Government Pushes for More 'family-friendly' Work Policies

The government recently announced that it is seeking feedback on a series of 'family-friendly' policy proposals designed to support parents and carers in the workplace. The consultations are part of the government’s Good Work Plan to improve the quality of work in the UK.

The first big question explores whether employers with more than 250 employees should be required to make the details of their parental leave and flexible working policies public. The government believes that making companies publish their parental leave and flexible working polices online would help candidates make more informed decisions on whether they can combine the role with caring for their family.

The practice would also remove the fear some female candidates have about asking prospective employers about their maternity packages and policies. A survey by Glassdoor revealed that 51 per cent of female candidates do not ask about maternity packages for fear that their prospective employer might think they are pregnant, while 31 per cent said they feared it would hinder their future career progression within the organisation. It may also increase the attractiveness of certain roles: a similar survey found that 25 per cent of women give parental leave heavy consideration when considering wherever to accept a role.

Furthermore, pushing large employers to publish their parental leave and flexible working polices online will bring large employers under pressure to provide attractive parental leave packages that match or exceed those of their competitors. As always we will be highlighting the impact of using a broad definition of employee in bringing temporary workers into scope.

The government is also considering creating "a duty for employers to consider whether a job can be done flexibly, and make that clear when advertising".  It is unclear how this legislation could work or be enforced in practice.

However, the government’s aim to increase the number of adverts which mention flexibility is to be welcomed. We sit on the Flexible Working Taskforce, a coordinating group of government and experts who try and think of ways to promote this. As the REC’s previous report on gender diversity, Increasing Opportunity, Supporting Growth, revealed, there is a strong, positive correlation between flexible work and diversity in the workplace.

Being open to flexible working and making it clear in the job advert can significantly increase a company’s talent pool and attract applications from diverse candidates. At senior levels, the Lord Davies Review on women on boards found that one of the key barriers to improving board diversity in gender terms was a lack of flexibility around work-life balance, particularly with regard to maternity leave and young families. Making flexibility the norm helps level the playing field between men and women when it comes to recruitment, employment and the unconscious bias of employers.

The REC will be seeking feedback from members and submitting a response to the consultation before the 11 October deadline. To feed into the REC response you can fill in our Good Work survey here.