We’re leaving 2025 with strong winds behind us. The momentum across the country is propelling change – to create workplaces that work for parents, caregivers and employers. Employees now see family friendly workplace benefits as necessary, not nice to have and Family Forward NC® is setting the standard in our state.
We leave 2025 with much appreciation for you – our newsletter readers, certified employers, our board of directors, advocates for families and children and those caring for our children. Change happens when you are inspired to make it happen! We aim to continue to inspire you in 2026.
Here’s what you can look forward to next year from the Family Forward NC® team.
- Paid Family Leave ROI calculator – As we travel across the state, the number one concern expressed by employers is that while they want to adopt family friendly policies, they just don’t see how they could afford it. So we’ve created a ROI calculator for paid family leave that’s part of a new toolkit, especially for small businesses.
The toolkit helps employers – private, public and nonprofits – create a plan to implement a paid family leave policy (parental and caregiver leave). Stay tuned for the release in January, along with video interviews with two employers that are making family friendly policies work in a small business. And we’ll host how to use the toolkit programs.
- Benchmarking our Family Forward NC® Certified Employers’ Policies – we are conducting an analysis of our certified employers’ benefits, and their employees’ perspectives on their benefits packages. We have data from 130 certified employer application responses and approximately 8,000 employee survey responses. The report will be released in the first quarter of 2026 to provide employers with data to measure their family-friendly benefits against other NC employers.
- Forward NC® Summit – We held our first Summit in 2019 to officially launch Family Forward NC®. We brought together 100 employers, including CEOs, HR directors from businesses and nonprofits and elected leaders. At that time, we were making the case for a family forward future. At the 2026 Summit, we will celebrate success with certified employers, introduce aspiring family friendly employers to certification and discuss the future of successful workplaces in NC.
We’re looking forward to continuing our work together. Let’s create a North Carolina that is best for business AND best for families. Drop us a line with ideas and your thoughts about 2026 at familyforwardnc@buildthefoundation.org.