The pressure for family friendly policies

The issue of work/life balance has been with us for years but now it seems that organisations are taking the matter very seriously. We had thought that with the advent of computers and the ‘paperless’ office there would be more leisure time to fill. How we wrong we were. The technological conveniences of modern life seem to make personal time more rather than less of an issue.

At Deminos we provide a service to companies that want to improve their employment policies and more and more our customers are asking that they be ‘family friendly’. Last year this applied to a number of our customers. This year it is virtually all of them.

Why now?

Well known companies with a global reach and better than average results tend to have three things in common:

1. they put an emphasis on having good people and communicating well with them
2. they are fast on their feet in terms of responding to the market, their customers and competitive threats
3. they usually have innovation as a core if not explicit competence.

To do well on these three fronts you need a competitive workforce – intelligent, hard working, creative – and a structure that demonstrates clear objectives and rules within which there is sufficient / significant freedom to act. To have this kind of competitive workforce organisations do not need any negatives that prevent the best from coming – the best men and women; whatever their background may be.

Meanwhile more and more senior executives are protective of their private time and demonstrate good principles about working effectively while still seeing their children before bedtime and at important events. Recently the National Centre for Social Research undertook a study of over 700 families with children under 14. It found that 21% of mothers and 45% of fathers regularly work in the evening between 5.30 pm and 8.30 pm and that 38% of mothers and more than half of fathers work at least one Saturday a month.

Juggling parenthood with a long working day is difficult enough; when there is time it tends to focus on the children, leaving even less time for the partner.
The stresses and strains of this are often reflected in an employees work, whether or not their employer recognises it as such. The best employers respond by helping staff manage their time, the worst see the employee in a bad light.

What is little understood is, in the relatively more extreme cases, the effect on mental health. Stress and stress-related problems make up a significant proportion of certified sickness absence statistics. If excessive stress goes unrelieved it can lead to fatigue, impaired judgement, reduced productivity and increased turnover; and a wide range of mental and physical health problems including (in the most extreme cases) breakdown which could fall within the definition of a disability as far as the law is concerned.

The causes of stress at work can be any number of things – we go into detail on this in our guide to managing staff with disability – but not least a heavy workload, unrealistic deadline pressures, and difficult working hours. The consequences for employers and employees alike are serious; staff turnover, lack of motivation / productivity; time consuming legal actions to name but a few.

It is therefore good business for organisations to take issues like work-life balance and family friendly policies seriously.

What do the ‘best’ organisations do in this respect?

For many years now we have seen organisations pay attention to diversity and women’s development. Many may argue that there is still a long way to go but progress is there to be seen. With progress here underway the need to address work life balance is now becoming an imperative. Organisations are realising that good, motivational policies will improve productivity and profitability. The days seem to finally be going when companies believe that working from home means skiving; that flexible work arrangements mean less time for the organisation. It is true that the wrong people will take advantage and need to be closely managed. It is also true that good people always give more than they take and it is these people organisations need to employ and encourage.

There is very interesting evidence from the USA on progress there. If you go into the FamilyFriendly.com website you will see a large number of well known American companies who proudly display their family friendly policies e.g.

• child care and/or elder care resource or referral services
• before and after school child care
• dependant care assistance plans
• family leave policies
• financial aid for adoption
• flexible work programs
• personal and family counselling
• telecommuting
• and wellness programs

are just some of the policies publicised. Apple Computers has no less than forty-six family friendly policies on offer. The fact that such well known businesses should trouble themselves to make their policies public tells its own story; and very often where America leads the UK eventually follows. Flexible working hours and job sharing have long been on the agenda and work well for many businesses. The issue here for employees and employers alike is where career development for part-time workers is restricted despite the quality of the individual involved.

Childcare in the UK is not prevalent but good companies do provide for it. The emphasis on dependant care in the US is a departure and one that families would welcome here. Providing employees with a resource centre, where they can find help and advice for this increasingly problematic area, is a great opportunity for companies interested in the welfare of its employees. The stresses and strains of being accountable for an elderly or disabled relative’s welfare is increasingly well known to public servants and politicians, but less taken account of by employers.

Understanding and observing key religious holidays and events for an increasingly diverse workforce is also something that is highly valued and need not be onerous if handled well. A directory of religions can be found at www.multifaith.org/mfnopenaccess/pubs/rituk.htm.

Other interesting practices include big city financial institutions encouraging staff to leave at 4.00 pm on a Friday and insisting on holiday entitlement being taken; this is not only family friendly but good business, helping manage working time regulations. There has been a lot of legislation recently, not only the working time regulations but family emergency leave entitlements, parental leave, improved and improving rights for maternity and paternity arrangements. The ways in which employers embrace these rights is critical to how they are seen by their employees.

At Deminos, http://www.deminos.co.uk , we focus on making sure these rights are interpreted in a way that is practical for the employer, ensuring respect for the needs of the employer in running their organisation or business, while being highly motivational for employees. This is not hard, it is an attitude of mind that says we want people who are bright and hardworking but we respect their need for personal time and to attend to family commitments.
In our view, mutual respect is critical and well set out and communicated policies are good business.