Hello
As lots of you will know, eligible employees in the UK are entitled to statutory maternity, paternity, adoption and/or parental benefits - the minimums set by the government, which all employers have to facilitate. Beyond those minimums, some employers offer more: ‘enhanced’ maternity, paternity, adoption and/or parental leave and/or pay.
Over the years we’ve seen lots of conversations in which MNers try to find out what policies prospective employers have, or ask fellow MNers what it’s reasonable to expect in terms of enhanced terms. Many are worried that if they ask directly in an interview, they’ll risk being ruled out of the running - or that if they ask after a job offer, the offer could be withdrawn.
Information about parental leave policies can be crucial, and finding a way to put the information in the public domain could help lots of parents and prospective parents uncover the employers who are truly family-friendly (as well as those who really aren’t).
The government is currently consulting on a proposal to make it a legal requirement that companies employing 250 or more people should publicly publish their parental leave policies and benefits. The idea is that this sort of measure - as with gender pay gap reporting - can put more power into the hands of job-seekers, and incentivise employers to develop policies they’re proud to shout about.
We think this is a really important idea and we wanted to know what MNers thought about MNHQ swinging behind it as a campaign.
It also occurred to us that crowdsourcing this information could be one way forwards for now. We’d love to build a comprehensive online resource of UK employers’ parental policies to help people negotiate what can be a tricky area. Would that be something you think could work? Eg simply posting here (anonymously if you wish obviously)
where you work;
what your employers offers for maternity leave (xx% of salary for xx weeks followed by xx% for xx weeks followed by…); and
what your employer offers for paternity leave (xx% of salary for xx weeks followed by xx% for xx weeks followed by…)
If your employer offers only statutory leave and pay, please just tell us where you work and that they offer statutory benefits.
Obviously folks could name change before doing this but maybe you’d rather do it off-site, let us know. It would be great if we could build up a bank of information for fellow MNers who might be looking for jobs. Knowledge is power and all that.
What are MNHQ’s policies, we hear you cry? You can read about them here.