My top 5 things from the recent Working Families Conference

By Sara Daines – Chair of the Sheffield Hallam University Parents and Carers Network.

I recently attended the Working Families Conference hosted by EY in London. Working Families is a charity working nationally with employers and as part of their mission they “promote workplace cultures which support work-life balance and flexible working for all working people”. Sheffield Hallam University has signed up to be part of Working Families and now has access to a number of their resources.

The panel was made up of senior executives from a range of sectors including the NHS, financial and banking as well as smaller business. I left the conference feeling excited about the future and the different ways that employers were thinking about families, flexible working and “unlocking the potential” of employees.

Here are the top 5 things I wanted to share from the conference:

1. Parent and Carer Networks are not that unique really!

In fact, I left feeling that we were way behind many other sectors (and indeed other Universities) by only having just launched a network at SHU. Working Families offer support for networks including guidance for Chairs and resources available for all staff in the company. The Steering Group is currently exploring the different options available to us.

2. Good work-life balance is important for everyone (not just parents and carers)

In a recent survey by WorkWise 90% of young people placed work life balance as the most, or second most important aspect of a job. A further survey showed that there was no difference in age for desirability of work life balance and that it is just as appealing for all age groups.

It is now well understood that productivity goes down when employees feel overworked and burned out. So what can we do to improve people’s ability to have a good work-life balance? Dame Helena Morrissey suggested that all PDRs should contain the question “What positives steps have you taken to improve or maintain your work-life balance?” and that the cultural tone is set by senior leadership teams to celebrate optimal work-life balance for everyone.

3. Flexible working can be the key to unlocking potential in employers and can be tailored to suit individuals and roles 

Although there are some “out of the box” solutions i.e. flexi time, job sharing, working part time, Mark McLane from Barclays really hammered home how dynamic a work force can be when you have a wider range of tools that can be used to accommodate different people, situations and jobs. Their website reports an impressive 57% of staff now working dynamically including flexibility of time, location and hours as well as offering unpaid leave and career breaks. Barclays’ report on the benefits to the business, customers and staff is hard to argue with.

Everyone on the panel agreed that to get to a truly dynamic and agile workforce requires the right culture rather than the right policies.

4. To address the Gender Pay Gap we need to think further than just encouraging women to apply for more senior jobs

 Many shared the fact that, like SHU, their own Gender Pay Gap report did not demonstrate a difference in pay between men and women at the same level, but that few women were in the senior positions thus causing an overall imbalance in pay of men and women of the institution/business.

The Modern Families Index showed how important it is to increase the number of fathers being involved in childcare duties to enable mother’s increased engagement in the workforce at a higher level. It recommended that this should start with equal opportunity for properly paid paternity leave regardless of duty of service and in line with maternity leave. This would encourage usage and father’s engagement with childcare form the start.

It was also highlighted that the leading reasons for women leaving the workforce were not childcare related, as assumed, but due to lack of career opportunities and support like mentoring.

5. The most discontented subset of employees is now young fathers

According to the Modern Families Index this groups is the most dissatisfied with what their employers are offering. More than ever young fathers were reporting not being able to engage in care of their children as they wanted. More worrying others reported being criticised or challenged for asking for flexibility at work to take a role in school runs, covering childcare and general parenting tasks.

The conference has given me a list of ideas of things that we can work on to support parents and carers at SHU and we have already started working with HROD and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion to look at policy and cultural changes that could make a difference here for everyone.

We will be in touch soon with more information about a programme of events for the coming year.