Why?


'Family-Friendly means embracing the commercial advantages that follow when you support today’s full range of workers across the lifespan. It means removing obstacles, saving time and hassle for your busy people and having ways of working that work for everyone. A parent-inclusive and carer-inclusive employer delivers results and keeps talented people loyal, even as their life circumstances change and develop', My Family Care, 'The Seven C's of Family Friendly'.

Adopting a 'Family-Friendly' culture and a strong parental leave policy can provide 'employers with a competitive edge in the labour market when it comes to attracting and retaining talent; increased diversification of workforce composition by increasing the number of employees (particularly women) who return to work after parental leave; increased retention of parents whose depth of experience can bring new and relevant ‘soft’ skills to the workplace such as time management and enhanced organisational skills; maintenance of institutional memory, industry knowledge, networks and contacts due to improved retention rates; increased employee loyalty, job satisfaction and productivity and reduction in the likelihood of stigma and discrimination experienced by parents at work due to the balancing of work and care' Developing a Leading Practice Parental Leave Policy, Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

Sarah Jackson OBE, Chief Executive of Working Families, said: “While work is badly organised and workplace cultures are unsupportive of work life balance, the best policies aimed at supporting working parents won’t translate to a better lived experience. Parents, particularly millennial parents, are looking for human-sized jobs and supportive workplace cultures that genuinely allow them to combine work and family. Employers whose approach to organising work and underlying workplace culture hasn’t caught up with their family friendly policies may find that, for parents, they aren’t an employer of choice. Tackling workplace culture – for so long the elephant in the room – is a vital to future proofing businesses, unlocking working parents’ potential, tackling the gender pay gap and harnessing the business benefits of family friendly and flexible working.”

How?


<aside> 💡 'There are a number of ways that organisations have been successful in opening up flexible working and changing outmoded ‘mother carer, father provider’ cultures. Encouraging fathers by matching SPL to enhanced maternity or at least enhancing a block of time that the organisation understands would be attractive and enabling this to be taken by all new fathers (regardless of the mother’s leave or employment status) has been shown to be highly effective. Furthermore, ringfencing this time for fathers and actively encouraging take-up has been used as an approach to bring about true cultural change', 'Flexible working for parents returning to work: Maintaining career development', ACAS report.

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<aside> 💡 Case study: Grant Thornton have been recognised as a Working Families 'Top Employer for Working Families Innovation Award'. Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families said, “...Grant Thornton has put control into the hands of its people with this flexible approach to family leave,”...“This sends a very strong message about trust and autonomy – it recognises that the individual knows best what works for their family, and is given the confidence to take a longer leave period if that is what they want. As a result, the firm has seen an increase in the average length of leave taken after childbirth. “It’s also a strong statement that the firm is serious about making family life, working life and career progression compatible,” Jackson adds. “All in all, by enabling an existing policy to work much more flexibly it is having an immediate practical impact.”

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