Wow! It has taken me over an hour to read through the posts made since my last contribution!
I am very glad that the momentum has shifted away from 'me'. I have been on internet forums for at least 10 years and have learned to grow a thick skin and pretty much ignore personal attacks. Personal attacks say more about the attacker than they do about me. They rarely contribute to the debate.
I have not declared any connection to P&G (saying that, I probably do have a connection via my pension scheme as I'm sure most people in private schemes do). If I were to admit a connection to P&G, my posts would be discredited because 'I was obviously biased'. If no connection, then I don't know what I am talking about. I'd just rather leave it ambiguous and let the facts of what I post speak for themselves. The topic in this case is a justification for P&G to have a family friendly policy. I have listed some family friendly initiatives and I would love for people to debate them.
I am very glad to read Justine's and Vicki's posts. I hope Justine has reassured you that I am just a regular mumsnetter, just like you. I post on a variety of topics - education, religion, cooking, living overseas. In earlier years, I was more active on posting about birth and breastfeeding. Vicki's posts have been very insightful. I do believe that her data collection was very robust, from the description given. I don't think the sample size queries are too much to worry about. It may be interesting to note that in the FMCG sector, that a base size of 200 with a confidence limit of 90% works well for most business decisions. It sounds, and is, a small panel, but it is tried and tested. Obviously clinicals and blind tests require larger samples - but maybe only 400.
Someone pointed out that a company self-selecting into this project just wants to put their best face forward. I am sure that is true, but they cannot do it on a whim. They cannot decide when they hear of this project to create an image that fits. A family friendly culture is decades in the making. You can't create it overnight. Employees have long memories and someone with children of around 10 years of age will still have their early day memories quite vivid and will express them in any survey.
Some people have said that they work for 'similar' companies and don't feel their companies match the findings, and by association, P&G can't either. But that is the whole point. P&G rises above industry standards in this regard, as well as most areas of operation. You can't simply say because of their size, or which stock market they trade on, that they can be defined for their family friendliness.
Someone mentioned that they have been marketed by P&G via mumsnet because they took part in a product test. Well, no - that is not marketing. That is consumer research. That is P&G either trying to find out whether you liked their product (and were willing to buy for a certain price), to find out strengths and weaknesses of the product, or to satisfy specific advertising claims (eg 9/10 cat owners agree their cats liked the food).
I hope that we can continue to debate the issues and leave out what substance I might be relying on (white wine, if anyone is interested). I fully support the motives of Mumsnet and Vicki that the main objective of the project is to raise the standard of family friendliness in companies across the land.