What's your idea of the ultimate family-friendly employer?

[eggybreadandbeans]

(Also copied on 'Employment issues' and 'Going back to work' boards)

My partner and I run a fast-growing company, and we would like it to evolve as a family-friendly employer.

At the moment ? and this was unintentional, I should add ? we have no mums or dads within our team; just a couple of unattached guys who are doing a great job. We are currently recruiting again and, in preparation for having parents working with us, are exploring how family-friendly we can be to mums and dads in the team, while still empowering all staff ? with kids or without ? to do the best job they're capable of.

We have both been able to enjoy a lot of time with ds during his first years, and want our future staff to be able to enjoy as much time as possible with their newborns and young children, too. But we still need to think about getting the job done at work, and getting it done well.

So everyone/anyone ? SAHMs, working mums, dads, full-/part-timers ? what would be your idea of the ultimate family-friendly employer? What benefits or schemes or flexibility could they offer that would enable you/your partner to still do your job well yet make life easier for your family? In your experience, which family-orientated initiatives work and which don't? What is there not enough of? And what is often offered but actually doesn't help much? And can benefits for non-parents be offered too, to even it all out? You get the picture ?

A big thank you for sharing any ideas and experiences, and links to other companies you know of who?ve got it sussed.

All I can say is that my company has been fab. I work for a big american multi-national and I returned to work on a part time basis, which they made hassle free. My job was scaled (somewhat!) accordingly, and because I am willing to be a little bit flexible if I really need to (e.g. swap days around, travel, check emails/voicemails sometimes on days off!), they are more than happy to be flexible with me. I am now 36 weeks pg with #2 and plan to return to work again in a year's time. They are ensuring I am not forgotten for career development opportunities and are staying in touch with me during my leave. They also operate a childcare voucher scheme which gives a tax effective way of paying for childcare.

So ultimately, I'd say flexibility. I don't take the p*ss and likewise they don't either. If DD is ever ill, then I can work from home somewhat easily (they also provide wireless broadband at home).

I don't think they're this flexible in the US (mat leave and the right to work part time isn't quite as advanced as it is over here) but they have lots of innovative programs like the provision of expressing machines and "lactation rooms" so that breastfeeding mothers can return to work but can continue to feed via expressed milk.

Hope this helps!

It sounds like you would be a lovely employer . You could balance allowing parents day's off for sick children with allowing non-parents days off for sick partner/parents. Or offering non-parents the opportunity for some flexible unpaid leave. Flexible hours and/or the ability to work from home if possible would also be great.

there was an article in the papers on youngish companies, where Innocent (the smoothie people) were cited as being v family friendly (eg giving £2,000 bonus when child is born).

also my employer has a subsidised playscheme for the school holidays which I find invaluable

what I appreciate (before I had kids and now) is flexibility - being able to work from home, and choose the hours I am at work. Being flexible when you can take holidays, and being able to work part-time.

No pressure to do overtime if you don't want to, and no pressure to work away from home. And short commute is also a big bonus.

I think those things are great for non-parents as well.

The only parent specific thing that might be useful is a creche/nursery for parents with young children.

i think flexibility is key - if you have to be at home cos a child is ill, then knowing that it's acceptable to make up the time etc thru working at home is a great help. Having a number of people working part time or flexibily helps so that a parent isn't the only one needing to have some flexibility.

Felxibility is a must -- especially with school age children when they have things like Sports Day, Open Morning (we just had one of these today, and a couple children [reception age] were crying because their mommies could drop them off, but couldn't stay because of work!).

Also having a set of "core hours" (e.g. 10 -2 ) where being the office is the norm, but making up additional hours at home if this works out for the job. (sometimes it is easier to do things like email, reports etc out of office, as you don't get interupted!

Hello. In my dreams I'd like to see:

Part time NOT to mean lowly, poorly paid or undervalued
Jobshares available at senior levels too
flexible contracts, ability to buy days sometimes
term time only contracts (pos jobshared)
working from home flexibility
a culture of being able to talk about being a parent rather than pretending your children don't exist
it being ok to go off for sports days etc without it being frowned upon

Have you look at working families and the daycare trust

Good luck and well done.

I have a fantastically supportive employer, as I have not only a 1-year-old but also a chronically ill husband, so have to take regular time off to go to the hospital / GP / pharmacy etc. They have never been anything other than 100% supportive of this, and obviously even childfree people get ill so there's an aspect of 'family friendliness' there which applies to all.

