what info should an employer share with the parents of teenage employees?

A reader writes:

I’m curious to know your thoughts on when and what information is appropriate to share with the parents of minor employees.

My general thinking is that the parents are still responsible for their minor children’s physical safety and emotional health, so there are certain aspects of work that are appropriate to share with them. I would not share disciplinary conversations, etc., but other information I think would be appropriate.

In the few cases I’ve had minors working for me, I have been friends or colleagues with their parents. So I shared things such as our bad weather policy, to help them decide (with their children) if it was appropriate and safe for them to drive in to work. Or if a situation happened where a customer was harassing the minor, what steps and precautions we were taking to protect them.

I definitely think there is an added level of responsibility for minor employees, to ensure their safety in all ways possible. The minors I’ve employed have been somewhat sheltered (one was homeschooled) and I know they have a good relationship with their parents, so this might be different for a more independent minor.

In what situations would you consider it appropriate to communicate with the parents of a minor employee, either as well as or instead of the employee?

I think the example situations you gave are different because you knew the minor employees’ parents. When you already know them, there are organic opportunities to share things like your bad weather policy or how you were handling a harassing customer.

But if you didn’t know the parents, those aren’t things you’d normally proactively contact them about. You’d just share your bad weather policy with the employee and figure they’d discuss it with their parents however needed. It would be odd to call the parents or send home a packet of info like schools do on kids’ first days.

With something like customer harassment, you’d want to sit down with the employee themselves to discuss precautions and, as part of that conversation, you could certainly ask if they’d told their parents about the situation and offer to speak with their parents about it if they’d want you to do that.

Now, if a parent happened to stop by and wanted to speak to you about either of those things, I agree it would be appropriate to (unlike with an adult employee, where a parent’s inquiry into your weather policy or other practices should be redirected to their kid). But otherwise, deal with the employee directly and assume they will deal with their parents.

The post what info should an employer share with the parents of teenage employees? appeared first on Ask a Manager.