How to find a family friendly workplace

 

Quoted by BBC News: “When you’ve got children, working for an employer that understands your needs as a parent can make a huge difference. But how do you find one?

 

Taking family commitments seriously

Businesses increasingly want to be seen as family friendly to ensure they get their share of the best recruits. But how do you tell which companies are really committed to making life easier for working parents and which are paying lip service to family-friendly policies?

 

What to look for

Actions speak louder than words. If you’re looking at any potential employer check out policies and workplace routines that will make it easier for you to work and deal with family commitments.

Any good employer should be upfront about its family-friendly policies.

 

Find out whether the organisation offers:

Part-time or flexible working

Working from home (if so, find out how many people are working this way)

A workplace nursery, or other help for organising and/or paying for childcare

A working parents’ group (if not, what’s the management’s view on starting one?)

Equal career opportunities for men and women

The option for a career break

 

You should also find out about maternity and paternity leave, pay and conditions. You might not be planning another baby but discovering how the company treats expectant parents will give you an insight into its general attitude to parenting.

 

Where to find the best

Some large companies pride themselves on their family-friendly policies and shout about it. Check out the websites of companies you’re interested in and if they are family friendly they’ll usually say so and outline what’s on offer.

Public sector organisations often have clear-cut commitments to family-friendly hours and conditions. Again, it should be easy to find out what policies they have and how they’re handled.

However, smaller companies can be more difficult – with fewer staff, some of them argue it’s harder to accommodate flexible working. Find out as much as you can about the company and get a feel for how much influence you could have as an employee to create a routine that works for you.

The charity Working Familiesruns an award scheme that identifies the best employers in the UK.

 

What to ask in an interview

Do you want to work for a company where going home before 7pm is frowned on or where you can’t get time off for your five-year-old’s first assembly?

 

A job interview is your opportunity to find out about the companies attitude to working parents so ask:

What family-friendly policies do you have in place?

Do people generally work beyond the end of their working hours?

Do you have a workplace nursery and how many places do you have?

How many women return to work after maternity leave?

How many people work flexibly?

 

Categories: Family, family commitments, family-friendly, flexible working, friendly policies, policies nbsp, working, working parents, workplace nursery

Do Family-Friendly Businesses Have a Competitive Edge?

By autumn of this year, Lexmark hopes to unveil a 25,500-square-foot onsite child-care facility, offering full-time, part-time and emergency back-up child care for up to 186 children and grandchildren of employees. The facilities are set to cater to children from infants up to age 12, and summer camp programmes are also planned, so are Lexmark leading the way in family-friendly business practice?

‘It’s a deep commitment to our employee population,’ said Jeri Isbell, vice president of human resources for Lexmark. ‘We have a good base of employees here, and we really felt like the time was right. With the demographics of our population and our future population, and looking at attraction and retention, it all just seemed to come together very nicely for us.’ Paula Anderson, Lexmark’s director of diversity, recruiting and corporate citizenship, added that today’s job market for software engineers is highly competitive, and so benefits like high-quality onsite child care could help Lexmark to differentiate itself as an employer.

Featuring indoor and outdoor play areas for every age group and a full kitchen that will enable partnering opportunities with local culinary programmes and other wellness initiatives, the new centre will emphasise a STEAM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths). Anderson explained that this will align nicely with the talents and interests of the Lexmark workforce, who will be able to visit and have lunch with their children during the workday, and the needs of nursing mothers will also be accommodated for.

The Bingham McCutchen Global Services Centre is offering a different kind of support for employees with young children or ageing parents, who will be able to contact an emergency hotline if their regular care giving arrangements fall through for the day, or if an ageing parent needs some extra help for a few days after surgery, the employee can call a dedicated hotline.  A representative from Bright Horizons will then either schedule a place at a local care centre or send a caregiver to the employee’s home.

Lynn Carroll, chief human resources officer for Bingham McCutchen, explained that emergency back-up child care and adult care “one of the signature benefits” of the company’s corporate wellness programmes. ‘We understand that last-minute changes in care providers can be very stressful for employees, and having that consistent safety net in terms of a resource to go to, whether or not it is for child care or adult care, can really alleviate that stress and enable our employees to be able to come to work and know that their families are being well cared for.’

Jonathan Dotson, vice president of client relations for Bright Horizons, added ‘What we’re continuing to hear, even through the last few years, from top employers is that it’s a great investment of their resources in their human capital. They want to recruit and retain the top talent, that’s always an issue, and strong dependent care programmes make them stand out from other places that people could choose to work.’

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Do Family-Friendly Businesses Have a Competitive Edge?

Categories: caring for the elderly, childcare, family-friendly

How Flexible Working is Making Employers Family Friendly

Family-friendly policies in the workplace are known to lead to greater productivity and improved performance from staff.

These policies include the likes of flexi-time or part-time working; job sharing, term-time working; days working from home; help with nursery or childcare costs; time off for family emergencies; parental leave and maternity leave.

For employees looking to start or add to their family, some progressive employers also offer the opportunity of a career break – a fixed term away from the workplace with a return guaranteed at the same level as before.

While many government departments have led the way in introducing such family-friendly schemes, more businesses are also implementing schemes and work practices that ensure they recruit and retain the best possible staff as employees’ private lives changes.

Companies that have been proactive in introducing flexible working practices that chime with their employees’ lives and work are now among the most popular to work for and their websites will usually reveal how far these policies go with the best firms happy to trumpet their achievements and entice employees.

While large companies, such as public sector employers and multinational businesses, have the capacity and scale to incorporate flexible working practices, it is tougher for smaller employers to implement such policies. Handling maternity leave, flexitime and part-time working is more difficult when you only have a handful of employees. However, more employers are becoming open to suggestions from their staff on how to get the very best out of them while allowing them some leeway on how they do their work.

Whether you’re interviewing for a prospective employer or already employed, you can offer some of your own suggestions for family-friendly working and are likely to have those suggestions welcomed because businesses understand that happy employees are productive employees.

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How Flexible Working is Making Employers Family Friendly

Categories: family-friendly, policies, workplace