MNHQ here: do well paid people get offered more family friendly working conditions than low paid people?

[RowanMumsnet]

...do those in senior roles get offered more flexibility than those in more junior jobs?

Do people working in the public sector get a better or worse family-friendly deal than people working in law and professional services?

'Why are you asking us, Rowan' I hear you cry

Well we DID ask you and today we're announcing the results.

We found that junior staff and those on low wages are offered less flexibility and fewer family-friendly benefits than well-paid staff in senior positions. However, in a surprising twist, CEOs, MDs, founders and other senior leaders fare worst of all when it comes to family-friendly working.

Here are some of the top lines...

CEOs, founders, MDs, chairpeople and senior leaders have the least family-friendly working conditions of all the job roles studied. (However, it's important to bear in mind that this category will include people running very tiny start-ups, as well as people running huge organisations.)

There’s a huge gulf between the quality of family-friendly conditions available to staff paid more than £25,000pa full-time equivalent (who tend do much better than average) and those available for staff paid less than £25,000pa FTE (who tend to do much worse than average).

The public sector offers the best overall family-friendly package to its staff – but employees in this sector are the most likely to report experiencing negative attitudes from colleagues over different working practices.

The ‘law and professional services’ category offers a package that’s considerably less family-friendly than the average.

Large companies and large corporations tend to offer the best family-friendly conditions, but small-to-medium sized enterprises (50-250 employees) offer a worse overall package than smaller companies (10-50 staff).

Staff working in customer-facing roles (retail, catering etc) tend to have the worst family-friendly offers of any job role aside from CEOs, founders and senior leaders - but junior and clerical workers also do quite badly compared with the average.

73% of respondents (of whom 99% are women) say having children has made it harder to progress in their career, and 64% say they feel less employable since having children.

You can read more about it (and also download a copy of the full report) here.

What do you think? Do the results accord with your experience?

Thanks
MNHQ

Having read my post back I've just realised it should say "leaving without a firm job offer is a frightening prospect".

DrunkOnEther - I'm glad you were able to get out. It's evident that your bosses didn't have children if they actually said such a ridiculous thing. I don't understand how it's legal to force people to work hours that are incompatible with the care needs of their dependents.

In my workplace management get to work from home when waiting deliveries, sick kids, under the weather etc. Us mere admin staff don't. Drives me nuts.

"The public sector offers the best overall family-friendly package to its staff – but employees in this sector are the most likely to report experiencing negative attitudes from colleagues over different working practices."

That's because we get tired of people taking the piss. It's not called "shirking from home" for nothing. And I don't know why it's called flexible working, because flexible is one thing they aren't. Someone else has to pick up the slack if a report due at 4.00 hasn't been written when someone clocks off at 3.30 to collect the kids from school. One of my colleagues worked from home every Friday. This was sacrosanct and set in stone, apparently "because she liked to have a long weekend." There was a meeting she was supposed to attend on the Friday that someone else had to do in her absence, write it up and brief her on the Monday, thus increasing the workload for that employee.

Some more examples:

"I'm working from home today, I didn't get much sleep last night." Completely uncontactable all day.

"I'm working from home today, I'm preparing for my child's birthday party this afternoon." As above.

I'm not surprised by these results, sadly.

I know this sounds really nit-picky, but Rowan asked about being
offered family-friendly conditions
I don't know anyone who was offered anything, but lots of us managed to get there eventually, by making a good case, asking again after being rejected, going back full-time initially and proving our worth, etc
Just for the benefit of younger Mumsnetter's who might expect these things to be offered if they are available
(just like the way probably expect they'll be given pay rises based on their worth, while their male colleagues go and demand large payrises and end up out-earning them despite under-performing compared to them, but that's another story)

I e always found the harder you are to replace, the more you tend to get.

That is a fair point. A lot of the time you get these things through investigating and asking.

Yes, very good points. In a way the best way to get the highest pay and best conditions is be the very best at what you do in the place and know that all the clients will follow you wherever you go. People will be kissing your feet and accommodating to what you need as long as it works ( you cannot work 4 hours a day if you perform operations which can last 7 hours or do court actions which require you in court all day).

I would say sometimes it's higher pay or best conditions, not and. As what I want is genuine part time work, rather than 4.5 days or flexi, sometimes it makes sense to ask for slightly less than they might expect, rather than slightly more. Whereas if by conditions you mean better holiday or private healthcare or whatever, that's more likely to 'go in' with wages.

I don’t think it’s as simple as higher = more flexibility.

I have lots of flexibility- I’ve negotiated as much wfh as I want and the company has a good flex policy. I’m seniorish but nowhere near C suite level.

However, I’m also expected to drop everything for overseas work trips on very little notice, and work weekends overseas sometimes too. As an expat with no family or childcare that’s a big deal.

I also work well over my hours as most salaried pros do, which eats into family life.
Last week dh was working 08:00-midnight and I was doing more childcare, the week before it was me working till late evening from 06:30, child in one hand laptop in the other.

I have a degree of flexibility but the certainly get their pound of flesh. It’s not perfect but I’ve turned down less flexible more senior jobs because I want to spend time with my family too.

Oh yes and none of this was offered. It was negotiated.

I’m good at what I do. I’m not naive enough to think I’m not replaceable because vanishingly few people are. But I’m not replaceable easily, which is what counts I guess. I work hard, I have an unusual and useful skill/personality set. I make my employer a lot of money, in that I’m billable. That gives me a degree of power to negotiate - within bounds.

I actually think that if you want a family then both need to do this equally.

If you have a very high-powered job and it doesn't work for you to do those hours etc. then you need to downscale what you do. It isn't up to the employers to do this for you.