Top Employer Award Categories

This award is for excellence in embedding a flexible working culture and for supporting workers who are working different flexible patterns, from reduced hours, annualised hours and compressed hours to home or remote working.

To be eligible to be considered for the award, you should show that your organisation promotes flexible working as a core business benefit, not just as something that it delivers ad hoc to individuals who request it. Things this may include are:

• inclusion of flexible workers and their timetables in the provision of training and development
• openness to recruitment of flexible workers
• proof of rethinking job roles so they can be worked flexibly
• provision of training to managers around working with flexible teams
• inclusion of schemes to reward managers who manage flexible teams effectively
• for those in the gig economy, examples of best practice around providing a range of practical support to gig workers and advice about their rights.

You will need to support your submission with relevant statistics and case studies.

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To be eligible to apply for the Best for Recruitment and Talent Attraction Award, organisations should demonstrate that they have a recruitment process that aims to widen the talent pool and which addresses issues which have tended to exclude working mums. It should include issues such as outreach, advertising of job vacancies and the shortlisting and interview process as well as whether it is made clear that flexible working is possible

Research shows that few employers advertise openly that new jobs can be done flexibly, putting the onus on potential recruits to know when to raise the issue at interview. Current legislation means that you cannot apply for flexible working until you have been in a job for six months.

Nominees for this category should be able to demonstrate the diversity of their recruitment policies and how they are striving to address issues that act as a barrier to the recruitment of working mums. Issues that will be considered include:

• Outreach work eg with schools to build the talent pipeline
• Promotion of positive role models
• Working with recruitment agencies to secure a more diverse talent pool
• Unconscious bias training of hiring managers
• Advertising flexible vacancies openly for all levels of the organisation
• Positioning of the employer brand to target a diverse candidate base
• Action on the wording & targeting of job adverts to increase diversity
• Considerations about the make-up of hiring panels
• Tackling unconscious bias over cv selection and shortlisting
• Monitoring for bias and to check the effectiveness of policies

Submissions should be backed up by supporting evidence, including case studies, examples of job adverts and training around interviewing.

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This award covers innovation in flexible and family friendly working, whether that be an initiative or policy that breaks new ground or provides a different way of supporting flexible working or parents in the workplace. Shortlisted candidates should provide details of their policy or initiative, explain why it is innovative, what its impact is and individual case studies which illustrate this.

This award covers innovation in flexible and family friendly working, whether that be an initiative or policy that breaks new ground or provides a different way of supporting flexible working or parents in the workplace.

Innovation could be in:

– Flexible working

– New provisions for parents, for instance, innovative approaches to parental leave or return to work after leave

– Attraction and retention of women

– Outreach to women from employers in male-dominated sectors

Shortlisted candidates should provide details of their policy or initiative, explain why it is innovative and provide statistics and case studies which illustrate its impact.

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To be eligible to apply for The Family Support Award, employers should demonstrate policies and practices which aim to make it easier to balance work and family life.

These could include:

• Emergency childcare provision.
• Creche facilities.
• Support for employees looking after elderly parents or relatives.
• Family outings or activities that include the family.
• Provision of term-time working, annualised hours or other innovative working policies which help with holiday childcare.
• Support with finding or paying for childcare.

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To be eligible for the Career Progression Award employers should demonstrate initiatives aimed at developing women’s leadership potential, including women’s networks, mentoring initiatives and return to work programmes.

Employers should demonstrate a commitment to and strategy for enabling women at all levels to progress in their careers, from returning to work after a career break to advancing through the ranks.

Organisations should be able to demonstrate, through case studies and publications/web material, organisation-wide attempts to encourage women’s advancement, for instance, through women’s networks, return to work networks or initiatives, women’s leadership programmes and mentoring initiatives and how these have impacted on the position of women in the organisation, including those who work flexibly.

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This award is sponsored by:

To be eligible to apply for the Best for Returners Award, organisations need to demonstrate they have stand-out programmes or initiatives aimed at returners – those who have taken a career break and are looking to get back into the workplace.

Entrants should demonstrate:

• The thinking process behind their returner initiative
• Challenges they have overcome or restructuring of initiatives in response to feedback
• How they monitor impact [for instance, through tracking returners]
• Evidence of impact
• Any additional support they offer after the initiative has taken place
• How they are looking to change ideas about returners in their organisation or more broadly in their sector.

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Split into two categories 1-25 employees, and 26-250 employees.

To be eligible for the SME Award, organisations should be able to demonstrate a real commitment to work life balance practices.

Entrants should demonstrate a real commitment to work life balance practices which specifically help working parents. Possible areas, if relevant, you MAY include in your submission are:

• Information on how flexible working works in your organisation and why what you offer is outside of standard practice
• The range of working patterns available; term-time working, annualised hours, part time vacancies and take-up
• How you support women’s return to work after maternity leave
• How you support those returning from career breaks
• Outline of any career development programmes for women
• Do you use flexible working as a talent attraction tool, i.e. do you use it on recruitment adverts?
• Initiatives to encourage the wellbeing of your staff
• Good practice around family support – such as caring for sick children or elderly relatives
• Initiatives that help dads at work

NB These are just suggestions and there may be other aspects relating to gender equality at work and family friendly working that you might like to highlight.

You should back your application up with case studies/testimonials from staff and data showing how these practices are being monitored and developed.

Providing Evidence

Only those entries that provide evidence of the impact of their practices will be considered.

Statistics you may include are:

• % of women recruited in the last year and any data on recruitment to non-traditional roles for females
• % of employees who work flexibly, whether formally or informally, including a male/female breakdown where possible
• % of women in senior and middle management positions
• % of women at board level
• Retention rates after maternity/paternity leave

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This award covers best practice in addressing the issues facing older workers, including midlife MOTs, training older workers such as older apprenticeships or retraining programmes, age diversity training, retirement planning, career transition support and so forth. Shortlisted applicants should provide details of what they do and how it helps older workers, including through metrics, how they are monitoring success and individual case studies which show impact.

At a time when the workforce is ageing, this award covers best practice in targeting and supporting older workers, including initiatives or campaigns aimed at:

– countering age discrimination in recruitment

– countering age discrimination with regard to promotion

– supporting career development/transition for this age demographic

–  preparing employees for retirement

– ongoing contact with retired employees

Shortlisted candidates should provide details of their policy or initiative, explain why it is innovative and statistics and case studies which illustrate its impact.

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