New Benchmarking Report Shows Where North Carolina Employers Are Leading – and Where More Support Is Needed
What makes a workplace truly family-friendly?
A new report from Family Forward NC® offers one of the clearest pictures yet. Work that Works for Families: Benchmarking Family Forward NC® Certified Employers analyzes the policies and practices of 132 Family Forward NC® Certified Employers across 40 North Carolina counties, alongside nearly 8,000 employee survey responses collected between October 2022 and June 2025. Together, those employers represent 296 business locations, 59,928 employees, and 40 counties across North Carolina.
This is the first benchmarking report to compare policies across all Family Forward NC® Certified Employers, recognize best practices, and identify growth opportunities. The findings show strong progress. Certified Employers are outperforming statewide norms across many areas, particularly in paid leave, flexibility, and health coverage. At the same time, the report makes something else clear: many working families still need more support than they currently receive.
The report highlights a consistent disconnect between what employers offer and what employees say they need most. That gap appears most clearly in wages, paid parental leave, child care, and health and wellness benefits. Employees also report confusion about which benefits are available to them, particularly regarding child care.
Among the report’s key findings:
- Paid leave: Seventy-four percent of Certified Employers offer some form of paid parental leave. Still, only 22 percent offer at least 12 weeks of paid leave, the length recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others. Employees report needing longer leave and broader access beyond birth parents.
- Wages: Most Certified Employers offer a living wage or higher, outperforming the statewide rate. Even so, 11 percent of employees surveyed reported earning below a living wage, and wages remain a top concern for workers.
- Flexible work and scheduling: Certified Employers prioritize flexibility as a recruitment and retention strategy, and most employees report being satisfied or extremely satisfied with scheduling policies. The full report also shows that 85 percent of Certified Employers offer hybrid or fully remote arrangements for some or all employees.
- Child care supports: Only 23 percent of Certified Employers offer some form of financial assistance or on-site child care, while 29 percent offer no child care benefits at all. Employees say they need more support and more clarity on what is already available.
- Health and wellness: Certified Employers are going beyond minimum requirements. Eighty-two percent cover a significant share of employee medical premiums, and many offer Employee Assistance Programs. Still, employees report wanting better coverage options and more financial help for dependent coverage.
The report concludes that family-friendly workplace policies are not simply nice benefits to offer. They are a competitive advantage in a state where employers are working hard to recruit and retain talent. Employers that invest in working families can strengthen retention, reduce absenteeism, improve productivity, and build a more stable workforce.
To help close the gap between what employees need and what employers provide, the report recommends several next steps: increasing and equalizing paid parental leave, expanding child care support, improving dependent health coverage, engaging employees more regularly about benefits, ensuring compliance with laws supporting pregnant and breastfeeding employees, and advocating for broader policies that support working families.
As North Carolina continues to grow, Family Forward NC® argues that long-term economic strength depends on supporting the people who make that growth possible. A family-friendly workplace is not just good for children and families. It is business smart, family friendly, and future ready.
View the Benchmarking Report fact sheet here.