What should you consider when offering benefits to nontraditional families?

Increasingly, families no longer consist of one breadwinner, a stay-at-home spouse, and children. Families now often have two working parents. Single-parent households are on the rise. More employees than ever before are single or childless. There are more same-sex couples.

Further, younger generations tend to have more diversity. In light of increasing family diversity, traditional tried and true benefits may not work anymore.

One concern is that employers are valuing and rewarding a manifestation of an individual's personal lifestyle choice over another. Benefits such as child care, eldercare, and parental leave recognize traditional lifestyles. Further, spending company monies on these benefits denies potential funding of benefits that reward employees with other personal choice lifestyles. Some employees feel short changed, because they are expected to pick up the slack-work longer and harder-without any appreciation for their personal lives. Employers need to keep this perception in mind when designing their benefits packages.