, because they solve the actual problem.
• A paid day in spring to register children for camps. Sign-up is notoriously all-consuming, and one protected day removes a lot of pressure.
• Compressed summers, such as summer hours or a four-day week in August, that give families one reliable weekday back.

What does not work

Just as telling is what does not help families, even when it is well meant.

• Flexibility only on paper. A policy that allows leaving early does not help if managers quietly penalise it. When presence counts more than results, no one uses the rule.
• One-off perks instead of reliable support. An ice-cream social or a summer email does not replace care. Only 24 percent of parents feel their employer provides adequate summer support.
• Rigid return-to-office mandates that remove the very flexibility parents depend on. They hit working mothers hardest and push them out step by step.
• Assuming instead of asking. Programmes designed without consulting employees often miss the real need. Survey first, design second.

Support that a manager quietly penalises is not support. It is a trap with better wording.

The business case

The maths is straightforward. When school closes, a large share of working parents enter a period of divided attention that measurably lowers performance. Retention is on the line too, because 79 percent of parents say they would be more loyal with stronger support, and replacing a role typically costs between half and twice an annual salary. Family-friendliness keeps parents, and mothers in particular, in the workforce where skilled talent is scarce. There is more on that link in why supporting working parents at home boosts productivity at work and the second shift.

The short version

• Summer measurably lowers productivity and retention, every year.
• What works: predictable flexibility, remote options, concrete care help.
• What does not: paper flexibility, one-off perks, rigid return-to-office rules.
• Survey your employees first, design second.

Sources

1. Bright Horizons, 2026 Modern Family Index (The Harris Poll, 2,000+ US adults). investors.brighthorizons.com
2. KinderCare study on childcare and retention, via Employee Benefit News (2026). benefitnews.com
3. Administrative Sciences (2026), “Which Forms of Work Flexibility Retain Working Mothers”. mdpi.com
4. Sozialverband Deutschland (SoVD) / Civey, representative survey on holiday childcare (2025). sovd.de
5. Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), Mikrozensus 2024, press release 19 May 2025. destatis.de
6. Arbeiterkammer (AK) Austria, school-cost study 2023/24, via the A&W-Blog (2024). awblog.at