Search Results for: fathers

April 26, 2016

Men paid more after having kids, as mothers’ pay and prospects diminish ⁰

by Sara Bean • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

We’ve observed at Workplace Insight that the reason many women fall behind men in terms of pay and promotion may not be due to direct gender discrimination but becauses when women start having children, they’re penalised for needing a more flexible working arrangement. This theory has been borne out in a series of surveys and now the latest one shows how stacked the job market is against working mothers. According to a new report by the TUC, fathers working full-time get paid a fifth more than men with similar jobs who don’t have children. The report shows that dads who work full-time experience, on average, a 21 percent ‘wage bonus’ and that working fathers with two children earn more (9 percent) than those with just one. The findings are in stark contrast to the experience of working mothers, says the report. Women who become mothers before 33 typically suffer a 15 percent pay penalty.

April 6, 2016

Just one percent of men have taken-up UK’s shared parental leave right ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

One year on from its launch and it’s emerged that just 1 percent of men have so far taken up the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) while over half (55 percent) of women say they wouldn’t want to share their maternity leave rights. The main reasons why men have chosen not to take up SPL are financial affordability, lack of awareness, and unwillingness from women to share their maternity leave. A combined survey of over 1,000 parents and 200 businesses (HR Directors) from My Family Care and the Women’s Business Council found that taking up SPL was very much dependent on a person’s individual circumstances, particularly on their financial situation and the paternity pay on offer from their employer. It found that 80 percent of both men and women agreed that a decision to share leave would be dependent on their finances and their employer’s enhancement of SPL. More →

January 25, 2016

Families struggle for work life balance despite changing gender roles ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report published today by the charity Working Families and nursery provider Bright Horizons suggests that parents are at greater risk of burn out as they strive for work life balance, with fathers at increasing risk as a result of their changing roles and expectations. The Modern Families Index is an annual study that explores how working families manage their work-life balance. This year’s report claims that nearly half (42 percent) of Generation Y fathers (born after 1980) feel burnt out most or all of the time, compared to just 22 percent of Gen Xers aged 36 to 45 and 17 percent of baby boomers aged over 45. The report claims that a growing number of fathers are now facing the same challenges and life choices most commonly ascribed to mothers. The study found that in half (49 percent) of the 1,000 couples surveyed, both parents were working full time. The figure rose to 78 percent for those in their twenties or thirties.

October 13, 2015

Working parents suffer in silence, as managers kept in the dark ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new US study of working parents and their managers has found that the combination of work and family responsibilities is causing parents anxiety and depression and keeping them from doing their best at work. The study, the second annual Modern Family Index commissioned by Bright Horizons Family Solutions explored the challenges working parents have in managing their work and family responsibilities and the impact these challenges have on employers. It found that working mothers and fathers feel it’s extremely important to work for a company that supports the needs of working parents (62 percent) and has a culture that addresses their family responsibilities (53 percent). However, there is a growing disconnect between managers and employees about how working parents are feeling. This may be attributed to the fact that even in 2015, most are reluctant to share their concerns with their employers.

July 29, 2015

City firms adopt more flexible working, but it starts from the top

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Flexible working, News

Employers in the City of London are increasingly open to the idea of flexible working, claims a study of 1,000 workers by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden. According to the study, a third of men working in the City (34 percent) say they now have some flexibility over the hours they work, whether through flexi-time, working a certain number of hours annually or compressed hours. This is up from 28 percent last year. Meanwhile a smaller proportion of female City workers (30 percent) claim they now have the option of flexible working, up from 23 percent in 2014. The research indicates that although women in the City are more likely than men to work part-time or term-time hours or job-share, with over a quarter being able to do so (26 percent), almost one in five men (18 percent) say they also have this option available to them.

July 15, 2015

The standard gender pay gap narrative is a myth, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Knowledge, Workplace

It is one of the great ironies of modern life that in a world drowning in data, a great deal of public discourse is driven by narratives that have little or no factual basis. If anything, the substitution of baseless and questionable stories. Sometimes these narratives are based on outdated realities. Sometimes on assumptions. Sometimes they are deliberately created and upheld by those with vested interests. Sometimes people lie, including to themselves. However they are formed, they can become pretty hard to dislodge, especially when they become so enshrined that the default response to inconvenient truths is a wall of cognitive dissonance and denial. I’m obviously building up to something here and it won’t necessarily be an easy thing to say or hear. And it’s this. The gender pay gap doesn’t exist. Or at least, it doesn’t exist in the way we normally assume so distracts from related issues that we may be able to address.

