Do you work for a Family Friendly company? Tell us about them here!

Sent email but you're going to say I'm crazy!

well I work for a very large corporate and my personal experience has been that they have been exceptionally family friendly. I will email, but what contact name do you want - PR?

I also work for BT and they are generally great (as said above) with regard to family/flexibility etc. In practice, it can come to down to the individual line manager and they're not all as flexible as they're supposed to be... That said, if I'd had any real problems I could easily have resolved them.

BT are also great for diversity. I know they get a bad press on here often enough but they do a great deal for their employees, charity and local communities.

Oh, and I resigned today so it's not like I have anything to gain from singing their praises!

Interesting. I'm not going to name my employers (just yet), but on paper they are seen to be family friendly. In reality however, it appears that it depends on WHO your manager is or WHICH department you speak to. We have flexi-work for admin staff. For academic staff, that should be the case too - afterall, you don't have to be at your office desk to do research, dream up a research proposal or write up a report. For some departments, that is the case; for others, you are expected to be at your desk and your boss actually rings your office line to see if you are actually in, on a friday afternoon at 3.30pm (?).
For some departments, it's ok to work from say 8-3 (and then go pick kids up from school); other departments requesting teaching that ends at 3pm results in an email that says that as a full-time member of staff you should be available till 5pm every day. There are ways and means around things; afterall, some people prefer to start late and end late; others prefer to start early and end early. Why can't employers see that? Why can't people just 'pair' people up (early + late = perfect).
My point is, there are great employers out there (I'm sure); but more interestingly, it seems to me that there are great (and not so great) managers out there... who will interpret/misinterpret rules as they fit.

Following on from my earlier thread, my friend works for Travel Counsellors and they have some great family friendly ideas and practices

I used to and my husband still works for BGL which is basically compare the Market.

And yes we all got a free talking meerkat amongst other things.

This company demonstrates that it is family friendly. Only this weekend they provided a fun day for all the family and friends. Free rides including 4x4, donkey, quads, fairgrowns and bouncy castles which also included a free lunch and drink.
They also do a 'bring your child to work day' during the summer.

I'm going to echo what other people have already said. On paper my employers are wonderfully family friendly, and up until the beginning of the year I'd have agreed but lately I'd have to argue against it with a vengeance

I work for University of Manchester and they are very family friendly. First 6 months of maternity leave full pay and they also pay my nursery fees(on mat leave at the mo and first DC at work nursery) after that as my SMP won't cover it.
Very understanding when it comes to applying for part time work, and when children are ill, not a hassle to take time off. Also at the managers discretion, you cna have 5 days of paid leave for family sickness.
I pay for the nusery fees through salary sacrifice so I get the whole fees tax free, rather than the £200 something that most empoyers give as childcare vouchers.
Very lucky indeed to work for them.

I work for BT and have to agree with a previous poster that they are fantastic.

When XP and I split up and I had only limited out of school childcare arranged, I could start later and finish earlier on the days I had to do the school run, and could work from home if she was ill.

Even now, I can request time off for parents evenings, school events etc and it is sanctioned, no problem.

I'd love to see them receive an award as they do get bad press at times for one thing or another. But IMHO, when it cones to being family-friendly, they are one of, if not THE best.

MNHQ - for a socially minded enterprise (do you still call yourselves that?) you are being a bit dim with the wording of this. Please can you say 'organisation' instead of 'company'.

A huge proportion of people don't work for businesses! But the organisations they work for may be very family friendly employers. What about charities, universities, councils, government departments, etc? I mean, surely it's not the case that you're only interested in businesses with an advertising budget, is it?

Go on - could you say 'organisation' or 'employer' instead?

have sent an email

What about if you work in the public sector? My current NHS trust is amazing compared to anywhere I've worked before.

How hillarious that o2 think they are family friendly. they maybe for some members of staff, but overall their way sucks IMHO. DH works for them, staff are expected to live work and breathe o2. Far too many meetings and get togethers, great for the family members stuck at home! Job insecurity does wonders for morale and an easy homelife too, when they are making record profits.

