I’m throwing this one out to readers to answer. A reader writes:

I am the executive director of a nonprofit with about 20 employees. Most have been working for me for over 10 years. When they were hired, they were selected because they were high-achieving, high energy, good thinkers who believed in and were committed to the mission of the organization.

About half have had children in the last 5 years. All but one of these new parents have changed significantly as employees. They miss work frequently due to sick kids, school closings, and babysitter problems. They have become low energy and lethargic at work, are distracted and preoccupied, and want to come to work late and leave early. Our parent company has a generous sick time and vacation policy which they take full advantage of. They want to be included in new projects, but ask for special treatment (examples: they only want to do the “in-town” meetings, they don’t want to be lead initiatives during the summer, etc.). It makes running a business very difficult.

I have directly addressed this with them individually, the problem gets better for a while and then returns. So it becomes a cycle of performance improvement plans, which they accomplish, and then regress. I travel a lot and stay very busy and do not have time to micromanage them, but they take advantage. I value their professional skills and want to be a family-friendly workplace, but this behavior impacts productivity and creates problems for those who have to take up the slack. Any suggestions?