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.

Would love some industry perspectives too. I’ve worked with media and pharma clients and they seem pretty good with this stuff. Would be good to hear about other sectors too like technology, banking, insurance, telecoms etc

@SunlightBlazing - surely the wfh policy depends on the company not what you or the hiring manager thinks should be the wfh policy.

@grumpyhoonmain that’s not been my experience, my current company actually allows wfh but my manager is not keen on it so our team only does it as an exception rather than the norm

I worked for my company (national), and after 2 years I was working from home. Just went on site if I had a meeting. Trying to find something now like that is hard.

www.jnj.com/our-company/j-j-and-the-21st-century-working-family

It's also a legal requirment to offer flexible working once the employee has 6 months service

@poppymatilda
That’s true but it’s what happens in practice that really matters at the end of the day. As some have said, there are companies that talk about being family friendly and offering options but the reality can be quiet different

This is why a lot of big name consultancies fail to keep millennial employees. Work from home should be standard - you either trust your employees to get the job done or you don’t. Restricting wfh to older employees means the younger ones (many of whom move before the end of probationary periods as the work culture has changed) don’t get any benefit; and realistically it’s the younger employees you want to wfh as they won’t have families etc to distract them.

It's also a legal requirment to offer flexible working once the employee has 6 months service No it isn't - you have to consider a request fairly, and base your decision on facts...no one is entitled to flexible working.

@GrumpyHoonMain it's very role-specific though....we're a multinational tech company, where some roles have to be bums-on-seats while others can be done from anywhere, with a whole spectrum in between. So the leads of each department get to decide their policy is - there is no company-wide directive (outside of legislative requirements)

Sky are amazing if you can get to West!

I would think if you chose a company that is either Scandinavian, Dutch, German or Icelandic, you'll find that they treat their workers with more respect.

@copperheart you can only refuse a request on one of 8 specific grounds and the reality is that for most office based roles it is very difficult to make out decent grounds to refuse

Civil service definitely would.

Good to know about Sky, if a role comes up in my line I will apply as they are close to me.

@poppymatilda those eight specific grounds are not very challenging for a consultancy to to find decent grounds to refuse flexibility - maybe for other office jobs - but the OP said she was a consultant.

Could you look at the civil service? Very family friendly (flexible working/annual leave) and lots of offices in London.

Investment Banks tend to be pretty accepting of WFH in non trading roles. In teams I have been in it’s been mandatory to WFH at least one day a week, sometimes 2 (due to office space constraints).

It is relatively straightforward to get 1 day WFH these days. But more than that can be a struggle. Depends a lot on your direct management chain.

DH and I both work in the city and have very flexible employers. I asked the question when interviewing and they were happy to tell me standard hours / flexible working policies

Tbh, it’s becoming such a requirement now in our sectors that employers are mostly moving towards more flexible working policies. At least in my experience from my last move.

@UpperLowercaseSymbolNumber Yes you’re right, I think 1 day is generally not a problem and my current company would probably agree to that but I really want 2 days at least.

Usually flexible working is available at most large corporates when you've been there a couple of years and demonstrated you are capable and diligent. Some places like you to build up starting with one day WFH, so they can see you are productive at home& that it's working for your team.

In terms of finding employers word of mouth, I would never go and interview somewhere until I had found a friend or friend of a friend who had insights on what they are like to work for.

Also check on glass door for employee views of companies