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!

sorry my post should ahve said when children or other dependants

Sashh it's not rubbish actually....
You've contradicted yourself. Ensuring you have enough people there at all times means everyone can't have the flexible working they want in all cases. For example, here, schools aren't in on Fri PM. I have one office team where all 5 are parents and they want to work flexibly so they are off Fri PM. I can't give them all what they want, and provide the necessary service. So, 3 don't work a Fri PM, and 2 do. It was first come, first served in that case - the others asked later, and for business reasons I couldn't grant it.

Definitely the subsidised childcare. When I worked for the CSA, we had an onsite, subsidised nursery. DS went from 2004-2007 and it was £14 for a full day and when he got to 3, he got his 15 hours a week free so it was really cheap. The civil service are also brilliant for flexi time, very family friendly.

I wish that companies offered more help/flexibility to parents when their children are ill. As a childcarer it is so frustrating when babies/children are poorly and should be at home, but the parents bring them in because work are being difficult about them having a day off to care for the sick children.
When trying to be family friendly, please don't forget that a lot of working people are trying their best to care for elderly parents. My family is learning very quickly that elderly and very frail parents/grandparents take a lot of caring for and an understanding boss/flexibility would be very welcome at this time in our lives.

I agree with PPs that whatever you come up with has to be open to ALL employees not just women or those with children (apart from the policies that child specific).

The fastest way to piss of the rest of the staff is to implement unequal policies and its also the fastest way to discrimination cases being brought.

I agree that policies relating to hours need to be available to everyone, as there's nothing worse than the resentment in the workplace when parents get extra time off or better hours, leaving those without children with the worst hours or picking up their work.

• Flexible hours: I think everyone benefits from this.

• Purchasing extra leave: Again anyone could do this, for a wedding, big holiday, or to help cover the summer holidays. In my old work you had to agree the dates you wanted to be off when you applied, so it was all authorised and cover could be arranged or already in place. It was then taken out of your salary over 3/6/9 months depending on when you applied.

• Subsidised creche: obviously depending on your location, but this can mean that parents can go to administer medication etc and it'll take less time for them to get to/from work from the creche if it's on-site. When I was in the NHS, the creche was subsidised but also you could pay extra for 7am-7pm so covered medical staff working those shifts too. Impossible to find care for those hours, but also meant admin staff could book for a late finish at creche so they could also work later if needed.

• Decent temp cover for maternity/paternity leave but also offer the same cover for career breaks for those without children: my bugbear is when staff go on extended leave and the company don't bother getting adequate cover and everyone else is left to pick up the work. Pay people extra to up their hours, encourage secondments, or get a temp in.

For those who asked about proving you are breast feeding you have to provide a medical certificate every month from your gynae/ob.

We have a system of health care here where you see your private gynae/ob for annual check ups from the time you are sexually active. That Dr does tidy antenatal care and scans and delivers your baby. In other words they know you well and can either issue the certificate on the basis of a phone call or call you in for an appointment.

There is a very high level of BF here. All new moms stay in hospital for 5-7 days and have 1 to 1 support to establish feeding. Over 90% of mothers late still feeding their baby at 3 months old.

I think such care is key to helping moms BF if that is what they want.

We are a very small firm and cannot offer anything that costs (because we try and pay good wage levels) but we offer complete flexibility. Employees have normal hours but if they have to go they have too....family, helping at the local music festival, even funerals of long lost mates. They simply don't get paid for the hours they have off, or its holiday, or they can make the time up during normal opening hours.

I know some places the work flow, like factories, means you cant do.this but we can and it's really appreciated and very rarely abused.

That still sounds like it'd be pretty easy to lie expatmomma. If you can get a certificate saying you're still breastfeeding on the basis of a phone call, no examination or anything, clearly wide open to abuse.

What I'd like to see is enough staff. So that if you need to drop and go you can. It is all very well going on about flexi hours, annualised hours etc, but if there are not enough staff to cover the times where you need people to be there in an office/wherever, then you feel like shit if you cannot just go when your child is ill,

if there is no one to cover getting the old lady out of bed, talking the newly homeless mother through her options, or even just sitting on reception - if there are not enough staff you can't just go.

