BREAKING NEWS: P&G win gold on the mumsnet family awards (which they sponsor)

[iloveberries]

Anyone else a bit cynical about this and think that P&G have basically 'bought' the award. My best friend and husband used to work there (how i met him) and I can guarantee they are anything BUT family friendly to work for!!!

The HR is essential. Who delivers the customer service? The people working there. Who influences and helps the organisation drive the people strategy? HR (or at least it should be!).

But, getting that kind of access to organisations is really, really difficult as Vicki has testified. If you can go to an organisation and say 82% of your customers think your customer service is rubbish for X, Y and Z reasons. Would you like to work in partnership with us to improve the service you offer to customers? If you improve you could win a Family Friendly award that's more attractive than going in cold.

Once you have a partnership you can go in and look at the organisation and how it functions. Then you can invite them to allow you to measure satisfaction levels of their staff and compete for Family Friendly status.

If the MN Family Friendly award becomes an attractive prospect for organisations they will start coming to you and wanting to cooperate for a chance to be eligible for that award and you can start poking about in HR stuff.

Another way is asking organisations to nominate themselves for the awards and that comes with the condition that MN will investigate to verify the claims.

Since the debate has shifted to the nature of the awards, and how companies have won them, this has become interesting.

I work in HR, and used to work in a large organisation (not P&G!) that really pushed its diversity agenda and was forever touting its family friendly credentials. I can only echo others who have made the point that having a diversity office and running an emergency childcare scheme does NOT a family friendly employer make! I was always particularly irked when the stats around returning maternity leavers were bandied around - there was a 98% return rate. What they DID NOT reveal was the less compelling statistic that the rate of women staying for 3/6/12 months after the initial return from mat leave was significantly lower...as they got back into the workplace and the reality dawned on them that policy didn't necessarily translate into practice.

I take the point that organisations have to start somewhere; but for me, the issue with these awards is that (until now) I would have correlated a gold award with excellence, not just being 'the least worst' Savvy organisations have clearly spotted the commercial value in having the MN 'seal of approval' - knowing/hoping that MNetters take their endorsement/award as a short hand for a benchmark that they aren't really at if you explore in more depth. The devil is in the detail...

Can someone from MNHQ answer my question as to whether the products of the year are administered in the same way please?

maybe greggs couldn't afford the entrance fee.....

I'm guessing the entrance fee isn't really much of an issue, unless its pitched significantly higher than what's needed for MN to cover its costs? That seems unlikely. Presumably the financial value is more in getting the MN logo onto the winning companies' products? And also in the scheme's ability to raise MN's profile amongst advertisers.

Just a question, though: there have been quite a lot of adverts on MN for the "Family Friendly Hall of Fame" and these have showed logos of the companies that signed up. Does the entrance fee include an element for this advertising or is that unpaid-for by the companies? It could just be some sort of loss leader on MN's part I suppose.

Morning! Wanted to pick up on the miscarriage question because it's really dear to my heart. One of the members of the programme talked to us about this very thing. They have policies for people having fertility treatment but miscarriage wasn't something any of the companies had a policy for or provided information to managers on how to support someone who had experienced on aside (dare I say it, from P&G). As we start to think about next year - and this thread is going to be such a massive help - we're already thinking about how we can start to push the boundaries and get companies to think about these sorts of things. Another area we really want to think about is disability. I have someone that works with me who has a son with a disability and she is very keen that we think about that and I'm sure Mumsnetters would want us to. We're also putting together a training plan for companies so we can go in and help train their managers to implement their policies - we'll be going through their results with them and highlighting where they are getting it wrong and helping them think about what they need to do to change. For me, training is really important.
We did ask Mumsnetters to nominate companies and we'll be doing that again. I hope now we've got the debate going we'll get more and more discussion and we'll be able to talk to companies about that with them which will all help get them on board. I wish I could remember why Greggs didn't do it this year - I'll have to dig out the notes. DOn't think it was money, and CalatalieSisters is right the fee is about covering costs so was set as low as we could afford so it wasn't a barrier to joining.

I'm sorry I don't know about the products of the year - apart from knowing it wasn't administered exactly the same way because there wasn't an independent audit bit. I'd know if there was! I'll find out for you though.

