If you hear the phrase "family-friendly benefits" and think only of childcare centers and flexible hours, think again. Driven by the tight labor market, employers are offering more elaborate benefits in order to woo working parents, many of whom are seeking help that extends beyond childcare. As a result, many companies now offer some truly innovative benefits that address advice on potty training to college counseling for teenagers.

Designing unique parenting programs may take time, but studies suggest it's time well spent. After all, working parents can be an asset to a company. Fifty-two percent of working parents believe that parenthood has improved their productivity at work, according to a recent survey by the Lutheran Brotherhood, a Minneapolis-based organization that offers health insurance and financial services to members of the Lutheran Church.

ASK PARENTS WHAT THEY WANT
How do employers find out what their working parents need? Johnson & Johnson, the health care products company based in New Brunswick, N.J., surveyed employees before offering parenting programs. "We asked our employees what they felt we could do to help them manage better," says Chris Kjeldsen, vice president of community and workplace programs for Johnson & Johnson.

To keep in touch with working parents' needs, the company holds monthly meeting at which a liaison from HR meets with employees and the child care center's director to discuss work and family issues.

Employee comments and complaints about their work and family needs prompted Eli Lilly and Co., a pharmaceutical firm based in Indianapolis, to conduct an internal study in 1992, says Candice Lange, director of workforce partnering. The company found that its working parents were struggling. An important factor was that both spouses worked. "Only 18 percent of our employees had a family where the mom stayed home and dad went to work," Lange says.

Personal experience also can point the way to parenting programs. At InfoMart, an applicant screening organization based in Marietta, Ga., owner and director of operations Tammy Cohen, PHR, says her own struggles balancing work and family led her to implement family-friendly policies. "I know what it's like, and I want to ease the stress for working parents," she says.

InfoMart offers its working parents paid time off when children are home sick and paid time off when parents volunteer at a child's school. The company offers monthly parenting classes led by school and YWCA counselors. The theory behind such offering: "Since employees spend more time here than they do at home, we want them to think of us as part of their family." Cohen says.

START SIMPLY, WITH ADVICE
Once employers gauge what parenting help their employees need, they can offer a wide range of possible solutions. Options range from simple programs, such as hiring a referral and resource firm that offers parenting advice, to more complex options, such as building extra offering onto existing child care programs.

Referral and resource services from outside contractors usually are available via telephone 24 hours a day. Employees can call with questions on topics from travel planning to elder care. Parenting issues tend to be among employee' most frequently asked questions.

The resource and referral service used by Dallas-based Texas Instruments provides telephone counseling and support materials in the form of books, videocassettes and audiocassettes. Parents use the service heavily, say Betty Purkey, Texas Instruments' manger of work/life programs. Licensed early childhood and education experts are available through the service to answer parents' questions on subjects from potty training to college counseling.

College counseling may sound like a role for high schools, not employers, but today's parents are looking for help in a variety of places, Prukey says. "We see it as another way to reinforce and support the school's efforts," she says.

The referral service enables employees and their spouses to access a database on colleges and receive general guidance on how to help their children apply. "This gives parents the one-on-one time with a counselor that they might not get at a college night at the high school," say Purkey.

EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF CHILD CARE
Where employers provide some form of child care for employees, parenting programs can supplement that care with extra programs that cover child care gaps or give parents precious free time.

Eli Lilly and Co. found that child care issues ere among employee's main parenting concerns. In addition to building an on-site day care center at its Indianapolis facility, the company established a summer camp to help provide activities and care for children who are too old for day care or who must go without their usual day care during the summer.

The company paired up with YMCA to develop a camp for children ages 5 to 12. The camp, located on the firm's own campus but run by the YMCA, provided swimming and games. It also emphasized something the company cares about: science. While the company picks up the tab for the program development, equipment and grounds maintenance, parents pay about $75 a week to the YMCA, a fee that is below market rate, according to Lange.

Similarly, when Johnson & Johnson found that many of its employees were having a hard time finding child care during summer months, the company pitched in by putting together an off-site camp package for employees' children ages 7 to 12. These kids are picked up and dropped off at the company campus, making transportation stress-free for working parents.

Kjeldsen says that parents must pay a weekly fee, but rates are set on the sliding scale based on income. "We want the kids of a secretary who is a single mother to have the same opportunity as kids of those parents in management," he adds.

The camp is relatively new benefit, establishment a few years ago and added to the company's stable of family benefits including lactation centers, adoption assistance, parenting seminars and on-site child care. The latter gave birth to the company's Parents Night Out program.

"Our child care centers periodically stay open late to give parents some free time to do things together." Explains Kjeldsen. "Sometimes parents catch up on things at home or run errands, but sometimes they just need a peaceful evening so they can go out to dinner." The option of leaving children at the on-site center for a Parents Night Out applies only to parent whose children already are enrolled at the center.

WELCOME KIDS, ANY TIME
InfoMart, which does not have an on-site child care enter, has found a way to take the idea of merging work and family ever further. The firm encourages parents to bring children to the office at any time. Children are free to use company resources for school projects or to play on the company campus. InfoMart does not use any formal rules to govern when or where children can be present, Cohen says. Generally, the company expects children under 4 to be supervised by their parents but children over 4 may move around the workplace. Cohen says the company's overall liability insurance covers any accidents a child might have at the work site, just as it would cover liabilities for any visitor.

Cohen says that when she wanted to set up InfoMart's child-friendly policy, HR experts told her that parents would abuse the privilege and children would disrupt the workplace. But she has heard no employee complaints - from parents or their co-workers - except occasional complaints about noise when several children turn up at the office at the same time and play together. The company keeps children's videos on hand to show in a training room when children need a quiet activity.

"I know it's quirky, but for us it works," Cohen says. For this and the firm's other, more formally organized parenting programs, employee response has been "phenomenal," she says.

"We have loyalty from our employees that money just can't buy. We're a small company and can't compete with larger companies on salary."

BUSINESS BENEFITS, TOO
Employers say that parenting programs are good not only for employees but also for business. "Business decisions drive our (parenting) programs," Johnson & Johnson' Kjeldsen says. "These programs increase productivity."

Texas Instruments' Purkey says, "These programs are very cost-effective. Compared with health benefits, it's nothing."

In addition, parenting programs can serve as useful recruiting and retention tools. "We've had numerous people come in and tell us that they've been offered more money at other companies, but have declined because the others couldn't offer what we could in terms of family benefits," Kjeldsen says.

Cohen recalls an InfoMart employee who left for a job with another company that offered him $9,000 more. "After a few days he called up begging to come back," she says. "He told us the extra money just wasn't worth it. He was a new dad and wanted to be in a family-friendly environment."

Eli Lilly and Co. finds that its parenting programs have enhanced the company's image with prospective employees. "While we're interviewing we often learn that people know about the great parenting benefits we offer, and that makes people want to work for us," Lange says.

"The need to find a balance between quality of life for employees and meting business goals is only going to become more pronounced," Lange says. "In the very near future companies will not be able to push the issue back. Finding a way to address these issues is going to become a matter of survival."