To ask how to find family friendly Employers (London)?

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I’m thinking about leaving my job for a more family friendly employer i.e. one that is open to working from home a few days a week. It’s hard to find information about employers policies and I don’t know if it’s appropriate to make this expectation clear at the outset?

I’ve seen some articles like this but I just don’t know how reliable they are: www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/working-families-most-family-friendly-workplaces-revealed

The types of companies I could work for are consulting firms (eg Big 4 or mid size) or large multinationals (in pretty much most industry sectors).

If anyone has any advice or is willing to talk about what they have seen at their company or within their industry I would be really grateful.

I should add as this comes up time and time again, that I will have full time childcare in place and the reason I’m looking for working from home flexibility is to allow me to do nursery drop offs and picks ups without having to rush to get the train.

Have to say in London I struggled with family friendly hours. I did manage to negotiate part time, but only because a co- worker also wanted to reduce hours so we job shared. I still had to do the hours on “my” days though.

I think in London they are fine saying no as there are hundreds of young graduates out there and there’s no problem recruiting. I also found it difficult to get interviews for new position, and again I wondered if that was because from my age (degree plus 15 years work experience put my firmly in my late 30’s.

Moving out of london I am finding it much, much easier. The company i am with now makes allowances for both men and women to accommodate childcare or family issues. I am also getting interviews easily- fewer graduates with experience compared to london?

I have generally found that sort of arrangement is easier in a smaller firm, and even so generally usually awarded after a period of showing you are reliable and earned some trust.

Ah that’s a shame @Micah but glad you are finding it easier outside London and had the option to do that.

I’m not really looking for reduced hours as much as remote working.

I think it's reasonable to discuss at interview or query at application stage. You dont want the job if it's not flexible so better to not waste anyones time. I work in a big company that talls about flexibility a lot but it actually depends on the department as to what that means.

Most big 4 and consultancies are pretty flexible (this is from experience) but it works both ways, i.e. there are many occasions where you have to give them what they need too. E.g. sometimes calls till 1 am in the morning and the following day starting at 7 am in the morning. If that works, then Big 4 will definitely give you the flexibility in most cases.

We run a small consultancy near London - we employ mostly ex- Big 4. We have employees who have more flexible agreements but we have only agreed to flexible arrangements because we have worked with them for some time and we don't want to lose them - some staff work almost exclusively from home on a zero hours contract - or on a contracting basis and that seems to work for us and them. Other staff take a low base salary and they receive a bonus depending on their utilisation - so if them working from home doesn't affect their utilisation their salary will be equivilent to a non flexible package.

We need to recruit more staff at present but we would be unlikely to offer anyone a flexible contract straight off, unless they were well known in the industry and their profile could support their absence from the client site or we had worked with them extensively in the past - it can make resource planning on projects more challenging, often the client doesn't like it - especially during certain project phases.

It's what everyone seems to want at the moment but consultancy is all about travelling around various client sites around the UK, not being based at home - although you can get lucky.

Have you thought about going into industry rather than consulting?

I am in the same position. DD is in chlidcare 8-6 five days a week and it's a real problem to find a role where I can be back sometimes to do the pick up. My DH does most of the pick ups but sometimes works a late shift so I have to be there for it.

I find it frustrating - I often work late into the evenings or early mornings to work with different time zones (US and Australia) but my employer makes me feel like a failure for needing to leave at 5pm sometimes to do a pick up.

It feels like employers are all take take take sometimes....

I've just accepted a job at GT after a few years out of work. They pride themselves on their family friendly policies and brought it up themselves in the interview.

Obviously, as stated above, there is give and take so at certain times of year I will be working crazy hours. Even then it is likely I could attend an assembly and get in for 10ish once.

Yes I’m thinking about saying it at interview in order not to waste time

@tiggerkid That’s good to know. Deloitte is one of the employers mentioned in that article and I’ve heard people at other big 4 companies say that they have flexibility but I’m not sure if they are client facing.

@copperheart That’s one of the issues I will probably face. Will they be willing to give it off the bat. I could wait a few months but not years. Definitely considering going into industry.

@poppymatilda Totally get it! That’s why I’m thinking of leaving my current job.

