On The Horizon- August 2025

Jennifer Liston-Smith’s monthly blog spans key themes, news and public policy updates in the world of combining work and family for organisations, parents and carers. August’s ‘Summer Special’ edition includes:  

• The pressures of summer holiday childcare for working parents, and solutions for employers.  
• Whether the school holidays are too long and why we have the lengthy break.  
• Whether parents supporting teens need additional time out.  
• The latest insights into patterns of flexible and hybrid working.  
• The additional supports that make the difference for working parents in a Return to Office.  

Author: Jennifer Liston-Smith, Head of Thought Leadership, Bright Horizons   

August’s On The Horizon takes the form of a kind of summer special! Not only does it focus in on the theme of summer but comes with the added entertainment of pop references in the subtitles: you’re welcome.  

As HR Leaders, do you have take-away learnings from the summer? Is yours the time-honoured tip to hydrate, or to use high factor UV protection?  

More specific to our times, top 2025 summer advice could include how to avoid wildfires as the climate heats, seen most recently in Edinburgh .   

Brat Summer  

Another vital insight for HR colleagues has exercised the media this summer: the need to tune in to the struggle experienced by working parents.  Employee Benefits reports that Three-quarters (76%) of UK employees with children under seven are worried about balancing childcare and work during the summer holidays, according to IWG’s hybrid working productivity report,

Children's charity Coram also published research showing: “summer holiday clubs to cover Britain's six-week school break now cost parents an average of £1,076 per child”, with price increases of up to 13% on last year.   

Those endless weeks out of school seem to belong to an era of one breadwinner, one homemaker homes. School holidays just don’t match the annual leave of today’s employees; and it’s not a great use of that leave when a couple plays tag team using precious days off taking turns to care for children. It’s harder still for single parents.  

This struggle exercised the mind of Employee Benefits’ Editor Debbie Lovewell-Tuck, who proposed flexibility and a combination of action from employers and government to recognise this challenge to talent retention.  A poll of Employee Benefits’ readers meanwhile shows fewer than half offer specific support.

Bright Horizons’ Chris Locke rises to the challenge in setting out what employers can do, in People Management magazine. The article makes the connection between supporting parents during the holidays and the boost in retention, wellbeing and performance that follows. Chris Locke comments: "While HR often focuses on major lifecycle events, it is the recurring challenges, such as school holidays, that shape the everyday employee experience. By recognising and responding to these moments, people leaders can build workplaces that are not only supportive but also high-performing."   

Chris Locke’s advice ranges across formal and informal flexibility, family leave provisions, leaders’ role modelling talking about family, helplines, parents network workshops and of course Back-Up Care . Many employers Bright Horizons works with ensure their employees can access holiday clubs through their Back-Up Care programme, both reducing the burden on working parents in the holiday season and supporting their presence and productivity at work. This of course also addresses the affordability point raised by Coram.   

Summer Forever  

Could another solution be to shorten the break? Most years, this suggestion comes up. This time, it's from charity Parentkind's national parent survey of 3,000 suggesting a shorter summer holiday would help family finances and the logistics of childcare. Among parents, "more than half want the six-week school summer holiday cut to a month” reports The Times. “53 per cent of parents would back plans to reduce the school summer break to four weeks from six and only 33 per cent would oppose this". Traditionally, the sticking point sits with the teachers, who enjoy such little flexibility for the rest of the year. The BBC article linked above shows only 24% of teachers support a shorter summer however, The Times’ take suggests “most teachers also support a four-week break, as long as they do not lose the total amount of holiday they get throughout the year".  

Another regular feature of these summer holiday discussions is the claim that they are an (outdated) arrangement intended for children to help with the harvest. This has long been thoroughly debunked : farming was largely mechanised by the time the summer break was introduced. It seems to have been more about the recess of the Courts and Parliament leaving middle class parents freer to take the summer out. However, it makes another fun summer activity to spot the recycling of this ‘harvest’ myth!   