Ooooh and one last thought. I take the point about was it too ambitious to include internal as well as external. We debated it Endlessly. Thing was, we didn't think we could possibly give anyone any sort of badge for family friendliness if we didn't look at how they treated their staff. People did ask us to - and we said no. Hope everyone has a lovely Saturday planned. I'm doing a research group today with Grandparents asking them how they feel about internet safety :)

Hi, the entrance fee covers everything the members receive for joining us in the programme including the element of advertising.

I think having minimum expectations for each level and having a "member level" being the lowest (although that one has of course standards too) to recognise that the company may not have reached all the points required for a medal level but are part of the scheme and see it as a priority to work towards improvement.

I think you just get strict about the standards.

One fun idea I had although I know that more serious FF need tackling was that the Gold award might include giving employees the day off for their children's birthdays booked at the beginning of the year. How lovely would that be?

Reading through this thread made me remember the lovely Christmas hampers my Dad used to be given from P&G. It was lovely.

They get in excess of 25 days annual leave as it is and can surely use this if they want to spend their child's birthday out of the office.

It's one thing to make the life of a parent easier (such as having meetings after 9.30am). It's another to give extra days' leave where childless employees carry the load.

But I like your thinking, Architien. It would be fab to brainstorm ideas to make companies more family friendly, and then muddle through the practicalities and fairness to the wider workforce.

For me, personally, what I would love is for all stress to be taken away from childcare. That particularly means how you can continue to do your job when your child is ill. Unfortunately, in my job, my children aren't allowed to be ill and the only times so far that they have been off school DH was able to juggle his work and work from home, or DS was at home on study leave. If I had to look after sick children, I would lose a day's pay and have to do a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure my classes were covered.

I think school holidays are a problem for most parents. As a teacher, this is one area where I don't have to worry. However, I would imagine that work breaks over the holidays would be great, especially if you are not the solo breadwinner.

I'd still like to know what was wrong with the bronze award companies.

I think Vicki already explained that - something to do with just meeting statutory requirements rather than exceeding them.

@josephinebonaparte

Can someone from MNHQ answer my question as to whether the products of the year are administered in the same way please?

Do you mean the Mumsnet Best awards, josephinebonaparte? If so, the answer is no.

I would be anti special privileges just for parents such as the additional holiday for children's birthdays. I think it's unfair and causes resentment.

I think the best thing organisations can do is to make things that make parents lives easier (like flexible working, options to buy additional leave, internal job share boards, work sponsored benefits etc etc) available to everyone.

Then Jim who is childless but likes to play golf never works Wednesday afternoons because he works compressed hours the rest of the week and Monika who has an elderly relative to care for can work flexibly around hospital appointments and meetings with social services. It also means that when Mo asks for flexible working (because he wants to be able to do the school run 3 days a week) it's nothing out of the ordinary.

Off the top of my head the only exceptions to this I can think of are enhanced maternity/paternity leave, childcare schemes, breastfeeding facilities and workplace creches.

Do the winners of the best awards have to pay to be in the running?

@josephinebonaparte

Do the winners of the best awards have to pay to be in the running?

If you're talking about the Mumsnet Best Awards - are you? see my earlier post - then, no.

I asked previously whether the best awards were administered in the same way which wasn't the same question. This thread has taught me that unless I ask the specific direct question I might not get the full answer. So if I wanted to win a best award, I wouldn't have to do anything to be considered, just hope that mumsnetters will nominate me?

@josephinebonaparte

I asked previously whether the best awards were administered in the same way which wasn't the same question. This thread has taught me that unless I ask the specific direct question I might not get the full answer. So if I wanted to win a best award, I wouldn't have to do anything to be considered, just hope that mumsnetters will nominate me?

Josephinebonaparte, what do you mean by 'best awards'?

Do you mean the Mumsnet Best awards that are awarded for the products that get the best reviews on Mumsnet. As in here?

And if those are the awards you mean... no, they're not administered in the same way, and no, winners do not pay to be in the running.

Hope that answers your questions clearly enough.

Yes I mean the mumsnet best awards.

So if I want to win a mumsnet best award for my product, what would I need to do?

I'm sorry if you think I'm being a pain in the arse but its clear from upthread that things aren't always what they seem.

Invent a really well designed, useful product possibly Josephine? And then tell Mumsnet about it?

It's Josephine here, I've name changed. Well would I have to tell mumsnet about it, or would mumsnetters have to nominate me. This might seem like an obvious question but earlier this week I thought that winners of family friendly awards would simply have the best family friendly policies.