What's THE best thing an employer could offer working parents

[MrsNuckyThompson]

I've joined a task force at work and we're trying to come up with some 'blue sky' ideas around this topic. Obviously budget will be a consideration, but let's assume for now that it isn't - just trying to get a feel for what most people value. If you could design something pretty special to make working life easy for working parents (although with a particular focus on mothers to increase gender balance at work) what would you offer? Assume a decent maternity / paternity offering already. Could be things like:

• onsite creche
• guarantee of part time hours
• compressed working week available (ie 9 day fortnight)
• summer hours (half days on Fridays from May-September)
• emergency childcare provided
• reimbursement for cleaner at home

I think ideally it would be something which could make a splash like the recently announced 1 year paid paternity policy at Virgin. So, go wild!

I like all the suggestions about flexible working and childcare - clearly that would make the most impact for a lot of us, although I think that subsidised nurseries/crèches are really just putting the issue off for a few years (once they get to school it all seems far more complicated)

Trying to think of some more "out of the box" ideas. How about a partnership with a childcare or nanny agency to provide low cost or emergency childcare when required.

Actively recruiting/retraining people that have been out of the workforce for a few years due to childcare commitments

Actively recruiting/retaining women over the age of 50

Providing holiday clubs on- site during school holidays.

Trying to think of more.....

Not sure of the solution but until I lost both parents I had the difficulty of juggling full time work, 2 children and caring for my mum and dad. I just needed understanding that sometimes I had to drop everything and run. How you shape that in a policy I don't know but if you can you'd be amazing!

Lolimax that's my thinking behind the partnership with some kind of nanny agency. Imagine if you could phone HR at work and say "I really need some emergency childcare today, can you help?"

I like the idea of a trade share scheme where you can call on others to cover your work when you need time off meaning those who want extra hours / pay can get it, suppose its only any good to those that can afford to lose hours unless there is some extra working time opportunity to 'bank' spare hours that you can claim back when needed... bit of a logistical nightmare to manage though.

Oh and a holiday club for the 9-13 year olds! That age were a nightmare to accommodate.

Actively recruiting/retaining women over the age of 50

Getting sued for age and gender discrimination.

I like the idea of a trade share scheme where you can call on others to cover your work when you need time off meaning those who want extra hours / pay can get it

So do I provided membership is genuinely voluntary with no damage to the careers of people who don't join. And then there's that pesky Working Time Directive.

Ok so delete the word "actively" from that suggestion - I just know that women of a certain age are pretty well invisible in most corporates unless they've risen to very senior levels.

my best family bosses are those who understand that you may have to suddenly take a day off due to a sick,child ( subject to the company not suffering. Ie. Other people can cover)

For mums (and dads) with young children, 9-3m days, and term-time contracts

A bank of people who can be called on at short notice to cover absences.

Rivercam Term-time contracts?

Once again you are assuming that people without young children do not want and should not be allowed to take leave during school holidays. Wrong.

The best companies offer flexibility that suits all their workers

as I said up thread, the person who had to deal with the aftermath of an injured 64 year old sibling was a case in point.

Mums seem to assume that its all about them
but it should not be.

The working time directive is easily enough opted out of. This should of course be strictly voluntary, though it's often not.

My dad ran his own business and had a lot of employees with children. Couple of things he did were:

1 - DC were allowed to come to work and watch a movie while their parent worked. There was a comfy sofa with a couple of clean blankets. There were plenty of kids in that room!

2 Pay for lunch. My dad found that most people were spending too much of their hour off buying food. Instead my dad had a sheet with 4 different places who delivered to the office. You could pick anything on the menu but no drinks because my dad had a fully stocked fridge. He also let employees bring milk and stationary home if needed but said if people abused it he would remove the privilege.

3 gym with classes. Best thing my dad did. During the school holidays he would family members at home and put on dance for an hour twice a week. A lot of grannies came in!

Term time working

I worked for a nursery that provided childcare for a large local company, the cost of which was met by the company. The nursery used to be able to change hours to suit the company and was also able to offer pick ups and drop off to the work place which was literally next door. They brought a couple of extra spaces each day incase of childcare emergencies, childminder or family member ill etc, which they made a small change for people to use. Our holiday club used too, the company met half the costs. It worked really well until the company relocated.