I can do a lot of work from home because they have the technology to support it; email and intranet obviously but we also use Microsoft Communicator so I can have voice conferences and share a whiteboard or even an application on my machine with one or more other people, so if we need to discuss a design or work through some ideas, this can be done without being face-to-face if need be.

Trusting your employees to deliver results rather than hours is very important.

An onsite (or nearby) creche would be brilliant, as actually working from home with a 1 year old is not that easy anyway, but would love to be able to pop out and see ds whenever.

A positive attitude to recruiting pregnant women is good too (well, it was for me - I interviewed at 28 weeks pregnant and was frankly stunned to be offered a job based on my years in the private sector). So thinking long term is important.

It is very important to ensure that the same flexibility is extended to all staff; I have friends who've been virtually expected to move their holidays to accommodate someone in the office with school age kids. Well, surely this person knew at the start of the leave year when the school hols were going to be, why should my friend be penalised for having booked his holiday first? And indeed, as I've mentioned, pepole have lots of 'family' responsibilities that aren't children as well.

It's great that you're even thinking about this, so many UK employers don't. Having worked in Sweden I am quite shocked at what is expected here. There, it was safe to assume that everyone was leaving at 1630 to pick kids up from school/kindergarten. Parents would normally share this more or less 50:50, it is very unusual for it to be entirely the woman's responsibility.

do your hours per week - whenever as long as you do them.

so i work 35hours put i do some evenings and weekends this gives me time to go to dentist appointments or doctors or school telling offs whatever.

the flexi time thing - is pants imo. you hvae to book off a whole half day

why not just i worked an hour over yesterday am leaving at 4?

or am only having half hour for dinner am coming in at 9.30

as long as you do your hours your contracted for if the work allows it - why not let them work 9 hours 3 days a week 8 another and have a day off. or come in sunday if they want

Brilliant. Thanks for all your ideas and links. Am feeling excited about what we could do!

I work for a huge Japanese IT company who are absolutely fantastic about flexibility etc. I chose to go back to work when my child was 4 months old - largely because they offer a 20% uplift on my salary from the day I return until my child is 15 months old! For me and my dh, this was the incentive he needed to resign from his job and take a year off to look after ds!

Also, I work from home 2 days a week, and have changed my hours to suit myself, so that I can still get home to give ds dinner, bath, bed etc. (Sometimes this means that I log on later in the evening and do some work, which is fine!)

I would return to work once DD was at school if I could find an employer who would

let me work within school hours so that I could do school drop-offs (would be happy to work at home for an hour or 2 in the evenings if it needed to be made-up)

would let me work term-time so I could be around during the holidays

would be flexible with school events .. odd days off

would be happy for me to work at home if needed (have broadband)

My old employer was great (just been outsourced to a new company - so I'll wait & see). I am still doing the same job and they don't appear to differentiate between me on 4 days and others on 5. Some projects have been unwilling initially to take me on but now very keen to take me back so you do have to prove yourself.
We have had an unofficial flexi-time policy in this department for years - at least 13, this has since been adopted by the whole company.

Our core hours are 10 till 4 so I have chosen to work 8-4 with 1/2 hr lunch. I do a 4-day week so only work Mon-Thurs. They are also very flexible, so I worked 2 hours from home last night & I'll do a couple more hours over the weekend and I get Monday afternoon off to go to DS's sports day without having to use up my annual leave (at the moment we are very busy so thep prefer that as well).

I have in the past worked from home when ds has been ill (dd has never been ill). They know my daytime hours will be unproductive though I do try and work, but that I do additional hours in the evening to catch up. After DS's last sick day, he is unlikely to fake any illness as he was very bored as I left him to watch cbeebies, or do colouring in next to me but he wasn't allowed to play on the computer etc.

My long term msater plan is to see if I can swap to term-time only in Jan 2008 instead of a 4-day week, when DD starts full-time reception, maybe doing some work from home in the evenings during the holidays. So then I will just need after-school clubs, I would like to do school pick-up as well at least once a week. So fingers crossed.

Agree with Twiglett, term time hours, and being able to do the school drop off and pick up. I'm not at that stage yet but it is something I keep in mind(ds is 2.4). I work part time in a job I loathe, and would apply for another job more suited to my talents with the same employer (they are flexible) if the hours were better suited to the above. Also agree with the train of thought from wickedwaterwitch that if you are part time you are not treated lowly or undervalued.