How we decided who won a Family Friendly Programme Award in 2011

 

To qualify for an award, every Family Friendly programme member had to agree to have an internal audit and external audit.

The internal audit included looking at HR policies, training, premises and how companies communicated their family-friendly policies to staff.

It also involved gathering staff feedback, via a confidential survey by our research partner The Parent Zone.

The external audit involved Mumsnetters doing some "secret shopping" to find out how family friendly companies were with their customers - looking at customer service, premises, marketing and value for money

All of the results were put together and scored in order to decide whether to award a company bronze, silver or gold.

What we were looking for:

• Bronze - companies had already to be meeting all of their statutory requirements and had to be looking at ways to make life easier for their staff, clients and customers
   
• Silver - companies were enhancing some of their benefits and staff told us that these were making a difference for them. Mumsnetters told us they were able to identify specific family-friendly aspects to the service they experienced.
   
• Gold - companies had innovative policies in place, including enhanced staff benefits and practical approaches to ensure their policies were having an impact and reaching staff at all levels. Mumsnetters told us these companies were leading the way in family-friendly practices.

Finally, we invited companies to submit an entry for an innovation award to showcase their most innovative ideas for making themselves more family friendly.

Things we really liked

Priority parking for parents at their office The opportunity to buy and sell holidays among staff Return-to-work policy, which allows you to work 60% of your hours for 100% of your pay for 8 weeks Term-time working Line management training on considering parents' needs Access to area to express milk and fridges for staff who want to continue to breastfeed Good products for parents to help demystify what goes on at school Book bundles, which are good value for money for families	My Family Care service to help staff find high quality childcare and emergency childcare The culture within P&G, which was described by staff as family friendly Senior management modelling healthy work-life balance Training that covers family-friendly issues, including gender training Meetings scheduled during core working hours P&G committed to the industry pledge not to use peer-to-peer marketing or child brand ambassadors Products were seen as good value for money even where they weren't the cheapest.
Time off for fertility treatment Gradual return to work policy, which allows women to return to their full working hours gradually over a two-month period at full pay	A day a year's paid Grandparents leave Home Safe A gift for civil partnerships/marriage
The opportunity to finish early on a Friday Opportunity to buy refills for products	Foster carers leave Group texting so parents can easily send a text around a group of people, for example to arrange a pick up from school Family Working Contract (see innovation awards)

 

• Find out more about the Mumsnet Family Friendly programme and what we've learnt from the first year.

• Back to Family Friendly index