Leading corporates scramble to help children with Virtual Tutoring, as post-pandemic shift in employee relations takes hold

Leading corporates scramble to help children with Virtual Tutoring, as post-pandemic shift in employee relations takes hold

Top-tier employers from the financial, tech, legal and media industries are amongst the companies who have signed up for Bright Horizons’ Virtual Tutoring service – less than a year after the pathfinding educational support service, aimed at employees’ school-age children, was launched in the UK.

Consultants Accenture, banking group Morgan Stanley and investment firms BlackRock and KKR are using Virtual Tutoring – as well as leading law firms such as Freshfields and Baker McKenzie, and FTSE-100 stalwarts Legal & General. The service is part of Bright Horizons’ Back-Up Care package, provided by the Work+Family solutions company to help companies support, empower and retain working parents and carers.

Concern is high for children’s wellbeing

The annual Modern Families Index by Bright Horizons revealed this year that more than half of working parents were worried their children’s mental health, education and social skills had suffered during lockdown.

57% of parents are worried about the educational catch-up needs of their children, with 55% feeling their child has fallen behind educationally.
52% of parents are also concerned about how their child’s social skills have suffered.
Three-quarters now carefully consider their childcare and eldercare responsibilities before accepting a new job or promotion.

After the upheaval of Covid parents are looking to prepare their children, both academically and socially, and leading firms have recognised and fulfilled this need by offering access to practical care and education services. The pandemic helped employers to appreciate the range of demands on their employees’ time and future focused organisations are addressing the holistic needs of their workforce rather than just those visible on the surface. These employers can build loyalty for the long term as well as make an immediate impact on their employees’ wellbeing.

Looking forward

For over 30 years Bright Horizons has been imagining and creating new solutions for work, family, life and education. Virtual Tutoring was launched in June 2021 to provide Maths and English tuition for 4 to 14-year olds. The offering has now been expanded and supports children in England, Wales and Scotland with 11 Plus, Grammar School and Independent school Entrance Exams, as well as Independent Entrance Exams and Transfer Tests in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. There is also GCSE support in place through the service, covering all possible exam boards in the UK and Ireland.

Virtual Tutoring’s soaring popularity is a further sign of corporate organisations responding to fast-changing attitudes to work-life balance, accelerated by the Covid experience.

Bright Horizons clients that have signed up to the Virtual Tutoring service on behalf of their employees in Britain and Ireland also include: Dechert, FTI Consulting, General Mills, Airbnb, Shearman & Sterling, Reed Smith, BCLP, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Dow Jones, Paul Hastings, Pimco, Proskauer, Rothschild, Dechert, Hogan Lovells, Mayer Brown, Softbank Group, Visa, Hill Dickinson and Bloomberg.

Ian Cooper, Benefits Manager (Group HR) at Legal & General said: “An inclusive wellbeing strategy is critical to fostering positive work life balance. We have many working parents and carers within our organisation and our partnership with Bright Horizons has been very successful in helping us support those staff. A key learning during the pandemic was that one size does not fit all, flexibility was key. We listened hard to the concerns some of our colleagues about their children’s academic challenges, and were determined to take decisive action. Virtual Tutoring has been a great help.”

Denise Priest, Director of Employer and Strategic Partnerships at Bright Horizons, said: “Parents and carers have so many demands on their time and these firms are to be commended for alleviating some of their worries with practical support via Bright Horizons’ services. This commitment to supporting the lives of their people outside work is seeing positive results in their employee engagement surveys and, most important, improvements in academic choice for their employees’ children.”