Workingmums.co.uk 2011 Top Employer Awards
Meet the judges
Gillian Nissim, Founder - Workingmums.co.uk
A former Senior Communications Executive, Gillian has worked at a number of different organisations with very different cultures and attitudes towards family friendly working policies. After the birth of her second child she decided to set up her own company to cater for the businesses who did appreciate the vast experience and high calibre of professionals who had become mums, and wanted to find challenging and interesting jobs that offered more flexibility than traditional office-based Monday- Friday, 9-5 jobs. A graduate of Birmingham University, Gillian launched Workingmums.co.uk in 2006, which is now the number one job and community site for professional working mothers.
Andy Lake, Editor - Flexibility.co.uk
Andy Lake is Editor of Flexibility, the online journal of flexible work at www.flexibility.co.uk, which he has edited since 1994. He has been involved in many implementations of flexible work, specialising in building the evidence base for change, management training and developing organisational policies for smarter working. Andy has also participated in numerous research projects funded by the UK government and the European Commission, specialising in particular in the impacts of new ways of working on business location, land use and transport.
Andy is also coordinator of the Smart Work Network (www.smart-work.net), a network of around 160 larger companies and public sector organisations that collaborate in developing their flexible working programmes.
Andy has a strong interest in the impacts of flexible working for sustainability. He co-edited the Smith Institute think-tank report, Can Homeworking Save the Planet? which looks at the role new ways of working can play in developing low carbon communities and how public policy should change to make the most of the benefits.
Jennifer Liston-Smith, Head of Coaching Development - My Family Care
Jennifer Liston-Smith MA(Oxon), MSc., FRSA brings 20 years’ consultancy and coaching experience with large public and private sector and also third sector organisations. As one of the UK pioneers of maternity coaching, she has worked alongside leading national and global employers implementing strategic and practical support for new and prospective parents at work. She is an active contributor to media and academic debates on motherhood at work as well as a popular conference speaker and lecturer on the topic. Jennifer also remains involved in wider leadership coaching, and providing professional development and supervision to coaches.
David Dunbar, Head of BT Flexible Working Services, BT
Following a varied career in heavy industry and telecoms, David moved to BT Property with responsibility for all of BT’s flexible estate and its home and mobile working programme. As well as managing one of the most successful Flexible Working regimes in Europe, part of the role was the creation of externally facing propositions. This resulted in the creation of BT Workstyle, which evolved a predominantly external focus as it became more successful. David now heads BT’s Flexible Working Services division which offers a range of managed services around agile working, learning solutions and intelligent buildings.
Building on BT’s own successes from flexible working, which include a return from maternity rate in excess of 98% alongside efficiency improvements and tangible savings of more than £500m per annum, David and his team have supported more than 40 clients through the transition from traditional to flexible ways of working.
Dr Caroline Gatrell, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University Management School
Caroline's research centres on work-life balance; family practices and employment. With a commitment to developing new sociological perspectives on relationships and personal lives, Caroline investigates the balance between parenting, employment and health. In particular she examines the interrelations between the labour of parenting (reproductive labour) and paid work (productive labour), drawing upon notions of gender, maternal and paternal bodies, and management practices.
Caroline has published two books on parenting and paid work: Hard Labour: the Sociology of Parenthood (2005 Open University Press) and Embodying Women's Work (2008 Open University Press).
Her work is regularly published in top quality academic journals including: Social Science and Medicine; Health and Place; Sociological Review; Gender, Work and Organization, and the International Journal of Management Reviews.
Her latest book 'Women and Management' is co-authored with Cary Cooper and Ellen Kossek and features an edited collection of key articles on Women and Management from the past 25 years.
If you require further information on the judges please contact Sally Bradley at awards@workingmums.co.uk.
2011 Sponsors