Properly part time roles with prospects!

A place where 'full time' is no more than 35 hours a week!

6 weeks of holidays pa.

Full paid time off for sick kids.

If a new vacancy could be done in a job share advertise it as a potential job share.

Flexi time

On site crèche

Space to express breast milk

Gradual maternity leave return eg building up days to full time return

Giving previous ft workers the ability to work part time for x years but then have the option of returning to ft after 3/5 years.

Make sure employees on mat leave get to go to training and are invited to apply for promotions.

Train all staff in equal opportunities.

Have flexible working options like compressed hours, annualised hours, term time working, working from home etc.

There are some great suggestions here. Flexibility is clearly the key.

On a different note, alluded to already: I'd ban responding to emails out of hours, I think this is becoming increasingly common in Germaby. By banning out across the board it stops the boss expecting answers out of hours or demanding clients, students or whoever having ridiculous expectations. (Personally as someone who works flexibly I'm happy to draft emails in my downtime, bu I wait to send when the office reopens so as not to raise expectations).

A third point - the little, thoughtful gestures matter too: a firm I worked at years ago that was in a remote village had a great atmosphere. We'd take turns to buy fresh produce and prepare that day's lunch (salad, cheese and bread) and down tools to eat it together. We had a work minibus that'd collect everyone from home to work ( which meant no working late, bliss). Oh and if it was someone's birthday we'd end the day with cake and the boss would buy a splendid book as a present (no demanding brown envelopes doing the rounds).

In my last job we had all these flexibilities etc on paper and they counted for nothing since we had 3 people doing 5 people's work.

DH's company offers flexitime around core hours - staff have to work between 10am and 3pm as standard, but can make up extra hours any time from 7am to 7pm. They also get every Friday afternoon off, all year round. They can also work from home when they feel like it as long as it doesn't impact the needs of the business. The company is also very supportive of parents of both sexes - for example, DH has been able to take time off to come to every AN appointment and scan with me, no questions asked. His immediate team are all male and also all dads, so they have very flexible and supportive.

As a result he should be in a position to take around 6 weeks off after our baby is born later this year, by combing paternity leave and annual leave, and by doing some work from home. He should then be able to work flexible hours to maximize his time with the baby while they are little (I will be a SAHM for the first year)

I think the key thing is that taking advantage of all the above is encouraged - it's an environment where the idea that a person might want to spend time with their child is normalized, not treated as a sign of lack of commitment to work.

I think it would be hugely unfair, and possibly discriminatory, to offer these benefits purely to parents. If the employer wants to be more family-friendly, they should be offered to all employees for the chance of a better work/life balance. There could well be a lot of ill feeling if parents swan around being part time and working nice hours that suit them if everyone else has to pick up the slack.

On site subsidised childcare for me too.

Empathy would be a good start, as well as a collaborative approach. Best experience I had was working for a Dad who had childcare responsibilities - he totally got it and flexibility and home working was never a problem.

Summer holidays prevent me working full-time so any way around easing annual leave around that would be great.

Otherwise would agree with all above on flexibility and working from home. Instead of a tea break chat in the office, 5-10 mins means loading, unloading washing machine, DW, etc.

Also agree should be for everyone as everyone has - or will have at some point, so good for retention of staff as their circumstances change - situations they can help with flexi/wfh hours. It may be a younger person who can do some extra study or an activity they enjoy which makes them really happy. I worked with people in their late 40's/50's recently and realised how much time they need off work for their parents who were being hospitalised, settled in nursing homes or their own medical issues. Was a wake-up call as less time taken off by the mums in the office for their kids!

It is often just an attitude in the workplace that seems to be against mums.

School hours, simply.

I could do my job in school hours but it's not the Done Thing.

I think it would be hugely unfair, and possibly discriminatory, to offer these benefits purely to parents. If the employer wants to be more family-friendly, they should be offered to all employees for the chance of a better work/life balance.

Absolutely this. Working to live, not living to work should be the norm, not seen as some strange hippyish notion that's only applicable to parents of young kids.

Guarantee of flexible hours when returning from maternity leave.

That's all.