A large part is down to the indivudual manager. At my previous company I was the only person in the team with children. I found my manager to be extremely inflexible when it came to taking time for for eg school meetings, christmas play etc.

Now I work for another large company in London. My manager has 3 children himself and is very flexible if I want to leave an hour early to see the teacher, go to the christmas play etc.

It's hard to know until you actually start the job although you may be able to gauge when you meet the manager at interview.

It's easy to be flexible for school play's/meetings etc. What's not easy to do it to have an employee rigidly say they will only work outside the home 2 days a week...we can usually accommodate this 80% of the time but if the client wants the consultants on site, then that is the priority and an employee who refuses to travel in these circumstances isn't much use to us.
If you are more senior in consultancy and you have an excellent sales record you can also influence your location by selling jobs locally - but if you are not selling it's harder to influence.

@ThatsNotMyCherry

I’ve heard people at other big 4 companies say that they have flexibility but I’m not sure if they are client facing

Both internal and client facing staff have flexibility but, admittedly, the two-way flexibility I mentioned earlier applies a lot more to client facing staff as there could be weeks when you may not get much flexibility at all because of client demands and pressure to deliver. On the other hand, you could equally have weeks, where it's much more flexible because you could be between assignments or the client is in a fairly steady state. As long as you prepared to accept that flexibility is required both ways, those companies are usually good to work for.

Internal functions, however, do give more certainty and greater flexibility, so that's something to consider.

@ThatsNotMyCherry
I'm guessing you're an accountant. I'm a lawyer and my impression from looking around is that in-house roles in industry tend to offer decent flexibility. The small start ups I've been working for are terrible so whilst I enjoy the work I'm going to move away from them to something bigger and more structured.
At the moment it feels like my career is a bit dead end - I've recently moved into freelance for a bit to try and reduce the strain but now with the changes to IR35 I feel like that route is being closed off to me as well - companies just aren't using consultants like they did before. It's really getting me down!

I work for a small/medium consultancy which is very very flexible. Have you looked at the Times top 100 employer lists?

Depends what you mean by family friendly. Most London based companies will allow work from home if you are based in London - but if you want a virtual home based job those are more difficult to obtain.

Big insurers/asset managers - Aviva, WTW, M&G etc have made a big song and dance about flexible working and supporting working parents.

Having worked at the big 4 I would definitely not recommend them as family friendly but it's over a decade since I worked there so things could have changed.

Civil service all the way for me. The government is genuinely family friendly and flexible.

Big4 is quickly moving in that direction but do be mindful that some are more talk than they are action.

www.923jobs.com/about-923#

Oxfordshire & London

That’s exactly what I want to understand, what companies are not just all talk and no action.

For example someone mentioned Aviva, I know they might be perceived as family friendly because they have very generous maternity/paternity leave but I have a friend who works there and says he can’t really work from home (he doesn’t have any kids yet and it may just be his department/manager)

I work for a top 10 accountancy firm and I can honestly say I am fully flexible unless I have a client meeting when I have to be in the office. My time is my own to plan, as long as I get my hours done and keep my calendar up to date then there are no complaints. My normal hours are 8 - 4:30pm, but I can flex these if needed. I can also work from home when I like, as long as I've updated my calendar.

My manager consistently works two days from home a week, another only goes into the office once a week.

Only difference is I work in a regional office, not London. The London office is definitely more formal than my office, but they promote agile working so if you requested two days a week at home I cannot honestly see why they would say no, as long as you were not needed for meetings/client site attendance.

Generally I find that flexible WFH come as a perk of being with a company a few years, being at a senior level etc,

For example, I hire for roles that are mainly office-based, but am open to people who've proven their reliability and capacity to perform when WFH during one-offs having a flexible arrangement after a year or two

Howver I definitely wouldn't guarantee it straight off the bat

@SunlightBlazing I understand that and I probably should have moved companies before I became a parent but I really liked my company so stuck with them. I have about 10 years experience so I’m mid/senior level. I wouldn’t be looking for wfh all week but around 2 days a week. I think my current company would only agree to 1 day which I suppose I could manage but it’s so common to hear about working from home now and I always feel jealous of those that have it!