March 16, 2015

Employee benefits policies still not family friendly, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

Fewer than half (48 percent) of UK employers offer enhanced maternity pay to staff, claims a new study by Croner. According to the Croner reward employee benefits report, based on a survey of 127 employers, the most commonly offered enhanced scheme was 3 months leave at full pay. The research also found that fathers fare even worse with less than a third of firms offering paternity leave above the statutory minimum, with 62 percent offering full pay for a period of two weeks. Commenting on the findings, Viv Copeland of Croner says: “While some family friendly benefits such as flexible working and childcare vouchers have really grown in the last few years, the offer of enhanced maternity and paternity leave and pay still has a long way to go. The recent legislation around shared maternity/ paternity leave should bring some fresh thinking to this area from parents and employers alike.”

March 11, 2015

Two new reports highlight potential benefits of flexible working for women

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Two new reports published this week highlight the potential benefits of flexible working for both employers and staff, especially women. According to a Workingmums.co.uk Best Practice Report, only 36 percent of employers have a flexible working policy despite over half thinking it improves retention, particularly of women, and over a third saying it makes people more efficient. Meanwhile, a study from the TUC claims that around half of the net growth in female employment in 2014 came from women moving in to lower-paid part-time jobs. The analysis claims that while full-time employment accounted for all of the net growth in male employment last year, for women full-time employment accounted for just 47 per cent of net female jobs growth. The TUC also claims that women who moved into part-time jobs during 2014 were typically employed on much lower rates of pay than those in full-time work.

February 19, 2015

Acas publishes guidance on shared parent leave as countdown begins

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

With just eight weeks to go until new rules on Shared Parental Leave (SPL) come into force, parents with babies due on or after 5 April 2015 should now give their employers 8 weeks’ notice of the pattern of leave they intend to take. The estimated 285,000 working couples a year who are expected to be eligible can start sharing up to 50 weeks of parental leave after 5 April and expectant parents need to have that all-important conversation with their employers. Acas has published a new free guide on Shared Parental Leave to help employers and employees understand how these new changes will affect them and how to manage leave requests fairly. They advise that eligible employees and their employers need to start having early discussions about the different options available so that preparing and planning the leave is as straightforward as possible.

November 25, 2014

Employers unprepared for employee take-up of new flexible work rights

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

The new Shared Parental Leave legislation comes into force next week (1 December), but according to a new report, employers are unprepared for the changes. The Workforce View 2014/15 – an annual barometer of the views and attitudes of UK workers and employers by ADP, also indicates that employers have underestimated the likely level of interest amongst employees. More than one in five (21 per cent) HR Directors admitted they are not ready for the requirements of the legislation, while 70 per cent say they predict little or no interest from employees in the first 12 months. Yet when employees were asked their views, a third (33 per cent) of 16- to 34-year-olds said they anticipate taking advantage of it within the next five years. Shared parental leave is a new right that will enable eligible mothers, fathers, partners and adopters to choose how to share time off work after their child is born or placed. It will be an option for parents with a child due to be born on or after 5 April 2015. More →

November 21, 2014

Worktech weaves together the strands of people, place and technology

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Events, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

Day two of Worktech London and affirmation that far from dying, as so many headline writers would have us believe, the office is merely entering a new phase. The underlying theme of Worktech continues to be how we find new ways of weaving together the strands of presence and connectedness formed by cities, buildings and technology. Worktech is a constant reminder that while our world may be shaped by algorithms, we still need each other and need to be with other people at least some of the time. The event is admirably hosted by long time collaborator and MC Jeremy Myerson whose knowledge and donnish charm holds things together while the real Don, founder Philip Ross, beams from the sidelines. It is now de rigeur for such events to have a poet in residence and this year’s was Matt Harvey who summed things up at the end of the day with reference to Worktech’s longstanding idea of jellybean working but who popped up in between sessions with lyrical summations including one that showed some real spunk (you had to be there).

January 28, 2014

New data suggests parents are frustrated at lack of flexible working

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news

Following last week’s revelation that the planned extension of Flexible Working Rights to all UK employees would be delayed beyond the proposed implementation date in April, new statistics released by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and a new report from the Working Families charity have revealed some of the disparities that exist in flexible working arrangements across the country. The Working Families survey of a little over 1,000 adults with dependent children, found that almost a third claim there are no flexible arrangements on offer where they work, leading many to feel resentful against their employers, with young fathers twice as likely to strongly resent the lack of flexible working affects their lives.