Many firms makes concessions for parents over summer. They let staff work extra days at home to juggle family life during holidays or start later or finish earlier each day. Others let staff take shortcuts or turn a blind eye if a few things are not done in early January. As a parent with young children, I understand the need for workplace flexibility over summer. It’s hard juggling work and school-age children who must be occupied for weeks. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video As a former manager, I gave workers extra flexibility during school holidays and they repaid their employer many times over. Mums who worked a few days from home each week during school holidays, including at night, were among the most productive in the office. It is not a question of whether parents deserve extra workplace support during school holidays. Of course they do. Rather, it’s about equity: employers not treating single or childless workers differently during holidays or unknowingly discriminating against them.

Over the years I have worked with parents who expect single peers to fit around their holiday plans. In their mind, parents get precedence, that children come first and, perhaps, that the needs of singles or childless couples rank lower at this time of year. It’s wrong. This mindset is as antiquated as it is stupid. In this era of workplace flexibility, there are more options for parents to juggle work and family over summer. Some buy extra leave each year to mind kids during holidays. Others alternate between working at home and in the office. Some bring kids to work occasionally over summer. The view that parents should automatically get holiday precedence is stupid because large firms seem to be full of young workers who are obsessed with travel. How can any firm expect to attract and keep star young talent if they chain them to their desk over summer to keep other workers happy? Moreover, as childless couples become the most common family type in the next decade, workplaces will have to adapt. There will be more people living in a relationship without kids than there are families with kids between 2023 and 2029, estimates the Australian Bureau of Statistics. And there will be many more single people in the workplace who do not have children by choice or because of circumstance.

Yet workplace conditions in many firms are skewed towards employees with children. Younger workers shouldn't have to be chained to their desks over summer just because they don't have children. Credit:Alamy. Also, many workplaces will need to adjust to rising diversity as people of different religions and cultures join the firm. Some workers still think everybody celebrates Christmas and has a beachside holiday full of barbeques and backyard cricket with the kids. And that this time is sacred and all other others in the firm should make way so it can happen. I can imagine single workers increasingly annoyed at the concessions made for parents at work, not only at Christmas. They do not get maternity or paternity leave, days off to mind sick children or the flexibility to leave work to attend a school play or other event. Or worse, they may face higher expectations from their employer because they do not have family responsibilities. A boss cuts a young parent some slack because they know what it’s like to be sleep-deprived from crying babies. There is no concession for those without kids. They must do their job and carry the slack for some parent workers who game the system.