What’s next for best practice in family-friendly working?
By Mandy Garner, Editor workingmums.co.uk, workingdads.co.uk, workingwise.co.uk which are job boards and community sites from WM People Ltd
What’s next for best practice in family-friendly working?While there has been a lot of news of late about financial services firms rowing back on flexible working, there are some that are continuing to push forward on family-friendly working, knowing that in the long term this will mean greater retention and greater gender equality in the workplace.
Flexible working vital for women
A recent workingmums.co.uk survey found just how vital flexible working is for women – and increasingly for men too. 82% of over 2,000 respondents to the in-depth survey said they would investigate an employer’s flexible working policy before applying for a new job. 75% would ask about flexible working at interview and 73% say that flexible working is a deal breaker for them when applying for a new job. 52% have turned down a new job due to lack of flexibility. 32% have had flexible working taken from them at some point and of these 55% said that they left their job as a result.
Financial services firms scoop Top Employer Awards
Several of the most progressive financial services firms were represented in last week’s WM People Top Employer Awards. They include Lloyds Banking Group, which won Best for returners, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme which scooped Best for Family Support and Phoenix Group which was named Best for Older Workers.
Lloyds was praised for its focus on BME candidates and disability and for the way it was trying to broaden the talent pool for tech. It has been doing returner programmes for a while and the judges felt it had clearly learned from all that experience. In 2023 the firm took the cap off hiring returners and began hiring them as part of their normal hiring process with enhanced support. Gillian Nissim, founder of WM People, said: “They are normalising the hiring of returners – it is just a way of recruiting rather than a programme.”
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has a gender pay gap in favour of women, covers all types of life transitions and care, offers 20 days of paid dependent leave and has a high take-up of paternity leave. Employees showed a high level of satisfaction with its attitude to work life balance and its lack of core hours and absence levels were low.
Phoenix Group were commended for both their internal support for older workers, through, for example, midlife MOTs and menopause and carers support, but also for how they were championing older workers externally through innovative recruitment fairs and sponsorship of events and campaigns
Senior leadership buy-in of diversity initiatives
Other financial services firms, such as Aviva were commended [in Aviva’s case for its work for older workers] and some spoke in the Q & A session at the awards. Deutsche Bank was shortlisted for Best for Mental Health and Best for Family Support, spoke about how to get senior leadership buy-in of diversity initiatives, for instance, through creating diversity champions who disseminate information. On family support, it was praised for the fertility support it offers, including fertility allies, and its 16 weeks of paid paternity leave as well as its back-up care. On mental health, its focus on manager training, including e-learning and bespoke manager training, was highlighted.
The judges pointed out areas where they would like to see more progress next year, from social mobility and equal parenting policies to tackling the causes of economic inactivity. Andy Lake, editor of Flexibility.co.uk, singled out the need to think more holistically about inclusion by linking up, for instance, technology teams and HR, and Kim Chaplain from the Centre for Ageing Better mentioned the need to spread best practice more widely to partner organisations and through employers’ supply chains. “It’s about how you can swell and bring other organisations with you,” she said. “We don’t just want the best to get better and better, leaving a big gap with the others.”
The current backlash against diversity and inclusion and against flexible working was a big theme at the awards. Andy Lake advised managers to push back against senior leadership when it comes to flexible working to try to get them to think through their policies more and understand their workforce better. Another judge, Professor Clare Kelliher from Cranfield School of Management, said diversity and inclusion experts should think about engaging people outside their own organisation and using collaborative relationships to push back against the backlash.
Salma Shah, founder of Mastering your power, said intersectionality is key to progress and that diversity and inclusion should be embedded in every process in an organisation. “It is the golden thread that runs all the way through what they do,” she said, adding that, particularly during a labour shortage, any campaign needs to begin by asking if it is speaking to everyone.