In the days before remote working was possiable. My dad worked for a firm that had a dedicated 'sick room'. It was well away from the rest of the office, but had access to all the company programs and files. I spent a lot of time in it, when I had chest and ear infections as a young child. It had a comfortable sofa, a tv and video player, an en suit, suplies for drawing, books and a few toys. The company couldn't afford to let clients down by not having accounts completed on time if mums or dads needed to be off. I think it was allowed to be used for everything appart from d and v.

Realisitc maternity and paternity packages. Staggered return to work at the end of maternity or paternity leave. It would have enabled me to return to work at the end of my years maternity leave if hours could have gradually been built up over 3 months, paid pro rota of course. Instead I resigned so dh and I weren't going to constantly have to juggle taking time off for her medical appointments.

My friend's work place recognises chidren's birthdays and sends home a small token gift and card.

Talkin - it's not all about mums. But in my workplace we have a real problem attracting and retaining women so making these kinds of adjustments should help us retain top female talent.

Very flexible hours, such as 8-2 during term time the. Compressed into 3 days during the holidays
The ability to buy more annual leave
Home working

Completely transparent and rigorously applied rules regarding holiday is granted at busy times of the year. I am a parent, but still got (when I worked) sick of favouritism and unfair holiday allocation. This would benefit all staff as fairness would make non parents less resentful of parents regarding summer holiday leave. Non parents with teaching partners routinely got shafted where I worked with them unable to go on holiday with their partner as they weren't "allowed" holiday at the peak times, as they weren't a parent. Huge huge source of resentment.

Some sort of cultural change programme for managers. It's not really so much about policies but about attitude. I want a boss who doesn't pass me over for interesting work because I can't always stay after 6.30, for example. He likes to work in the evening. It doesn't work well for those of us with childcare or other commitments, but no one senior has ever called him on it.

Term time only contracts are popular in my organisation at the lower end of the grade system with part time/homeworking more popular at higher end just from my experience.

If there is going to potentially be a capacity issue with term time working and part time working ways to ameliorate this should be thought about up front. Eg temporary change to contracts renewable annually or some other duration. In my place there are people with young children who can't get the term time working because there are so many with teenage children or older who don't want to give up their 13 weeks holiday a year.

What NoParking said - without a cultural change for managers, the most enlightened policy in the world will not make the slightest difference in retaining employees. Because they'll be given one reason after another why they can't benefit from it. Or, it'll be freely available - but you will never get another promotion.

Monitoring retention and promotion rates would be a good thing. It does mean that senior management need to be genuinely interested though, not just "oh, we'd like some good PR." (Good PR is nice, but...)

On site subsidised childcare. I am lucky enough to have this and it really makes a huge difference as it is so reassuring to know that you are so close to your children. That and flexible working patterns (for everyone, not just parents).

As employers you sound much better than my dh's who expect him to drop everything and piss off round the world at a moments notice and then when he is at home he isn't able to come to sports day / special assemblies / work from home etc. He gets paid not all that much really.

For him it would definitely be recognition and flexible working in terms of working from home.

For me it would be working round school hours and working from home.

Impossible ask usually.

Following on from what NoParking said. My workplace has almost all of the above (onsite nursery available for regular and emergency care, flexible working, expectation of working from home at least once a week, three or four day weeks available on request and extended breaks over summer holidays etc) but everyone knows that women (and it is always women using these things) who take advantage are unlikely to be promoted or get the best appraisal ratings.

I would like to see a huge cultural shift where just because you work flexibly you don't automatically lose out on the best work and get shafted at year end. I think that companies that really want to change things should do full gender pay audits and gender promotion and appraisal rating audits at every level. Then HR should use this information to work with managers with the worst results to address the issues. Managers should not be allowed to use the fact that most of their women have children or work flexibly as an excuse. This would force managers to actually invest in the careers of these women and hopefully promote the cultural change that is needed rather than just paying lip service.

Flexibility to discuss changes annually like a review. On site childcare is useless once they start school but then a 3 day a week role might be better done part time over 5 days so you do some drop off / pick ups

For me the absolute best thing about my job is that I am able to come in late or have half days off (often at short notice) for assemblies, nativity sports day etc.