workingmums.co.uk launches 2019 Best Practice Report

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A new report highlighting best practice in areas such as four-day working weeks, returners and neurodiversity shows how tackling gender equality at work involves challenging all aspects of the way we work as well as traditional career paths.

workingmums.co.uk’s 2019 Best Practice Report is published for International Women’s Day and highlights what the winners of our Top Employer Awards are doing in terms of flexible working and gender equality at work.

The report is free on the workingmums.co.uk site and the aim is to provide ideas and inspiration to employers seeking to increase the representation of women at all levels of their organisation.

It shows clearly the business rationale for doing so, from increasing the talent pool and the diversity of experience of employees to retaining key members of staff.

Each employer profile includes case studies of employees who highlight the personal impact of the award-winning policy or practice.

The employers included

1. FDM Group
2. Roche
3. Radioactive PR
4. UBS
5. Morgan Sindall Construction
6. Infrastructure and Civil Service Human Resources.

Also interviewed is Julianne Miles from Women Returners, winner of the Working Mums Champion award for her outstanding work on returners.

Two of the employers highlighted – FDM Group, overall Top Employer and winner of the award for career progression, and finance company UBS, winner of workingmums.co.uk’s first Best for Returners award – are leaders in returner policy.

UBS takes an innovative approach involving hiring returners directly into jobs through its Career Comeback programme while FDM Group specialises in large-scale returner cohorts to tech roles.

Those it recruits do not have to have a background in technology and, although its programme is open to men and women, it contributes significantly to boosting the number of women in tech.

Roche won the workingmums.co.uk Top Employer Award for Talent Attraction for its holistic approach to diversity in its recruitment processes, including interesting work on neurodiversity. For Roche, having a diversity of viewpoint and of ways of looking at problems is a big business benefit.

Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure won the Family Support award for its comprehensive, lifecycle approach to the multitude of issues facing employees outside work. It clearly understands how providing support helps employees focus and enjoy their work more.

Innovation

Civil Service Human Resources won the Innovation in Flexible Working Award for its impressive, wide-ranging work on promoting job shares. Job shares are seen as a vital way to retain experienced women and ensure they can continue in senior roles and progress up the career ladder.

Finally, Radioactive PR won the SMEs category for its decision to implement a four-day working week. That decision has drawn a lot of attention, but it represented quite a risk for its owner Rich Leigh. He says the benefits of giving employees back some of their free time have included increased motivation and energy.

Gillian Nissim, founder of workingmums.co.uk, says: “Tackling gender inequality and boosting the number of women at all levels of organisations is a long-term issue with deep roots and it will not be fixed overnight. However, that is all the more reason for employers to work together to address some of the broader social issues around gender stereotypes, to share what others are doing and to discover what is effective and what isn’t. That is the purpose of our Best Practice Reports.”

“They bring together what some of the most progressive employers are doing to ensure they have the best talent and develop the potential of all their employees. The aim is to provide ideas and inspiration around areas such as career progression in a flexible role, flexible job design and challenging traditional career pathways which may hold women back. We hope it will provide food for thought – and action.”

The Best Practice Report can be accessed free by filling in the form below.

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