Opinion – Page 5
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OpinionDr Heejung Chung: Flexible working is crucial in addressing work-life balance
In March 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee proposed a range of policies that aims to support fathers to play a larger role in a child’s life. In it, the committee recommends that all jobs be advertised as flexible from day one, unless there are business reasons not to.Strengthening the ...
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OpinionAnnelise Tracy Phillips: How can employers address potential stigma around male staff taking shared parental leave?
Since 2015, new parents have been able to take advantage of shared parental leave. Mothers can convert up to 50 weeks of maternity leave and 37 weeks of maternity pay into shared parental leave and shared parental pay. They can then share it with a second parent.Research by Working Families, ...
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OpinionLucy Lewis: Is shared parental leave as effective as it could be?
According to statistics from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), published in February 2018, around 285,000 couples every year qualify for shared parental leave, but take-up could be as low as 2%.Shared parental leave (SPL) was first introduced in 2015, billed as being part of the government’s ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Is government backtracking on tax-free childcare?
On Tuesday (13 March), the government announced that it is to delay the closure of workplace childcare voucher schemes by six months, extending the April deadline for employees to sign up to a scheme.Since it was announced that childcare vouchers would be phased out to make way for the government’s ...
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OpinionAnt Donaldson: What does 2018 hold for employee benefits?
Every year seems to bring new challenges, so what should we be looking out for in 2018?As always, changing regulations are a key theme. Despite a quiet Budget, the headline change is the increase in minimum pensions auto-enrolment contributions to 5% from April, including 3% from employees, with a further ...
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OpinionRaman Sankaran: Is it time for eldercare to get the same recognition as childcare?
Growing old is as natural as being young. Yet, while most businesses have policies to support their employees’ childcare arrangements, eldercare is ambiguous or completely overlooked.Two-thirds of British adults believe organisations should redress this imbalance, giving eldercare the same support as childcare receives, according to the Simplyhealth/YouGov Everyday health tracker ...
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OpinionSian McKinley: Enhancing shared parental pay could be the answer to levelling the childcare playing field
The low take-up of shared parental leave is due in large part to fathers not being able to afford to take it at statutory rates. The facts of Ali v Capita Customer Management are unfortunately entirely consistent with these findings.Mr Ali sought to take shared parental leave to care for ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Should employers do more to support working fathers?
How supportive is your organisation of working fathers? Do they feel able to take parental leave or does this continue to be perceived as a benefit primarily for female employees, particularly in the first year of their child’s life?Research published by Hays in New Zealand earlier this week found that ...
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OpinionRaoul Parekh: Why are more dads not taking shared parental leave?
Let’s turn our minds back to 2015, when employment lawyers and HR professionals were busying themselves by poring over the five sets of regulations that established the new shared parental leave regime. We prepared clear, straightforward policies for employees. We designed simple forms, and carefully uploaded them to the organisation ...
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OpinionJames Wilders: Father succeeds in sex discrimination claim
The Equality Act protects men as well as women from being discriminated against on grounds of sex. In the case of Madasar Ali v Capita Customer Management, an Employment Tribunal has held that an employer's failure to pay enhanced shared parental pay at the same rate as enhanced maternity pay ...
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OpinionSally Hulston: Support for working carers will ensure employers retain the best talent
An ageing population and the fact that we are all working for longer means that more people are likely to become working carers than ever before. This includes a growing sandwich generation tasked with juggling the care of both children and elderly relatives.Increasingly, employers are offering varying degrees of specialised ...
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OpinionRachael Saunders: Supporting carers will help older staff to stay in work
As our population gets older, many more people will need care due to chronic health conditions or disability. This is often provided by friends or relatives who are balancing that vitally important caring role with a paid job. One in five 50-64 year-olds are carers, but Business in the Community’s ...
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OpinionSusan Ball: What do the changes to salary sacrifice mean for employers?
With publication of the Finance Bill, the final legislation around changes to salary sacrifice is now available, and considerably more pages have been added. Given the volume of additional legislative text, coupled with the short timeframe between publication and the 6 April 2017 effective date, employers face significant practical difficulties ...
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OpinionKirstie Axtens: True flexibility is essential for carers' work-life balance
Working Families published the 2017 Modern Families Index in January. This found that one in five parents and carers who are working full time are putting in five extra weeks a year, the equivalent of their annual holiday allowance, in unpaid work. They are stressed and burnt out. Disappointingly, over ...
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OpinionCatrina Smith: Sex discrimination case places spotlight on shared parental leave
In the Snell v Network Rail Infrastructure case, a male employee has succeeded in his claim for sex discrimination against his employer, Network Rail, and has been awarded nearly £30,000. His claim was based on the fact that while he would receive only statutory pay for any period of shared ...
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OpinionKaren Ovenden: How can SMEs approach family-friendly working?
Flexible working has become a bit of a buzzword. But, for me, this is where small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should start if they want to support family-friendly working.When I say flexible, I really mean agile, working patterns that can scale up and down when both the individual and business ...
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OpinionKatherine Wilson: Ageing population intensifies need for caring policies
One in nine workers in the UK care for a family member or friend who is older, disabled or ill, according to the 2011 Census. The pressures of juggling work and care, without the right support from employers or local services, have forced millions of people to give up work ...
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OpinionLovewell's logic: Overcoming barriers to shared parental leave
Families and caring arrangements seem to change with each generation. The days of mothers being expected to leave their work and careers in order to stay at home and take on the lion’s share of care and family responsibilities are now, thankfully, no longer the norm. One of the great ...
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OpinionRosalind Bragg: Well-paid leave for all could drive paternity leave take-up
When women and men call our advice line, their big concern is money. Whether they are calling about redundancy, sick leave, health and safety, leave entitlements or pregnancy discrimination, their primary concern is how they are going to make ends meet. Babies cost money and moving onto maternity, paternity or ...
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OpinionDiana Tickell: Line manager training is key to supporting working parents
A survey by the National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS), published in April 2016, revealed that the vast majority of respondents, both parents and non-parents, believe that working mums and dads provide a positive contribution to the advertising industry. Despite this, we also found that many working parents are still experiencing ...