My old company had flexitime. You had to work 10-12 and 2-4 (3 on a Friday) then make up the rest of your contracted hours at anytime between 7am and 7pm. The policy was for all staff regardless of if you had kids. Home-working was allowed up to 2 days per week depending on your role. Although I would add this policy caused numerous amount of office problems / politics.

Generally though I would not rate them highly career wise for other reasons and did not even think about returning after ML.

But I would like to know of other businesses that do flexitime. It is bloody fantastic - I would forgo salary for this and the flexitime to be honest was what kept me at my job for 5 years when otherwise I would have left (which would have lost me my maternity entitlement).

I have found it impossible to find out about family friendly companies myself.

I work for a very small company and I have worked for one of the Directors for 22 years. He has seen me through my engagement, my pregnancy and my split up from my ex.

Whilst I was pregnant he allowed me to structure my hours to suit me, ie during the last trimester I would get a train to Waterloo and a taxi to my office (and the reverse route home) - the taxi was paid for. I worked up until a week before my DD was born and went back when she was four months old - for the first month for two days a week then increasing to 3, 4 etc, all at a pace to suit me. I was paid my full pay during my maternity leave.

I have been a single mother for 7 years and during that time I have been able to bring my daughter to the office with me during half terms, Easter, school holidays, etc, or I've been able to work from home if she was ill during term time, etc.

Family friendly or just a company who appreciates its only member of staff? Whatever it is, I will be eternally grateful.

We run our own business - a training company - and we actively hired women who have kids - we like the focus, multi tasking, fun, and can do attitude!

IMO there's something about having your fanjo exposed to all and sundry during delivery that just makes people more friendly and more willing to take the slack without thinking they're too precious to wash bottles.
Smells like team spirit

i've sent an email.
I'll probably get told i'm not big enough.

I run a small business - a marketing/PR/Design company - and we are built around being family friendly. We work as a team, flexibly, and are very conscious of our work/life balance. We all used to work in the corporate world but took a decision to leave and build a business on our own terms and, so far, its worked. We won a national award last year for our family friendly policies so I will definitely contact Mumsnet to let them know. We've found that our approach has actually attracted talented people (women mostly) to want to come and work here.

Interestingly, I just realized said company is v closely associated with Mumsnet. How ironic.

I could tell you what is not one - the one that made me redundant while I was 7 months pregnant with my second baby, and told me my part time hours (4 days) were not transferable to any other job within the organisation. Hear hear philmassive - MN HQ are you going to publish the full list before the awards are made and allow current or previous employees to feedback on whether family friendly policies work in practice?

I have been working for myself/in my own company since 1996, for this very reason. I got sick and tired of pretending I didn't really have children.

I worked in marketing consultancy, and long hours are (or were) endemic, along with lots of meetings all over the country, or indeed the world.

When I found myself apologising for missing a meeting because my DS1 (then less than a year old) had suspected pneumonia and had been taken into hospital, I realised that priorities were very wrong. And then when I had a miscarriage, and took a week off sick, I realised how much of an inconvenience that was to the rest of my team, none of whom had taken up any of the slack on the projects I was working whilst I was away.

It's such a relief to be able to put things in the diary like 'nativity play' or 'parents' evening' without feeling guilty, and to know that my time will be actively protected to allow me to do those things.

My ds works for a so-called family friendly company, according to their policies, but in reality they are terrible. Don't be taken in just by what they say or claim on paper - talk to their actual employees and find out the truth.

I work for Little lamb nappies, they are fantastic! Esme & Nick (owners) have 6 children of their own so they are totally understanding. I could not ask for a better job, the hours are flexible, if our children are sick its no questions asked, they are happy for me to work from home answering emails, which means I can pick my son up from school. We can fetch our children to work in the holidays, as they specifically picked a warehouse somewhere we can do that, its so quiet on our estate, in the countryside, huge car park with very little traffic - off they go on their bikes. Its only me and my sister though so won't count :(
Can we have a best boss award?