Cruel Summer  

Another summer pressure calling for empathy from people leaders centres on exam season and results days. These are tough times even for those who succeed in their grades. For parents of those who find their hopes closed down on results day, it requires a skilled range of responses and – for many – a firm mask worn at work as they push on through.  

Annie Hayes, writing in HR Grapevine asks: 'Is it time for teen-leave?’ enabling parents of teens to take specific leave to support them. “MyEdSpace revealed that 70% of parents took time off work to help their children revise for GCSEs - proof that the "working parent" checklist now includes a new, unexpected task: exam support."   

The article makes the point that 'teen-ternity' leave would offer time out to be present during exam season, or for results days, or for ongoing mental health support, given that parents are otherwise trying to juggle everything at once. Annie Hayes ventures that statutory unpaid parental leave is not sufficient, even though it is set to become a day 1 right under the Employment Rights Bill.   

Again, one practical support which employers can provide to ease the mental load is virtual tutoring as part of a Back-Up Care programme. Our 2025 Work+Family Snapshot research shows 88% of parents accessing Virtual Tutoring through Back-Up Care say it enhances their own wellbeing.  

9 to 5  

As flexibility is universally encouraged as part of the summer solution, what’s the latest on flexible and hybrid ways of working? The CIPD has the low-down in its report Flexible and hybrid working practices in 2025 based on a survey of 2,000 employers and 5,000 employees.   

Some notable findings include:  

• 74% of organisations say they have hybrid working in place, reduced slightly from 84% in a similar CIPD survey in 2023.   
• 65% of organisations require employees to be in the workplace a minimum number of days per week/month.   
• Overall, 14% of all employers that allow hybrid working are planning to either introduce or increase the number of mandatory days in the workplace over the next 12 months.   

Charissa King, Editor of HR Magazine concludes from the CIPD report that flexible working is now ‘less of a dealbreaker’ since the research showed fewer employees left their jobs because of a lack of flexibility in 2024 than in 2023. ‘Around 1.1 million workers (3% of employees) have left a job in the last year (since January 2024) due to a lack of flexible working, down from 2 million (6%) the previous year’. However, experts comment that this may simply reflect a jobs market with fewer choices; perhaps the demand for flexibility is still high, but employees are less ready to walk.   

Charissa King’s article goes on to explore how employers might offset a perceived lowering of flexibility if mandating a Return to Office. Molly Johnson-Jones, CEO of flexible employment platform Flexa is quoted, reflecting that demand for flexible jobs is high and advising: “offer staff something in return for coming into the office more, such as more flexible hours, subsidised childcare, or other support that eases the transition. It’s about give and take.” This rings true with the findings of our Work+Family Snapshot research showing 95% of employees feel Back-Up Care is important to achieving their in-office presence.  

She Works Hard for the Money  

Importantly, research from Kings College London led by Heejung Chung found that women are ‘more likely to resist Return-To-Office (RTO) orders’. The research, reported in Women in Tech, reveals:  

• ‘Out of the 58% of workers who would fight a RTO mandate, 55% of the women said they would seek a new job, compared with 43% of the men’.   
• ‘New parents show the highest resistance to RTO mandates, with only 33% of mothers with young children signalling RTO mandate compliance’.   
• RTO mandates can ‘undermine gender diversity, talent retention, and workforce wellbeing, particularly by forcing out workers, often mothers, who cannot comply due to caregiving responsibilities.'   

One of the striking findings however, in our Work+Family Snapshot research is that while the broader UK population of working parents and carers feels employers are now less supportive of family than 2 years ago1, those employers with practical supports in place – such  as Back-Up Care, Workplace Nurseries and similar family supports – are rating their employers as consistently high in their support.   

This holds true even in sectors such as banking and tech where RTO mandates are prevalent. This is an argument for ensuring there is practical support in place when greater demands are placed on parents rather than simply making the switch of location and hoping for the best; at the risk of losing talent among female workers and parents / carers of all genders.