Ask HN: How is your company supporting working parents during Covid-19?

Well, my company is always supportive of family life and has flexible hours. You just have to let them know. There's just one Indian woman I work with that constantly tells everyone she has a kid and because of that can't always work. The thing is, literally everyone has a family of their own... Always insists on sharing pictures of her kid so I have to pretend to be interested even I couldn't care less. All she can talk about is her child and wants another one which I can't imagine her being able to manage. I feel like she uses what's going on with coronavirus to work less. Completely unprofessional in my opinion. In her case they still haven't fired her.

Up to 14 weeks of family leave for parents. I don't have kids but I'm happy for those around me who need it to not be completely stressed out. The only thing I'm unsure about is if it hurts career progression, but I doubt anyone is progressing much this year anyway.

Mostly just by being human. Two examples:

1. We had an all-staff conference call, and right as it was starting a baby started crying loudly. The CEO laughed and said it had been a really long time since he's heard that in his house. Once it was quiet, he carried on as if nothing happened.

2. I was in the middle of a conference call, speaking about something or another and my son starts his guitar lesson with the amp turned up way too loud. The executive on the call yells out "Smoke on the Water! Sounds great!" and while I'm frantically texting my wife to get the volume turned down he talks about how he got to play basketball with his son in the driveway at lunch and how great it was to see his kids so much more now.

Our company has been doing a lot better than expected since the pandemic started, so that probably takes a lot of the pressure off.

I work for a small company, just a handful of people, just 3 who code.

They're great about everything. They get you have more productive days than others, things happen, and it actually motivates me to put in extra time at times, late nights at home after the kids go to bed (granted it's also about just sharpening my skills and etc to me).

We just let our employees do what they need to do. One of my colleagues was only working about 2 days a week due to kid duty for 3 months. We (as I. Company and colleague) didn’t really have a choice. That’s just life. We all know and understand. This results in a Good work/life balance and pretty strong team.

Over the last 20 years, our SHORTEST engineering hires have stayed for at least 5 years. Most stay longer. Core has been together for 19.

I take that as a sign of a pride.

At Mirage we are using PPE for our working employees.

Meanwhile check - Wood vs. Concrete blog https://bit.ly/3eU17fh

At the corporate level, almost nothing.

“Here’s a hotline, don’t kill yourself”

and

“Here’s 15 days pandemic leave if you get covid”

What I would have liked is the ability to go on leave like my wife. I don’t care if it’s unpaid, I just can’t take the kids being around the house with noting to do now that my wife’s leave is done.