UK MNer? Take this survey on family-friendly employment policies - NOW CLOSED

[AbbiCMumsnet]

The UK government is running a consultation on family-friendly employment policies.

We at Mumsnet HQ are going to submit an organisational response to the consultation when it closes in October 2019 and so we’re interested in finding out what our users think. These questions are exactly the same as those the government is using in the ‘flexibility and family leave and pay’ section of the consultation: you can find out more about that here: beisgovuk.citizenspace.com/lm/daa0d612/

This survey is open to all Mumsnet users who live in the UK.

Please click here to complete the survey.

All who complete the survey will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £100 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Completed!

Thought some of the questions were both leading and impossible to answer unless you work in hr

How can someone know if it’s quick & easy for a company to publish policies?

Difficult questions!

Completed bit of a hr survey but did my best

Thanks for comments, and apologies if you find some of the questions a bit obscure or difficult to answer. We've taken the questions directly from the government's consultation survey because we want to submit a response based on MNers' views, so we haven't rewritten them as we normally would.

Many thanks for soldiering on!

Completed 🙂

It’s a shame there wasn’t anywhere to leave any comments and it didn’t really seem to be designed with employees in mind.

I find that although family friendly policies exist, there is a wide variation in how they are interpreted across an organisation depending on how generous or sympathetic your particular line manager is. I think it would be much more beneficial to parents if there was a way to address these inconsistencies.

Also not sure I agree with publishing the policies. People should first and foremost be interested in the job, and can be given the opportunity to find out more about the policies as part of the application & selection process.

Like PPs, I found the questions overly complicated & not really designed for employees. I also agree it would have been helpful to have a comments section. TBH my main comment would be that many companies don't seem to be particularly concerned with family friendly policies, they know that many people are desperate for jobs & will put up with a lot of crap. Flexible working is often low down on the list of issues.

I have to say, I think that the nature of the questionnaire, including the lack of a comment section, does indicate something about how much notice is likely to be taken of the results. I appreciate that MNHQ took the questions directly from the government's survey.

Done. I work in a large nationwide company and found that I could answer the questions in that context but for employees in smaller organisations it may have been trickier. I appreciate you have taken the questions from the Gov survey, but someone is missing a trick if there is no question re: size of company/organisation etc to link the responses to.

@WingDefence

Done. I work in a large nationwide company and found that I could answer the questions in that context but for employees in smaller organisations it may have been trickier. I appreciate you have taken the questions from the Gov survey, but someone is missing a trick if there is no question re: size of company/organisation etc to link the responses to.

Thanks WingDefence - we'll see if we can flag that up in our response

Completed, but this survey was poorly constructed, not well worded and there were even a number of typos. I would have expected higher standard from Mumsnet.

@ShePersisted

Completed, but this survey was poorly constructed, not well worded and there were even a number of typos. I would have expected higher standard from Mumsnet.

Thanks for persisting, ShePersisted We took the copy directly from the government's survey but apologies if we managed to introduce some typos along the way

An awful lot of "don't know" answers from me !

That survey made me feel incredibly dim!

People should first and foremost be interested in the job, and can be given the opportunity to find out more about the policies as part of the application & selection process.

I don't agree. There are so many jobs out there and for me it's important to have one where I can have a balance and do evening classes. I should not have to waste a company's time getting to 2 interviews down only to find out the hours are 9-6, or that going 3 days a week eventually isn't possible - which if I'd known from the start, I wouldn't have applied.

It's like going on 3 dates with a hot guy then finding out they're a BNP supporter - you'd rather know from the start so you can weed them out.

The questions are too complicated! I gave up

Done but another waste of time .A lot of big brother style questions - who can answer " who should enforce policies ... " are the home office planning a new gestapo to check job adverts say flexible working somewhere in the small print.
Most people can suss out if a job can fit around picking up the kids from school,with out a huge,public access ,data base recording every employee's family life .

done

Completed

Did the whole thing, which took flipping ages, then when I pressed submit got a MN “this page cannot be found”, so that was a big waste of time.

@ifigoup

Did the whole thing, which took flipping ages, then when I pressed submit got a MN “this page cannot be found”, so that was a big waste of time.

Argh, sorry. I'll see if we can find out what happened

Hello - with huge thanks to everyone who struggled through this survey, we're pleased to share our summary of the results (which we've also submitted to the government as a response to this consultation)

Thank you so much
MNHQ x

Thanks all for taking part - we have ran the prize draw and the winner has been notified.
Thanks,
MNHQ