How is your work–life balance? What works well and which hurdles do you experience in maintaining that balance? What would you like to see change? As the Future Generations Commissioner at Amsterdam University Medical Center (UMC), I run a project called “We Care”, which began in 2024. We surveyed the 20,000 employees at UMC – the biggest academic hospital in the Netherlands, and one of the biggest employers in the region – with questions such as these. Although we don’t have the exact numbers, we estimate that the majority of UMC’s employees are parents – not all new parents, of course, but they all remember what it was like to be a new parent.
Several thousand people responded to the survey. Some said things like: “I wish my boss was more open to having a proper conversation about how challenging it is to make the transition to being a parent while still doing well at work.” Others said: “I’d like to have more flexibility when I unexpectedly get a call from daycare that my child needs picking up.” And: “I know that if I take time to pump, my colleagues will have to take over, and I feel bad about burdening my colleagues because of my parental tasks.” Some said they would have liked to make full use of their parental leave entitlement, but felt uncomfortable asking for it, especially because it might be perceived as a lack of ambition or commitment to work.
We are currently building on the survey through in-depth interviews, and starting to think creatively about interventions we can test. Some of those ideas might be concrete and practical, like more lactation rooms and breast pumps. Others might be more abstract and aimed at changing the workplace culture. We are experimenting with mentoring for new parents, and a peer support system where new parents can share their experiences and realise that they’re not alone.
The ideas will be tested using a proper scientific methodology, and at the same time we want to make sure the interventions are going to be implemented if proven effective. So we are taking time to involve many stakeholders: nurses, team leaders, department heads, HR staff and others. We will introduce various interventions in different departments, with other departments acting as a control group, so that we can compare their effects. Additionally, we will collect information over time and talk with colleagues to hear their experiences first hand. What is the impact on employees’ health and wellbeing? Has it affected how the work gets done? Which ideas worked, and which did not? We are working closely with the HR department so that, as the results come in, we can update HR policy and roll out successful ideas across the whole organisation.
Employers are part of the village
Future Generations Commissioner is a new role at UMC, which I am fulfilling as well as being a professor. My remit is to advocate for the interests of future generations in every action or decision we make within our organisation. I’m passionate about making sure every child gets the best possible start in life, because I know it’s the best investment we can make – not only economically, but from a human perspective.
I’m a biologist, with a background in studying how human beings are formed by the environment in which they grow and develop. I researched the Dutch famine of 1944–45, which took place in the occupied Netherlands during the final months of World War II. This has personal resonance for me because that’s when my mother was born. That means that the egg that made me was created in my grandmother’s womb during famine conditions. As I described in my interview with Michael Feigelson, my research explores how the impacts of conditions during pregnancy can resonate not only for a lifetime, but across generations.
None of us gets to choose the early environment in which we grow and develop, but it shapes us profoundly – not only in terms of our physical and mental health, but also our ability to contribute to society in a meaningful way. It helps, for example, for an infant to have the feeling that the world is a predictable place, that other people can be trusted, and that if they ask for help then they will get it. Whether or not parents have a supportive employer plays a significant role in their ability to provide these conditions.
When I became a mum myself, it added a completely new dimension to my research interest. You go from knowing things intellectually to experiencing for yourself the miracle of new life unfolding. I understood how your ability to do what you feel is right as a parent depends on the people you have around you, and whether you feel supported or judged. I understood that even if you love your job tremendously, as I did, becoming a parent is such a big change that it can still make you doubt your decision to go back to work. Feeling supported by your surroundings, including your employer, will reduce stress and enable parents to be the parents they want to be.
I’ve lost many valued colleagues at UMC because they felt frustrated that they weren’t able to combine work and parenting as they would like, so they ended up quitting. It’s really difficult to combine caring for kids with a high-pressure role like working in the operating room or caring for patients. When we say that it takes a village to raise a child, often we forget that employers are part of that village. They need to ask themselves how they can support their employees as they become parents. I believe it will help the parents, as well as their children in getting a good start in life, but I also believe it will benefit the employer in the long run when valued colleagues choose to stay with their employer and not leave work when they become parents.
Towards a healthy future for all
In the course of research for We Care, I’ve come to understand some of the reasons why this might not come naturally for employers. Those in senior positions might not fully appreciate or empathise with the challenges of making the transition to parenthood. One director, for instance, said that he simply employed a full-time nanny. Of course, most employees couldn’t do that even if they wanted to. We set out to be creative in thinking of inclusive ways to support all parents, regardless of their income or if they’re a single parent or if they live nearby or if they have other people supporting them.
We found that traditional attitudes towards family structure are still somewhat prevalent – the assumption that a mother should stay at home with the children while the father goes out to earn an income. We found that the We Care project worried some colleagues who do not have children – would they lose out if workplace policy changed in a way that favours colleagues who have children? We understood the importance of framing We Care as a collective effort in working towards a healthy future for all.
Ultimately, I hope the We Care project helps to normalise a wider range of conversations about becoming a parent. So often those conversations are limited to practical matters: do you have a crib, do you have enough diapers? We tend not to talk about more meaningful questions: how were you parented as a child? What aspects of your parents’ parenting do you want to continue, or to change? What kind of help would you need with that? We want to normalise the idea of new parents asking their employer for help.
We are currently writing up the findings of the first phase of our research, to be published in 2026. As the results come in from our experiments, we will share them with the HR department and implement them in our organisation, and also share the lessons with other organisations. Some findings may be specific to employers in the medical field, but others could be useful to employers in other sectors who are interested in supporting caregivers who want to keep working.
