LinkedIn, “daughter” company of Microsoft, has released research today revealing that half of parents in the UK believe they wouldn’t be able to do their child’s job for a day, and over a fifth (22 percent) think they would be fired if they tried to – which could be down to 71 percent not fully understanding what their child does for a living.
Anyone shocked yet? I don’t think you have to be a parent to not know what some people fill their days with. How many times have you heard “what does a social media manager actually do, spend all day on Facebook”? And hey, some days I even ask myself what I do and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Am I? Hello…?
Anyway, to help bridge parent-child-job-blank-spot this gap, LinkedIn is today holding its fourth annual Bring In Your Parents Day initiative, where hundreds of companies across the UK, and the world, open their doors to their employees’ parents on Friday. To mark this year’s initiative, LinkedIn today released a new global study looking at the relationship between professionals and their parents, showing there is a significant disconnect and lack of communication between parents and their children when it comes to work.
Parents don’t understand some of today’s top jobs
The study also showed that parents in the UK don’t understand some of the top jobs available today:
- UI designer (93%)
- Data scientist (82%)
- Actuary (77%)
- Social media manager (75%)
- Sub editor (71%)
- Sociologist (71%)
- Investment banker (64%)
- Radio producer (61%)
- PR manager (61%)
- Software developer (59%)
For an Ad Tech company like us, where many of the roles did not exist a generation ago, it’s a great opportunity to shine a light on what it is we do, and share that with the friends and families of our Rollers. It’s also an opportunity to experience the unique culture we have here at AdRoll and something we pride ourselves on. In that respect, I would encourage any company who can facilitate this to get involved.
Parents put off by today’s workplace
Only 12 percent of parents in the UK would like to do their child’s job, compared to nearly half (46 percent) of parents in Singapore, a third in Ireland, over half (54 percent) in Sweden and 48 percent in Hong Kong. In fact, over a fifth (22 percent) of British parents think they would be fired if they tried to do their child’s job.
This could be down to changes in the workplace, with 15 percent of parents being put off doing their child’s job because of the long working hours, two-fifths (41 percent) feeling they wouldn’t have the right skills and over half (53 percent) feeling there is too much jargon in the workplace today.
Employees from across our business units will be bringing in their parents on November 4th to show them around our headquarters in central London. We will also participate on our social media channels by sharing views on how an ageing global population will affect societies and economic growth.
Brit parents don’t shout about their kids’ achievements
UK parents are some of the most modest in the world when it comes to talking about their children’s achievements. Just six percent say they brag all the time about their child’s professional achievements, compared to a fifth of parents in the US and India, and a massive two-fifths (39 percent) in Sweden.
Over a third (36 percent) of UK parents say they would never brag about their child’s achievements to others, second only to parents in the Netherlands where 47 percent say they never do this.
Bring In Your Parents’ is a great initiative for us here at ASOS. Being an online-only global company, we have such a huge variation of different roles across our business and often create new positions which didn’t exist a few years ago to cater to the quickly evolving industry. When chatting to our ASOSers about family they often say ‘my parents or loved ones have no idea what I do’, so BIYP is a great opportunity to show the most important people in our lives what we do every day.
Parents vs. their children
UK parents believe their children have more opportunities in the workplace than they did, with over half (52 percent) of mothers feeling their daughter has more opportunity to progress in their career than they did, compared to a massive 77 percent of parents in India.
Two-thirds (58%) of British parents feel their kids make more money than they did at the same age, 39 percent think they have more opportunity to learn new skills, and a third (31 percent) feel their children are on track to be more successful than they were in their career.
Really successful businesses want to go further than shaping a high performing culture, they want to be known as great places to work and thrive to attract and retain the best talent. ‘Bring In Your Parents Day’ is an excellent opportunity for our employees to show their parents what they do every day, as well as bring together different parts of our business.
