Do you work for a Family Friendly company? Tell us about them here!

[carriemumsnet]

Mumsnet's Family Friendly Campaign is gathering momentum. If you haven't heard about it yet > you can read more here.

Some great companies have signed up already - take a bow Pizza Express, BT, Talk Talk, PZ Cussons, 02, Cool Milk, SMV, Pearson - and we're talking to lots more, but would love to know if you work for a company or organisation (or know someone who works for a company or organisation) who would like to be part of the campaign and put themselves up for a Mumsnet Family Friendly Award.

If you want to nominate a company please send the contact name and email (and ideally telephone number) to [email protected] and we'll be in touch (though promise not to mention your name if you'd rather we didn't!).

Thanks in advance

MNHQ

MNHQ - for a socially minded enterprise (do you still call yourselves that?) you are being a bit dim with the wording of this. Please can you say 'organisation' instead of 'company'.

A huge proportion of people don't work for businesses! But the organisations they work for may be very family friendly employers. What about charities, universities, councils, government departments, etc? I mean, surely it's not the case that you're only interested in businesses with an advertising budget, is it?

Go on - could you say 'organisation' or 'employer' instead?

I work for BT and have to agree with a previous poster that they are fantastic.

When XP and I split up and I had only limited out of school childcare arranged, I could start later and finish earlier on the days I had to do the school run, and could work from home if she was ill.

Even now, I can request time off for parents evenings, school events etc and it is sanctioned, no problem.

I'd love to see them receive an award as they do get bad press at times for one thing or another. But IMHO, when it cones to being family-friendly, they are one of, if not THE best.

I work for University of Manchester and they are very family friendly. First 6 months of maternity leave full pay and they also pay my nursery fees(on mat leave at the mo and first DC at work nursery) after that as my SMP won't cover it.
Very understanding when it comes to applying for part time work, and when children are ill, not a hassle to take time off. Also at the managers discretion, you cna have 5 days of paid leave for family sickness.
I pay for the nusery fees through salary sacrifice so I get the whole fees tax free, rather than the £200 something that most empoyers give as childcare vouchers.
Very lucky indeed to work for them.

I'm going to echo what other people have already said. On paper my employers are wonderfully family friendly, and up until the beginning of the year I'd have agreed but lately I'd have to argue against it with a vengeance

I used to and my husband still works for BGL which is basically compare the Market.

And yes we all got a free talking meerkat amongst other things.

This company demonstrates that it is family friendly. Only this weekend they provided a fun day for all the family and friends. Free rides including 4x4, donkey, quads, fairgrowns and bouncy castles which also included a free lunch and drink.
They also do a 'bring your child to work day' during the summer.

Following on from my earlier thread, my friend works for Travel Counsellors and they have some great family friendly ideas and practices

Interesting. I'm not going to name my employers (just yet), but on paper they are seen to be family friendly. In reality however, it appears that it depends on WHO your manager is or WHICH department you speak to. We have flexi-work for admin staff. For academic staff, that should be the case too - afterall, you don't have to be at your office desk to do research, dream up a research proposal or write up a report. For some departments, that is the case; for others, you are expected to be at your desk and your boss actually rings your office line to see if you are actually in, on a friday afternoon at 3.30pm (?).
For some departments, it's ok to work from say 8-3 (and then go pick kids up from school); other departments requesting teaching that ends at 3pm results in an email that says that as a full-time member of staff you should be available till 5pm every day. There are ways and means around things; afterall, some people prefer to start late and end late; others prefer to start early and end early. Why can't employers see that? Why can't people just 'pair' people up (early + late = perfect).
My point is, there are great employers out there (I'm sure); but more interestingly, it seems to me that there are great (and not so great) managers out there... who will interpret/misinterpret rules as they fit.

I also work for BT and they are generally great (as said above) with regard to family/flexibility etc. In practice, it can come to down to the individual line manager and they're not all as flexible as they're supposed to be... That said, if I'd had any real problems I could easily have resolved them.

BT are also great for diversity. I know they get a bad press on here often enough but they do a great deal for their employees, charity and local communities.

Oh, and I resigned today so it's not like I have anything to gain from singing their praises!

well I work for a very large corporate and my personal experience has been that they have been exceptionally family friendly. I will email, but what contact name do you want - PR?

Sent email but you're going to say I'm crazy!

I work for a local firm of accountants and have done for 15 years. My boss has always offered part time hours - school hours, school term only. I did this for the first few years and have gradually increased my hours as my kids have grown up and I don't need all the holidays. If ever the kids were sick, he was quite cool about us being at home with them (the job does allow work to be taken home if needed).

We also get gym membership paid for!

i used to work for a well-known mor supermarket.

not at all family-friendly. although i was in a crap relationship at the time, i was always the one who had to take time off when dd was ill. every time, i got hauled into the office for a disciplinary. and for a comment that x made on one of the tills about another cashier, i was the one that got discplined.

even though most of the line management were parents and they had time off when they needed it (or not) everyone else was penalised.

could i nominate them for a family unfriendly award?

unfriendly

oh eck

Worked in the public sector until redundancy. The maternity leave was great; positive and flexible attitude was dependant on your line management.

Problems with childcare and a lack of support meant I was forced to take redundancy and am now self employed. I hope to return to work for an employer in the future.

I'm at the University of London and they've been fantastic. I've had six months maternity leave on full pay (was offered up to a year but decided to stick to six months for the sake of my career progression). When I got to 38 weeks I just couldn't go in any more and they were great and understanding. Now I'm back I work my own hours - I was allowed to do whatever hours I want to fit in with my childcare as long as I get my work done. Usually I do 6.30am-2.30pm then I can pick DS up early, while DH does mornings. I love it!

I hope universities count and not just companies!

I also work for the NHS - have been fantastic. I joined my hospital when dd1 was 8 months old. 10 years later I have changed my hours / number of days working numerous times to fit in with my dds.

I do - I'm a civil servant, working in a small team of four working mothers. We are all part-timers, two on annualised hours so they can take all the school holidays off. We have all been promoted while on these terms and all feel our contribution is valued.

Sadly we are all being made redundant

I'd like to nominate my company Halfords Media/PokerStars. I was the first person in the office to get pregnant and was expecting a standard kind of maternity policy, but no, it was a generous number of months with full pay, plus £1,000 cash 'baby bounty' to pay for my baby stuff, plus flowers and a gift basket when he was born. They were super supportive about me working from home in my last few months, didn't make a fuss about me changing my mind about return dates (a couple of times!) and in the end I extended my time off to a year and returned part time in the same role.

The company has grown, but they've kept all the benefits for women, along with private health and dental care for the whole family. They've added paid paternity leave for dads too. Plus there are fab family parties in the summer.

I think my company must be one of the best places for any mum to work, and folks may be surprised to hear that they're an online poker company! People expect that to be about men, money, and shady dealings, but it's the most caring family friendly I've worked for, run by good people. I got very lucky with my company.

TootingJo they sound great!

I am interested in this as having a ds with a disability - although I would love to return to work at some point, in reality it would have to be to a very understanding and supportive organisation.

I agree als with the point made about not just reading their policies, any organisation can write a good policy, doesn't mean it will happen in everyday working situations.

Another vote for the NHS. I came back just 1 day a week and have built up post children. My training and development never suffered and I have had several promotions as a part timer.

And if any of these lovely family friendly cmpanies want a part-timeshit hot Finance director - do get them to PM me!

I work for an amazingly family friendly company. It's a world class practice, and they offer 1 full year maternity leave on full pay, childcare vouchers, parental leave, flexible working, they bent over backwards to accommodate my part time working request on return from maternity leave.